SWAMPSCOTT ― A new flightpath at Logan Airport could cause a lot of problems for the Swampscott community, but an upcoming meeting will give residents a chance to have their voices heard.
Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) is holding a virtual information session from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 23. The meeting will be about the new flight plans for runways 22L, 4R, 33L, 22L/R and 27. The meeting will have a question-and-answer session after the study is presented.
In early August, Swampscott’s Select Board sent a letter to Massport citing concerns over not only the potential for noise issues, but also for pollution coming from the planes overhead. The board emphasized in the letter that they were scared that this new flight path would cause the quality of life to go down in Swampscott.
The flight pattern was created based off of a study started in 2018 and published in 2021 by MIT to see what changes could be made to allay noise pollution in the areas most commonly flown over. The new flightpath would move runway 22L’s arrival further over the ocean, but it would still cross over towns. The new plan would shift 25 percent of arriving flights over the Nahant Causeway and ultimately over Swampscott.
“If noise reduction is the goal, it is troubling to us that the proposal does not redirect flights further over the ocean and limit the impact to residential and recreational areas,” Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said in early August.
The meeting is being held over Zoom from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on September 23 to address the findings of the study. The Zoom meeting link can be found at http://massportcac.org.
Katelyn Sahagian can be reached at [email protected].
