The Lake Elmo Airport has drawn a few noise complaints since the completion of last year’s runway relocation and expansion project.

During a three-month period this summer and fall, the Metropolitan Airports Commission received 4,291 noise complaints from 16 locations near the airport. During that same period in 2022, MAC received six complaints from four locations.

“It was unbearable from April through the beginning of November, and we absolutely cannot tolerate another spring and summer like that,” said Mary Vierling, who lives near the airport. “We experience constant noise and buzzing. Residents cannot work from home, cannot sleep, and our pets are afraid to go outside.”

On Wednesday, she reported that six airplanes were doing touch-and-goes at the airport, departing over Neal Avenue at 30-second to one-minute intervals. Those touch-and-goes — when an aircraft lands on a runway, then immediately takes off again, often as part of flight training — and an increased number of flyovers have polluted nearby houses with excessive noise, neighbors say.

The new 3,500-foot runway, which opened in July 2022, was part of a $23.9 million multi-year project to improve airfield infrastructure and provide safer operations. The project included converting the previous runway into a taxiway, realigning 30th Street North, upgrading instrument-approach technology and installing new lights and signage.

Many neighbors objected to the plan, citing concerns about noise and the possibility of more and larger aircraft using the airport. Those concerns have been realized, Vierling said.

“The airport has changed dramatically since the new runway opened,” she said. “We now have four times the operations that we had a year ago. The new runway is not safe for pilots or neighbors. We’re not whining; we’re simply pointing out facts from MAC, and we need change and resolution.”

Noise abatement plan

The major offenders are student pilots at Lake Elmo Aero, the flight school at the airport, and outside airport users “who perform daily touch-and-goes at the airport, weather permitting,” Vierling said.

“Two solid hours of continuous low departures every 4-5 minutes for the first hour,” one resident wrote in a complaint to MAC officials Wednesday afternoon. “Every one of these aircraft can be at 700 feet by the property line, but no, the touch-and-goes are late on the runway and depart low. Total disregard for us.”

Vierling and others are weighing in this month on an updated voluntary noise-abatement plan for the airport. There has been a plan in place for many years at Lake Elmo Airport, but because of changes to the airport layout, the plan needs to be revised, said Jeff Lea, a spokesman for MAC.

MAC staff is accepting comments on the noise-abatement plan through Dec. 31. Comments will then be reviewed and incorporated into the plan “as feasible,” he said.

MAC officials also will be working on “ongoing pilot education and coordination at the airport to minimize disturbance to residents to the extent feasible,” Lea said. “When pilots are not able to comply with the noise-abatement plan and their activity results in a complaint or question, the MAC will contact the aircraft owner, discuss their activity and share information about the plan.”

Vierling and other neighbors would like to see the plan made mandatory, but Lea said that is not possible.

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The Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 limits the airports’ ability to impose restrictions based on aircraft noise, Lea said.

As a public-use airport, Lake Elmo Airport is subject to federal regulations, and MAC “is not legally permitted to make the noise-abatement plans mandatory or penalize pilots for not following them,” Lea said.

Additionally, he said, it is extremely difficult to restrict aircraft operations at an airport – such as closing the airport at night – to control noise.

“Any such efforts would need to go through an extensive federal study and be submitted to the (Federal Aviation Administration) for approval,” Lea said. “Since ANCA was passed, the FAA has not approved any access restriction requests from U.S. airports to control noise. Additionally, federal grant provisions require that the airport be operated in a manner that does not discriminate on the basis of type or class of aircraft or aviation activity and does not restrict or place an undue burden on interstate commerce.”

Flight school’s focus is safety

A flight school has been operating out of Lake Elmo Airport for more than 30 years. The current school, Lake Elmo Aero, has operated there for six years, said Nathan Ruedy, director of flight training.

“Our number-one priority is safety. Period,” said Ruedy, who oversees the school’s 20 flight instructors. “When we can comply with the voluntary noise-abatement plan, we absolutely have every intention of doing so.”

Instructors at the airport are aware of the noise-abatement plan, and the plan is shared with pilots who rent one of the dozen airplanes owned by the flight school, he said.

“We let them know that there is a (noise-abatement) plan in place that they should be following,” Ruedy said. “We’re complying with the noise-abatement plan as much as we can within the confines of being safe. We cannot compromise safety.”

The flight school has seen a 13% increase in the number of flight hours this year, he said, and 55% of the students at the school are on a career track to become either an airline pilot or a corporate pilot.

“United is planning on hiring 2,400 people, and Delta is planning on hiring 2,600,” he said. “We’re just making up a tiny, but very essential, piece of that puzzle.”

Lake Elmo Airport Advisory Commission

Housing developments border the Lake Elmo Airport on Tuesday, Dec. 5. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Fourteen members of the Lake Elmo Airport Advisory Commission – comprising of seven community representatives and seven user representatives – met Nov. 27 and discussed updates to the airport’s noise-abatement plan. Baytown Township Supervisor Rick Weyrauch is the township’s representative on the commission, which was established in 2021.

“I believe there are real effects upon communities in close proximity to any size airport, and that not all residents in those communities are equally impacted,” Weyrauch said after the meeting. “I also believe that airports have community value, with costs that can be both mitigated and absorbed.”

John Conard, a pilot who lives in Minnetonka and flies his Pitts Special aerobatic biplane out of Lake Elmo Airport, also attended the meeting.

Pilots at Lake Elmo Airport do everything they can “to complete the flight safely and as quietly as possible,” Conard said. “We all climb as quickly as we can, and we descend as quietly as we can, given the safety of the flight. There is nobody in this room who tries to be more noisy in a plane. We’re in the plane wearing hearing protection because we’d all like to grow old and still be able to hear things.”

The voluntary noise-abatement plan will be presented to the advisory commission at their next meeting Feb. 26 for review and request for approval to move forward.

MAC staff will take into consideration discussion from the Feb. 26 meeting as it finalizes the plan.

The plan will be published on the MAC’s website and distributed to pilots, and MAC staff will conduct pilot outreach and education on the new plan, Lea said.

‘Incompatible land use’

For Vierling and others, relief can’t come soon enough.

“The neighbors have experienced extremely excessive noise volume, up to and above 101 decibels on arrivals, with no relief from airport users or the MAC,” she said. “These levels far exceed (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) standards – without hearing protection in place.”

The updated noise-abatement plan should “contain precise language that does not allow for individual interpretation,” she said. “It needs to be an ordinance with consequences.”

The realignment of runway 14/32 “has imposed an incompatible land use that must be dealt with,” she said.

The runway received FAA approval based on 2022 and previous years’ use, which were two to three operations per hour, Vierling said.

“In 2023, that number increased to 10 to 40 operations per hour, 15 hours per day,” she said. “Usage at this extreme level of operations and noise is not conducive to our community. We are located outside the (Metropolitan Urban Service Area) line area of the Metropolitan Council and are considered rural. Our decibel level is expected to be 55 decibels in daytime hours and 45 decibels at night. Over 100 decibels is absolutely out of the question and unacceptable.”

A sign at the Lake Elmo Airport sign Tuesday, Dec. 5. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Luke Peterson, co-chairman of the commission, said he is optimistic that a compromise can be reached. He said he was impressed with the number of pilots who attended last month’s meeting to listen to the neighbors’ concerns.

“I think there is a solution,” he said. “I was pretty pleased by the discussion that we had because it was generally conciliatory towards each other’s opinions. In the end, we’re all neighbors, and neighbors have got to talk to each other. We all have to live next to each other, so let’s talk to each other and try to find the best solutions we can find.”

Said Ruedy: “We absolutely understand that airplane noise can be difficult to deal with. We are going to keep doing our absolute best to make sure the neighbors are happy and we keep running a safe and professional flight school.”

Lake Elmo Airport noise abatement plan comments

People have until Dec. 31 to comment on the updated noise-abatement plan for Lake Elmo Airport.

Comments can be shared with Philip.Tiedeman@mspmac.org, Jennifer.Lewis@mspmac.org or Michele.Ross@mspmac.org.

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