Sound check

[Update: The U.S. Air Force has selected the Wisconsin Air National Guard at Madison’s Truax Field for an F-35 fighter jet mission. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) announced the decision on his Twitter page on April 15. The 115th Fighter Wing will receive its first F-35 jet in 2023. The new jets will eventually replace all of Truax Field’s current squadron of F-16 fighter jets.]

On this October afternoon, Carmine Sargent’s living room is as bright as the autumn leaves falling in South Burlington, Vermont. Sargent introduces “the folks from Madison” to nine of her neighbors. Wisconsin Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) and Madison Ald. Rebecca Kemble are here on a fact-finding mission with community activists Brandi Grayson, Amelia Royko Maurer and videographer Nicole Desautels.

“We have all been connected to the effort to oppose F-35 [jets] in some way,” says Sargent, who has lived in her home for more than 40 years. “This all started with us neighbors feeling imposed upon without really being told about anything.”

The Vermonters hope sharing their experiences with the Wisconsin delegation will prevent something similar transpiring in Madison. They warn against trusting the Air Force because they say they were betrayed by the U.S. military long before F-35s landed here.

Sargent lives in the Chamberlin neighborhood, a close-knit community of charming, modest homes next to the Burlington International Airport. The airfield, owned by the city of Burlington, is a commercial airport that shares its runway with the Vermont Air National Guard. Chamberlin has long been attractive to young families seeking affordable, starter homes.

Anna Johnston has lived here for nearly six decades, the airport runway a half-mile from her home. For most of that time, Johnston didn’t think much about the airport because she was busy raising two kids. Also the commercial air traffic wasn’t terrible and military jet takeoffs were infrequent.

“There was always airplane noise, but it was a great neighborhood,” says Johnston, noting it’s a place where neighbors take care of neighbors. “There were 60 kids on our block and they’d all play in the woods. The school was close enough for the kids to walk.”

But things have changed in Chamberlin. Over the past decade, residents have seen parts of the neighborhood dismantled house by house. Around 200 homes have been razed as part of a voluntary federal program to relocate people affected by airport noise. This has left large swaths of vacant land on the blocks closest to the airport. In 2008, residents started noticing an increase in military jet noise. The National Guard — without public notice — had fitted its fleet of 18 F-16 fighter jets with larger fuel tanks, which made them heavier. Because of the extra weight, the F-16 had to use loud afterburners, which provides more thrust, during 90 percent of takeoffs.

Many houses in Chamberlin stood empty for years before being torn down. Squatters started breaking into the boarded-up homes and Sargent says the neighborhood felt less safe. Before being demolished, state police used the vacant homes to conduct training exercises — including setting off explosives — without notifying residents. Once the houses were eventually cleared, the noise from military jets worsened for the residents who were unable or unwilling to sell.

“Everything that’s happened here is everything that’s wrong with Washington.... The Air Force shouldn’t be using commercial airports as military bases,” says Johnston. “They have taken a perfectly fine neighborhood and they’ve dirtied it. They’ve corrupted it. They’ve taken away the value of our homes.”

The residents fear things will get worse. In 2013, the Air Force selected Burlington to be the first National Guard unit in the country to replace its F-16s with next-generation F-35 Lightning II fighter jets.

“Once the full squadron of F-35s is here, who knows how bad it will be,” says Sargent. “The whole experience with the F-16s shows we can’t trust [officials] and that the noise could get worse at any time with zero notice.”

Sargent’s daughter, Kara Paige, is in her 40s and uses a wheelchair. They’ve spent thousands of dollars retrofitting their home for her use. Sargent had hoped Paige would continue living in the home once she’s gone. But with the arrival of F-35s, it’s unclear whether it will be safe to live in.

“I don’t want to go somewhere where I have to teach everyone how to care for me all over again,” Paige says. “I don’t want to leave. This is my home.”

The first two F-35s landed in Burlington this September. The remaining 18 will arrive one or two at a time until June 2020. Once all the F-35s are in Burlington, it is estimated that more than 2,640 households will be “incompatible for residential use” — three times more than when F-16s (with high afterburner-use) were flying over Vermont’s largest metropolitan area.

“When they started using the afterburner with F-16s, it was the loudest screeching noise you could imagine. It could deafen you,” says Sargent. “So far, the F-35s have been making a totally different noise. It isn’t as hard on the ears as it is on the body. It feels like it’s going right inside of you.”

Madison’s Truax Field could be the next guard unit to receive F-35s. A draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), prepared by the Air Force and released in August, shows more than 1,000 homes would be “incompatible for residential use” in Madison if F-35s come to Truax. A decision is expected in February 2020.

Taylor was opposed to F-35s coming to Truax before her trip to Vermont. But she now sees another red flag: The Air Force’s current plan for the F-35 could change without public input.

“Military jets have caused uncertainty, chaos and stress in the Burlington area. It’s a real cruelty to the community that, even now, it could all get worse,” says Taylor. “Years into this process, there are still so many unknowns.”

The Madison delegation traveled to Burlington, in part, to hear for themselves what an F-35 sounds like. The group spent the morning of Oct. 23 at the airport with a decibel meter hoping to quantify the noise from the fighter jets.

“We are here looking for facts,” Kemble told reporters at a news conference. “When the draft EIS came out in August, it was very alarming to many of us — to our neighbors and the people we represent. The Air Force itself said the noise impact will be significant and disproportionately fall on children, people of color and people earning low incomes.”

On Oct. 18, Captain Mikel R. Arcovitch, state public affairs director for the Vermont National Guard, told Isthmus he expected the F-35s to be flying twice a day, four days a week in Burlington. However, Arcovitch emailed Oct. 23 to say that he’d learned that morning that “the F-35 is not flying this week —  tough timing!” He directed all other questions to Second Lt. Chelsea Clark — who met that day with the Madison delegation outside the Vermont National Guard Base.

“We were not scheduled to fly this week and that’s not public information,” Clark said. “For operational security, we never publish our flying or training schedules. With only two [F-35s] right now...we aren’t in standard flying operation [yet].”

Taylor says it would have been helpful to hear the F-35s, but that the trip was still worth it. “We were really out there to see how the community is doing,” she says.

Like Madison, Burlington has been home for decades to an Air National Guard base located at a commercial airport next to residential communities. The Vermont Air National Guard had an F-16 “Fighting Falcon” jet mission with 18 jets — same as the number stationed at Madison’s Truax Field — before it was selected in 2013 to base F-35s.

Madison is larger and denser than Burlington, with 250,000 residents in the city and some 500,000 in the metro area. Just over 42,000 people live in Burlington, and about 200,000 in the larger metropolitan area. Like Madison, Burlington is a progressive stronghold and home to a large state university. Some Burlington residents have been fighting the F-35s for almost a decade. The city councils of Burlington, South Burlington and nearby Winooski all passed resolutions opposing the F-35 basing. The vote by the Burlington City Council in 2018 followed a ballot initiative in which 55 percent of voters in the city opposed the jets.

Both cities also have champions of the F-35. Conservative politicians were joined by liberals in Washington lobbying for F-35 squadrons — U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin in Wisconsin, U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders in Vermont. In both states, business groups have staged elaborate campaigns in support of the planes.

Frank Cioffi, president of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, says his group spent nearly a decade pushing for F-35s to come to his community. Mirroring claims from the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, Cioffi says the F-35s will keep more than 1,000 jobs in Burlington.

“You can’t have a fighter unit without a fighter plane. This guarantees retention of the air guard for a long time,” says Cioffi. “The guard is a significant employer in Vermont. These are really good jobs. The economic impact each year is huge, millions and millions.”

Nicole Citro, who owns an insurance business in South Burlington and has led the Green Ribbons for the F-35 campaign, downplays the potential noise.

“It would be one thing if we never had military jets before. This is an air guard community,” says Citro. “You can’t support the guard if you don’t support their mission. So you can’t say you support the guard if you don’t support the F-35s.”

Debate over the jets in Vermont has left many feeling bitter. A waitress at Handy’s Lunch, a greasy-spoon diner in downtown Burlington, takes issue with F-35s being described as “loud.”

“They aren’t loud. That’s the sound of freedom,” says the waitress, who adds that her husband serves in the Vermont Army National Guard. “We have a disgruntled, retired Air Force colonel who has been spreading misinformation about F-35s from the beginning.”

The waitress is referring to retired Air Force Col. Rosanne Greco, who moved to South Burlington in 2008 after 30 years of active duty. Greco has lived on Air Force bases in nine states and also did stints in Germany, Thailand, Switzerland, Austria and England. Her proudest accomplishment is helping negotiate the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Geneva between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. The treaty, when fully implemented, removed 80 percent of all strategic nuclear weapons. Greco was the first woman, on either side, to take part in the years-long negotiations.

Now, the colonel is the unlikely face of the anti-F-35 movement in Vermont. And she has become a stubborn thorn in the side of F-35 supporters because of her soldier-like dedication to her post-retirement mission.

When Kemble, Taylor, Grayson and Royko Maurer visit Greco’s home, which is powered by solar panels and filled with mementos she collected while overseas, her coffee table is stacked with thick reports on F-35s and press clippings. Greco started researching the jets when she was elected chair of the South Burlington City Council in 2012. She was aware of “grumblings” about noise caused by F-35s but after living on Air Force bases for decades she thought, “what’s the big deal?”

“I saw the noise impact at that point as a minor irritant. The F-35s were not why I ran for a seat on the council,” says Greco. “I asked my colleagues if one of them would handle this F-35 thing. They eventually convinced me that since I was in the military, I was the only one who could get their head around the Environmental Impact Statement.”

Once she started reading it, Greco says she become “increasingly alarmed.” The first thing that jumped out at her was the aircraft’s safety record. The Air Force states in the final EIS for Burlington — released in September 2013 — that the F-35 does not have enough flight hours “to accurately depict the specific safety record.” Six years later, the draft EIS for Madison includes the same conclusion. The military says the most comparable jet to the F-35 isn’t the F-16 — which has one of the safest records for U.S. fighter jets. It’s the F-22 Raptor.

“The F-22 is the most dangerous fighter jet we have. It has the highest rate of crashes in the Air Force inventory,” says Greco. “That’s what first convinced me that F-35s shouldn’t be in Burlington.”

When F-16s arrived in Burlington in 1986 and Madison in 1993, they were a well-tested fighter jet. Clark, with the Vermont Air National Guard, tells Isthmus that guard units previously received “hand-me-downs” from active duty Air Force bases. Now, guard bases are getting jets right off the production line.

Pierre Sprey helped develop the A-10 attack jet and the F-16 in the 1970s and 1980s as a private defense analyst. Before that, he worked for Grumman Aircraft as a statistician and served as a special assistant to the Secretary of Defense between 1964-1970. He retired in 1986 to open a recording studio focused on jazz, blues and gospel. He continues to closely follow the development of military jets and campaign against “things that don’t work.”

Since the F-16 reached 1 million flight hours, Sprey says it’s had a “very good safety record.” But it didn’t start out that way.

“It was very unsafe — like most fighter jets are initially. It takes a while to shake out fighters,” Sprey, who lives in Maryland, tells Isthmus in a phone interview. “All the first places we based the F-16s were at remote places near small population centers. It was a good thing because, early on, the F-16 was an extremely dangerous aircraft. But it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the F-35 because of all the toxic coatings.”

The F-35 is made out of bismaleimide resin and military-grade composite epoxy materials. It’s the first mass-produced military jet to be made with carbon nanotube-reinforced epoxy, which makes it lighter, says Sprey, but poses an environmental risk.

“If one crashes, you’ll have a fire that has unbelievable toxic smoke. In an urban area, it would expose thousands of people to carcinogenic and corrosive smoke,” says Sprey. “Any firefighter caught downwind of a burning, plastic aircraft is seriously jeopardizing their life. They have to wear full breathing apparatus to get anywhere near it.”

Sprey says the F-35s stealth coating — a classified material — adds to the danger. He says giving guard units, many of which are located at commercial airports, the F-35 could be dangerous especially since the plane had only 220,000 flight hours as of Oct. 3, 2019.

“So far, the F-35 does have a pretty good safety record but that’s because they have been extremely careful on how they fly it and it’s been limited in many ways,” says Sprey. “That could easily go sour, though, because it’s still in development and they are already having structural problems they didn’t predict.”

Sprey has a fundamental philosophical difference with his detractors, who say he’s too critical of the F-35 program and its multi-mission capabilities. Sprey is a strong believer in simpler jets that specialize in either air-to-air combat, air-to-ground bombing or close air support missions. The military has developed the F-35 to be able to perform all three of these tactical roles.

In his experience working on other military aircraft, Sprey says the F-35 shouldn’t be based near populated areas until it has at least 1 million flight hours — which could take another decade.

“It seems perfectly obvious that you wouldn’t want to base an untried fighter plane near a lot of people,” says Sprey. “It doesn’t take a lot of common sense to come to that conclusion.”

On the second night of their visit, the Madison delegation has a family-style dinner of fried chicken and fish with some of the most active opponents to F-35s in Burlington. The name of the restaurant? Misery Loves Co.

Jean Saysani lives in Winooski, just north of the Burlington airport, and on one of the F-35 flight paths. More than 7,000 people live within Winooski’s 1.5 square miles and 40 percent of the city is in the F-35 noise exposure zone, an area deemed incompatible for residential use by the federal government and eligible for mitigation.

Saysani first heard an F-35 when four flew into Burlington in June for an unscheduled landing. “It feels like a buzz in your soul. It’s not just your ears. It shakes your organs,” says Saysani. “You can read about decibels and afterburners. But it’s all pretty worthless until you feel it for yourself.”

John Reuwer is a retired emergency room physician. He was temporarily deafened by an F-16 in August 2018. He still has ringing in his ears.

“I was on a bike ride near the end of the [Burlington airport] runway. I heard the loudest explosion I have ever heard in my life,” says Reuwer. “I thought I was dead — I was waiting to see Jesus. I was expecting to see a huge fireball in the sky.”

Greco says one-time, high-decibel events like these are just one concern. The Air Force provided Greco reports from the World Health Organization that show children living in noisy areas have cognitive impairment, sometimes lifelong. “But there are also physical impairments,” Greco adds. “It affects their hearts, it affects their cholesterol, it affects their blood pressure. It also affects adults, especially people whose immune systems are compromised and the elderly.”

Supporters dismiss noise concerns. Citro, of the Green Ribbons for the F-35, says “this is what you get when you live near an air guard base.” She remembers when F-4 Phantom II airplanes were based in Burlington decades ago. She says those jets were far louder and they did not bother her.

“I remember, twice, the air guard had to pay for a front window [of her business] because the F-4 blew it out,” says Citro. “For people complaining about six minutes a day, four days a week, it just kind of narrates how ridiculous the opposition is being.”

“It doesn’t matter if the noise bothers you,” Greco counters, comparing the health impacts of extreme noise to second-hand smoke. “It still impacts your health. The noise also has a cumulative effect. So yeah, maybe the first week won’t be too bad. But after six months, a year — depending on how small you are — you can already have irreparable damage. The F-35s will be here for at least 40 years.”

Just how loud the jets are is a major point of contention between supporters and opponents of the F-35 in both Madison and Burlington. Citro insists “if you aren’t bothered by the F-16s, you won’t see any difference with the F-35s” — a line that has been echoed by the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce and Wisconsin Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc). In October, Kurtz sponsored a resolution in the Wisconsin Assembly supporting F-35s at Truax Field. It passed on an 87-9 vote with Republicans and Democrats supporting the measure.

“This is being over-exaggerated as far as the noise levels,” Kurtz told the Associated Press in October. “This is going to be no different than what the F-16 does.”

Cioffi, of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, heard the F-35 in tandem with an F-16 a few years ago while visiting Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

“I don’t see a heckuva difference. The F-35 makes a deeper noise. The F-16 is more high-pitched and whiny,” says Cioffi. “The F-35s are here. They are going to stay here. It’s only six minutes of noise a day, four days a week — just like the F-16s. I think that’s manageable and people will have the opportunity to do sound mitigation.”

But noise exposure zone maps, prepared by consultants using Air Force data, show that more homes will be subjected to an average day-night sound level of 65 decibels and above — a level that the Federal Aviation Administration considers “incompatible for residential use.” According to the FAA, the high noise in Burlington is due primarily to military jets, not commercial ones.

The maps, released in May 2019, are the first step in participating in the FAA’s Airport Noise Compatibility Planning or Part 150 program. The voluntary program was started in 1981 to reduce the number of people who live in significantly noise-impacted areas near airports. According to the FAA’s website, airport operators “may choose to purchase land or provide sound insulation for homes, schools and other buildings.” The program is paid for by federal funds with a 10 percent local match.

On Oct. 24, the Burlington airport hosted a public reception with officials from the FAA to talk about sound mitigation for the F-35s through Part 150. It’s the same federal program that was used to buy and raze houses in the Chamberlin neighborhood because of the F-16. This time around, local officials are asking the airport to avoid removing homes because there is a shortage of affordable housing. Instead, local officials want to focus on soundproofing.

When the F-16 was flying and using afterburners 90 percent of the time, 1,900 residents experienced an average noise level of at least 65 decibels. The latest maps estimate that 6,125 people in the Burlington area will be affected by the F-35s (with 5 percent afterburner use.)

Richard Doucette, the FAA point-person for Burlington, says the cost to soundproof a home in the 65-70 decibels average day-night noise contour is around $40,000. “The noise zone increased a lot with the F-35 compared to the F-16,” says Doucette. “It’s ‘wicked’ noisy as they say around here.” Doucette says the soundproofing “will take decades to complete.”

A low estimate for the total cost of sound mitigation in Burlington is $100 million. In some cases, residents will be living with the noise for years, even decades, before their homes are soundproofed. Doucette says it would be optimistic for the FAA to soundproof 50 homes a year at an airport like Burlington’s. At that pace, it would take 52 years to do all the affected homes in the Burlington area — possibly longer than the lifespan of the F-35.

For homes experiencing 70-75 decibels of average day-night noise, Doucette says it’s “questionable” whether the FAA would pay for mitigation because the benefits might be limited and the cost to soundproof doubles. For areas exposed to more than 75 decibels, the FAA considers demolition the only option.

Gary Deforge, who has lived within sight of the Burlington runway for 20 years, says noise from the military jets is disruptive. 

“Especially when they take off three, four in a row. Whole house shakes,” says Deforge, who was burning wood in a fire pit when Isthmus stopped by his home. “Can’t hear anything if you’re on the phone until they’re gone.”

He’d consider moving but says he wouldn’t be able to buy another house with the $205,000 the airport, using FAA funds, offered to pay. His house is so close to the jets that soundproofing would be pointless.

“Where the hell am I going to buy a house around here for $205,000?” asks Deforge. “Not going to get anything for less than $280,000 minimum.”

Deforge says he isn’t worried about the noise from F-35s causing him harm.

“I’m going to die soon anyway,” says Deforge, who is 70. “So it don’t matter.”

Burlington residents opposed to the F-35s have struggled for years to be heard. They have held public meetings, placed newspaper ads, lobbied for city council resolutions, successfully pushed for revisions to the military's EIS, and filed a lawsuit against the Air Force. But they failed to keep the planes from landing in Burlington.

Greco has been villainized by supporters of F-35s and her home has been vandalized.

“Madison is not alone. It helps to know that other people are dealing with the same lies. Dealing with the same spin. The people’s voices are being minimized,” says Greco. “So it’s good to know we’re not crazy.”

Sprey says residents are wise to be wary of Air Force promises. He says the claim that F-35s in Burlington and Madison would use afterburners only 5 percent of the time, is not “worth the powder to blow it to hell.”

“The Air Force can quite arbitrarily decide to start taking off with afterburners 100 percent of the time and nobody can stop them,” says Sprey. “It’s not that the people at the [Vermont Air National Guard] now aren’t being sincere. They just have no right to make those promises because leadership can change, a new directive can come down and that’s it.”

Kemble says her trip to Vermont made her more determined to stop the F-35 beddown in Madison. The public comment period on the draft EIS ended Nov. 1, but Kemble says it’s not too late to take action.

“People concerned about the harmful impacts of the F-35s spelled out by the Air Force in the draft EIS should write and/or call U.S. Sen. Baldwin and Congressman Pocan,” says Kemble. “This is a long process. It isn’t over.” 

[Editor's note: This article was updated to indicate a lawsuit was filed by South Burlington residents against the Air Force, not U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy.]