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Air Traffic Over Manchester Township Expected To Boom
By Bill McLaughlin
Crestwood Village Homeowners' Association leaders were told yesterday that the time to be heard on the fate of a proposed crosswind runway at Miller Air Park is now.
Theresa Lettman, a former Manchester councilwoman, spoke on behalf of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, a conservation group opposed to further development of the Pinelands.
Lettman said the increased traffic at Naval Air Station Earle, which will balloon from 8,000 flights per year to 80,000 in a few years, and proposed increased use of Miller will be a double whammy for Manchester residents in terms of noise pollution.
Lettman said the next Pinelands Commission meeting, 11:30 a.m. on February 25 in New Lisbon, might result in a preliminary OK for the Ocean County Planning Board to move forward in the approval process.
The county has said the crosswind runway is needed when winds are gusting 20 miles per hour or higher, and that the second runway will assist in getting firefighters to the scene of brush fires quickly.
But Lettman, holding a nine-page memorandum presented by the county to commission members of the Public Development and Government subcommittee yesterday in New Lisbon, said the county is asking for much more.
She said eight or nine additional hangars will be built along with a taxiway paralleling the new crosswind runway.
A memo of agreement to expand would be mitigated by county offers of land to offset damages to the Pinelands preserved lands that would be part of the expansion. Just six months ago, the county completed the purchase of the Haines tract, a former cranberry bog next to the airport - between Miller and the Manchester border.
Lettman said the incursion by county officials is already noticeable. In 1983, Miller was a tract of 944 acres that has grown to 1,093 today. She said planning for the second runway first started in 1991 but was sidetracked by public outcry. Others, including Berkeley administrator Len Roeber, say the expansion take is 30 years old or more.
The two dozen seniors sitting through the hour-long presentation had questions, lots of questions. After Lettman wondered about the motive for expansion, hands went up.
"Why do you think they want it?" a woman asked.
Lettman said more planes means more business and more work for the company that leases the site from the county.
Although the county board of chosen freeholders has publicly said there is no ulterior motive for expanding the airport, some critics believe there is one close by connection. The nearby Berkeley Industrial Park, across Route 530 from the air field, may well benefit from increased air traffic.
Most questions concerned the increased noise of executive jets taking off and landing on the supplemental air field and what assurances they might get from the authorities running the airport that any complaints will be heard.
"The time to be heard is right now," Lettman replied, adding that once the Pinelands Commission agrees to allow the suspension, there is no other appellate court or legislative body to hear their complaints.
Lettman said she will meet with trustees of Berkeley senior developments in a few days to make the same presentation and seek the same positive response she received at Crestwood Village V yesterday.
A short list of things to do, she said, included contacting the freeholder board, especially Freeholder Director Joseph Vicari, to express their concerns. She said writing their congressional leaders would help and also to keep in touch with events by computer or through The Sun, Crestwood Village's local newspaper.
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