n December 31, the FAA presented a long awaited final rule regarding aircraft over Grand Canyon. This rule is significantly weaker than the draft version proposed last summer, which the FAA admitted would not achieve the mandate of substantial restoration of natural quiet. Scheduled to take effect May 1, its provisions include curfews for some tours, expansion of flight free zones, and a temporary cap on the number of aircraft allowed to operate over Grand Canyon.
The “cap”, placed on aircraft rather than on operations, is temporary, rather elastic and essentially meaningless. Operators who convert to quieter aircraft will be exempt from this limitation, and new businesses utilizing quieter technology will be allowed to enter the market. Since even the quietest aircraft operate at decibel levels which require the use of headphones to prevent hearing loss, any gains made by the transition to these aircraft will be lost by allowing still more of them into the airspace. Congress passed the 1987 Overflights Act, recognizing that there were already too many flights; now there are twice as many. While virtually every other form of Grand Canyon visitation is limited, the FAA seems incapable of grasping the concept that such restrictions are necessary to protect the resource and the visitor experience.
Flight curfews apply only to tours in eastern Grand Canyon. Between May 1 and September 30, no flights are allowed before 8:00 A.M. or after 6:00 P.M. During the remainder of the year, they will not be allowed before 9:00 A.M. or after 5:00 P.M. However, in western Grand Canyon, the heavily used routes originating in Las Vegas are exempt from the curfews.
Flight free zones have been enlarged, but not as much as in the draft proposal. The Toroweap/Thunder River and Shinumo flight-free zones were merged, eliminating the flight corridor between which is rarely used for tours. Particularly disappointing was FAA's disregard of support for the proposed Marble Canyon flight free zone, which was eliminated.
In the most heavily used Dragon Corridor (which crosses upriver of Crystal rapid), a “dogleg” proposed by air tour operators was incorporated into the rule. While it moves heavy traffic away from the Hermit Basin, it will do nothing to mitigate the noise impacts to the river corridor and will shift noise to points on the South Rim which are now relatively pristine.
The rule calls for the National Park Service and the FAA to develop a noise management plan within 5 years, which defers the most difficult decisions, as well as any solutions. In promising continued public input, it also commits us to at least 5 more years of the mind numbing meetings and rhetoric. It seems like a decade of that would have been sufficient.
Expressing outrage, tour operators have promised to challenge the rule in court, presumably to seek an injunction to halt its implementation. A coalition including the Sierra Club, National Parks and Conservation Association, Grand Canyon Trust and Grand Canyon River Guides have banded together in kind, requesting court intervention to implement a stronger rule.

Jeri Ledbetter

... and could you write a letter?
The FAA announced a proposed rule regarding transition to quieter aircraft technology. The proposal places aircraft into three categories, and requires a transition over the next decade from the loudest of aircraft, Category A, to the quietest technology available, Category C. Proposed guidelines are far too lenient; the loudest of helicopters used by tour operators rest safely within Category B, and will therefore not be fully phased out until 2008. (The proposal calls for a phase-out of Category A aircraft by 2000).
The rule also suggests establishing a tour route over National Canyon, through a flight free zone, limited to Category C aircraft.The flight free zone protecting National Canyon was one of the slight wins within the final rule, and should not be cast aside.
Please take the time to write a letter before March 31, in triplicate, to: Federal Aviation Administration, Office of the Chief Counsel, Attention: Rules Docket (AGC-200), Docket No. 28770, 800 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington DC 20591. You can send comments by Internet to the Rules Docket—marked Docket No. 28770—to the following address: nprmcmts@mail.faa.dot.gov. For more information, access our internet site at http://www.rhinonet.com/quiet/ or contact our office.
Please stress in your comments that:
• Tour operators should be required to convert to the quietest technology available.
• We should not allow whatever gains are made by this conversion to be lost by allowing more aircraft into the airspace. The cap on the number of aircraft should be firm and permanent.
• Specifications for categorizing an aircraft's noise efficiency should be more stringent than those proposed.
• No aircraft—even the less noisy ones—should be granted a route through a flight free zone. More appropriate would be to restrict the heavily used Dragon Corridor to all but Category C aircraft.
Please send a copy of your comments to GCRG.