Last update - 00:00 28/08/2007
IAA to evacuate Bnei Atarot residents affected by Ben-Gurion noise
By Zohar Blumenkrantz, Haaretz Correspondent
The Israel Airport Authority on Tuesday decided to evacuate residents of Moshav Bnei Atarot affected by noise from Ben Gurion Airport air traffic. The IAA undertook to accommodate all affected residents who meet the Environment Ministry's noise pollution criteria in hotels in response to the ministry's threats it would close the airport unless a solution to noise problems afflicting Bnei Atarot was not found by Wednesday.
Noise from aircraft passing over the community has reached unbearable levels since the IAA shifted all flights to a temporary route passing directly over the moshav due to construction work at the airport.
In the letter written to IAA chief Gabi Ophir, the head of the department for noise and radiation prevention, Dr. Galberg, wrote that "14 days ago, the Environmental Ministry demanded that the IAA offer to evacuate the residents of Moshav Bnei Atarot to a hotel while their homes are exposed to incredible noise which is above 95 decibels."
"In order to avoid the continued violations and irreversible harm to the residents (one cannot give back a nights sleep), the IAA must take all the necessary steps so that night flights will not use flight path 8 as of Wednesday."
"If this blatant disregard for the law and the ministry's demands are not resolved after Wednesday, I intend to use all powers at my possession to close flight path 8, which includes pressing charges against the IAA and each of its managers."
"I am fully aware that the airport can only be operational and give service to the large number of tourists and Israelis if planes take-off over Bnei Atarot however that does not justify that this imperative service for tens of thousands passengers will come at the expense of 40 families," Galberg writes.