Since O’Hare International Airport’s new runway, 9L27R, opened several years ago, many Park Ridge residents south of Touhy Avenue have become zealous converts to the anti-O’Hare expansion cause – in ways they never even thought about before the $1/2 billion runway was completed and planes started buzzing their homes.

That’s because, before then, O’Hare airplane noise tended to disproportionately bother the folks north of Touhy and living under the northeast-to-southwest flight paths of runways 22L and 22R.  Since the east-west 9L27R opened, however, the howl from the newly-affected residents has been fairly constant and sometimes louder than from the airplanes overhead.

Not only did the noise provoke consternation and woe among those south siders, but talk about the emissions from low-flying planes took on tones evoking Love Canal, Chernobyl, or a Dr. Kevorkian cocktail.  And Maine South High School began being referred to as an air crash disaster site waiting to happen.

Consequently, the new runway provoked the creation of a City task force that subsequently evolved into the current O’Hare Airport Commission (“OAC”).  Yet during that same time period, neither the Council nor the voters have expressed support for spending substantial sums of money battling new O’Hare runways, more flights, more noise or more pollution.

We get the sense that most residents believe the deck is stacked against Park Ridge by the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”), the airlines, the State of Illinois, and even our neighboring communities that comprise the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”), an impotent tissue-paper tiger of an organization created by former Chicago Mayor Richie Daley and managed until recently by Daley’s favorite political tool-time girl.

No, not Pamela Anderson, but the recently-retired Arlington Heights mayor, Arlene Mulder, who liked Park Ridge about as much as the aforementioned Ms. Anderson reportedly likes abstinence.

Despite resident pessimism about the City’s ability to effect positive changes regarding O’Hare, the City Council – at its June 3 meeting – heard a lengthy presentation from attorney Richard Porter of the Chicago law firm Hinshaw & Culbertson.  Porter provided the City with strategies for persuading and/or forcing, the FAA to update or re-do the 2005 Environmental Impact Study (“EIS”) that was completed before the new runway was operational.

The hope of proponents of an EIS do-over is that measurable increases in noise and pollution levels might qualify Park Ridge for various forms of relief – such as more soundproofing of public and privates buildings (including homes), reduced traffic for the new runway, modified take-off and landing patterns, etc.

The first steps recommended by Attorney Porter would cost in the $15,000-$30,000 range.  If those are unsuccessful (and it sure sounds like they will be), the ultimate alternative would be litigation costing $150,000 or more.  Not chump change, to be sure.  But if it could significantly alleviate the noise and pollution over 1/3 to 1/2 of Park Ridge, it still might be a sound investment, if not a bargain.

But only if it’s successful.  And that’s a really, really big “if.”

Given the investment of so many special interests in O’Hare expansion and the newest runway, there’s no way either Chicago or the FAA will significantly reduce that runway’s traffic; and both of our U.S. Senators, Durbin (D) and Kirk (R), and our Congressman Schakowsky (D), barely even pay lip service to the problems O’Hare presents to our quality of life.  So any kind of relief will likely be modest, at best – along the lines of some sound insulation and perhaps the implementation of the “Fly Quiet” program which none of the special interests have embraced so far.

Is such modest relief worth $150,000-plus?

For people who can’t open their windows without being bombarded by aircraft noise, the prospect of even modest relief may be enough to inspire zealous advocacy and support, irrespective of cost.  That kind of me, me, me attitude, however, doesn’t mean that the Council shouldn’t seriously consider pursuing those remedies.

Unfortunately, Park Ridge has a long history of pouring money – boxcars of it – down the anti-O’Hare rat-hole, including a $650,000 “investment” in a new Peotone airport that was so speculative, so poorly conceived and executed, and just so plain stupid, that in olden days public officials responsible for such foolishness and waste of the public purse might have been tarred and feathered, if not horsewhipped, by irate taxpayers.  Not surprisingly, the chief perpetrator of that debacle, former mayor Ron Wietecha, ended up resigning his post and fleeing to Barrington almost immediately after the loss of that entire “investment” was confirmed back in 2003.

Given such a history, the Council should scrutinize any plans and proposals related to combatting O’Hare’s adverse effects on our community with all the circumspection and outright skepticism it can muster.  Anybody who tries to sell the City on any strategy or remedy must be probed, interrogated and cross-examined with the kind of vigor, rigor and tenacity reserved for Al Qaeda operatives at Gitmo.

Waterboarding discouraged, but optional.

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