Though air tours can fill the skies over Haleakalā National Park with noise, the FAA doesn't seem interested to demand an overflight plan for the park/NPS file

They fly low to give passengers a better view of wildlife at Glacier and to catch one of Yellowstone's geysers in eruption, and their engine noise has intruded upon interpretation of Great Smoky Mountains' flora and fauna to hikers. Now, however, there could be some reversal in the Federal Aviation Administration's failure to respond to Congress' call in 2000 to craft plans to police air tours over the National Park System.

While the FAA has held meetings to discuss park overflights since the National Park Air Tour Management Act passed in 2000, some participants described them as a waste of time with no real concrete efforts to make the overflights safer for those in the air and quieter for those on the ground. 

Now, driven by a lawsuit brought by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in 2017, the FAA and National Park Service plan on August 9 to begin work to establish mandatory air tour management plans or voluntary agreements covering:

* Death Valley National Park in California;

* Mount Rainier National Park in Washington;

* Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota;

* Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, and;

* Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Rainbow Bridge National Monument in Arizona and Utah.

“While we are glad that the FAA is finally stirring, we have seen lofty predictions before that turned out to be hot air,” said PEER General Counsel Paula Dinerstein, pointing out that the two agencies tried to initiate 16 air tour management plans back in 2003 and 2004, worked on them for several years, and then abandoned them all. “It is past time that the FAA grounded the flying circuses disrupting some of our most scenic parks and bedeviling their gateway communities.”

Kristen Brengel, vice president of governmental affairs at National Parks Conservation Association, was appointed during the administration of President George W. Bush to one of the FAA's overflight committees to examine the problem and come up with solutions, but walked away, frustrated by the lack of progress.

“I’m happy to say very publicly that I stepped off the committee and did not renew my slot on the committee because it was so ineffective," she said late last week. “And it’s not the Park Service’s fault at all. It was never the Park Service’s fault. The Park Service was always ready and prepared to talk about noise and sound issues, and how they affected wildlife and visitors. It was always the FAA that was blocking them.”

When PEER brought its lawsuit against the FAA over the lack of overflight plans, the group noted that, "nearly 65,000 air tours, most concentrated over a few parks, took off last year without limit on the number, routes, or timing of flights."

Now PEER says the FAA and NPS "have yet to agree on basic principles and divisions of responsibility. Another problem is that the FAA has granted interim air approvals for over 187,000 annual flights, nearly four times the actual number of tours, thus eliminating any incentive for operators to agree to voluntary limits. Consequently, only two parks in the entire nation are covered by voluntary agreements."

Among the documents presented by PEER to support its lawsuit were declarations by wildlife biologists and backcountry rangers from Glacier National Park and hiking tour operators from Great Smoky Mountains.

"While working as a backcountry ranger in Glacier National Park, I observed a tour helicopter nosing up to a cliff to show the patrons wildlife better," Dennis Divoky said in his declaration made in June 2018. "This observed disruption had potentially negative impacts on the wildland, and I believe that air tours are most definitely bothersome in national parks."

Divoky, who said he lives within two miles of Glacier, said air tour noise is "consistently in the background from 7 a.m.-8 a.m. in the morning to 6 p.m.-7 p.m. in the evening."

Across the country at Great Smoky, Vesna Plakanis, who since 1998 has provided guided hiking tours in the park with her husband, said air tours have negatively impacted her work.

"I have experienced a serious interruption in my work and personal life," she said in her declaration. "The mission of my business is to raise environmental awareness through direct, positive experiences with nature. The intrusion caused by overflights directly impacts my ability to fulfill this mission, specifically 'positive experiences with nature.'"

Grand Canyon National Park long has had an problem with air tours, one that seemingly was resolved in 2011 when the Park Service released a draft environmental impact statement that claimed the proposed air tour plan would boost the level of "natural quiet" in the park -- quiet that allows you to hear the murmuring of creeks, the roar of rapids on the Colorado River, the melodies of canyon wrens -- from 75-100 percent of the day across 50 percent of the park as is currently the case, to across 67 percent of the park within 10 years of the plan's implementation.

But congressional efforts blocked the plan from taking effect, according to the park. 

Some Glacier advocates point to a years-long issue with overflights at that park. Back in 2016, then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewel was urged to do something about Glacier air tours.

Sixteen years after the (National Parks Air Tour Management Act of 2000) was enacted, 17 years after scenic tour overflights were listed as a critical issue in Glacier National Park’s General Management Plan, and 30 years after the problem in Glacier was identified as a priority at a Congressional Hearing (1987 Congress passed P.L. 100-91 and again in 1994 and 2002), we still have no peace in Glacier. Today, more than 500 helicopters per month fly sorties over our nation’s only International Peace Park and World Heritage site, during the height of the summer season. -- Quiet! Glacier Coalition. 

At Grand Teton National Park during the total solar eclipse in 2017, a jet actually turned 180 degrees to give its passengers a better view of the eclipse.

The absence of Grand Canyon, Hawai'i Volcanoes, Haleakalā, Bryce Canyon, and Glacier national parks from the proposed settlement PEER announced Tuesday seemed odd. 

"The parks FAA plans to address are low-hanging fruit, with much less industry push-back," said Jeff Ruch, PEER's Pacific director. "We presume that FAA is finally tip-toeing into the fruit orchard only as a gambit to avoid a court order putting them on a schedule to address all the eligible parks.

"For example, Glacier’s Management Plan calls for a ban on overflights, but NPS has no power to enforce that plan," he added in an email. "It is unlikely that the FAA is interested in pursuing a ban. As other parts of its pleadings (in the legal matter) make clear, the FAA does not consider this a priority among its myriad other duties."

At NPCA, Brengel agrees.

“It’s an FAA thing. They don’t care how many accidents there are, they don’t care how unpleasant it is for visitors in national parks," she said. "No reason has ever moved them to regulate air tours over national parks."

With no plans currently in place to police air tours over the parks, air tour operators have little, if any, motivation to voluntarily agree to restrictions. PEER's Dinerstein said that their lawsuit, if successful, would force development of air tour management plans within the next two years, unless a voluntary plan is negotiated between a park and tour operators in the meantime.

“Protections for our most cherished national parks need to extend beyond the treetops,” she said.

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