Restrictions on Airport Noise Upheld : Transportation: U.S. appeals court rules that Long Beach can place limits on the roar of aircraft. Airlines say the decision could deal a severe blow to the industry.

By FAYE FIORE

Oct. 25, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

In a ruling that could have national impact on the issue of regulating airport noise, a federal appeals court Wednesday upheld the right of the city of Long Beach to limit the roar of jets and the buzz of small planes that fly out of the Long Beach Municipal Airport.

The ruling by the U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals was hailed as a major victory for the city, which has spent eight years fighting to control aircraft noise, and residents, who maintain that life near the airport is “annoying as hell.”

“This decision clearly upholds the authority of an airport to regulate aircraft noise--what kinds of planes, the cumulative noise level and, if necessary, the number of flights,” said Lee L. Blackman, special counsel to the city of Long Beach.

But a lawyer representing 10 airlines who sued the city in 1983 called the opinion “dangerous,” warning it could cripple the network of flights that move millions of passengers and tons of freight around the nation annually.

“If every airport wants to restrict flights as Long Beach has attempted, there could be fewer and fewer flights across the country,” Los Angeles attorney John J. Lyons said. “This could potentially allow airports nationwide to shut down the national air transportation system.”

Long Beach first attempted to control noise at its 68-year-old airport in 1981, ultimately limiting the number of daily flights to 32 and the cumulative noise level to 65 decibels--the rough equivalent of an office with a clacking typewriter and several ringing telephones.

The airlines argued that the ordinance set “arbitrary and capricious” flight limits and interfered with interstate commerce.

U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters in Los Angeles declared the ordinance illegal and pushed the flight limit to 40. The city appealed.

The appellate ruling is complicated because it technically upholds Waters’ finding that the ordinance is unconstitutional. But it does so on extremely narrow grounds--that the city failed to give the airlines the right to a hearing and that small commuter planes were unfairly excluded from flying--points city officials say can be easily remedied by rewriting the ordinance.

More significantly, the appeals court panel upheld the city’s right to control its airport’s noise and said the courts have no place questioning the reason behind whatever limits a city or an airport set.

City officials were preparing to evaluate their next move, and it was unclear whether they would attempt to use the ruling to further roll back flights.

The airport currently exceeds the ordinance’s 65-decibel noise limit only slightly. And, because of recent airline mergers, bankruptcies and financial trouble in the airline industry, the number of daily flights is lower than the 32 the ordinance would allow, officials said.

“I would like to see less flights, but we will have to talk to our attorneys to find out what steps to take,” said City Councilman Jeff Kellogg, whose district sits directly under the airport’s main runway.

Residents who live in the neighborhoods around the airport--and who have complained for years about the noise--welcomed the ruling as a way to maintain peace of mind, not to mention property values.

“The windows rattle. If you’re watching TV or talking on the phone you have to stop. It’s annoying as hell,” said Mike Donelon, who lives just blocks from a main runway. “Nobody who lives around the airport is happy with it . . . but as long as we can continue to create ordinances and have some kind of control, I think it will make everybody rest a little easier.”