Stealth mode

Truax neighbors wonder why more officials aren’t speaking out against F-35s

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While contemplating a life regularly interrupted by next-generation fighter jets shrieking over her house, Kat Ruth-Leigh is most disturbed by what she doesn’t hear.

“Residents need to hear from our local leaders,” she says. “The silence is deeply concerning.”Like many residents on the north side of Madison, Ruth-Leigh is alarmed by a proposal to base F-35s at nearby Truax Field Air National Guard Base starting in 2023. After reading through a 1,100-page draft environmental impact statement (EIS) prepared by the Air National Guard, Ruth-Leigh and her wife, Shannon, fear that noise from the F-35s will make their house in Eken Park unlivable. Their house is in a neighborhood that would be exposed to an average of 65 decibels from the F-35s. What that means for their future is up in the air.

“We don’t have a down payment for another house,” she says. “If we lose this house completely, we might have to declare bankruptcy or move in with friends. … We have good salaries. But if we lose the house, it would set us back for years.”

Residents can speak up on Sept. 12 at a meeting at Alliant Energy Center’s Exhibition Hall with representatives from the Air National Guard. Public comments on the draft EIS will be accepted online through Sept. 27.

Since the neighborhoods south and east of Dane County Regional Airport are more affordable than almost anywhere else in Madison, the F-35s would cause the most disruption to people who are vulnerable to begin with. The EIS says it straight up: The increased noise would cause “significant disproportionate impacts to low-income and minority populations, as well as children.”

In a city that gives so much lip service to issues of affordable housing and racial equity, Ruth-Leigh doesn’t understand why more leaders aren’t speaking out against a proposal that would make 132 houses near the airport “incompatible with residential use” and expose another 1,019 homes to greater noise levels, potentially displacing or financially hobbling hundreds of residents such as herself. 

“It’s really scary not knowing how this will play out or who on the local level cares about it,” she says. “Does it matter to the people of influence, or is it just like, ‘Yay planes?’”

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Though many people in Madison may be unaware of its existence, Truax, which shares runways with Dane County Regional Airport, is a boon to the local and state economies. A 2015 study by the UW-Extension Center for Community and Economic Development found that the Madison-based 115th Fighter Wing annually generates $99.2 million within Wisconsin.

And so prominent politicians such as U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) and former Gov. Scott Walker cheered when the Air National Guard announced in December 2017 that Truax was a finalist for basing the F-35A Lighting II. (Bringing the F-35s to Madison would add 64 military personnel and construction spending would have “short-term benefits for the local economy,” according to the EIS.)

Ald. Rebecca Kemble, who represents several neighborhoods located in proximity to the airport on the north side of Madison, isn’t buying the narrative of the F-35s as jet fuel for the local economy.

“The economic data that promoters of the F-35s are using relates to the existing base,” Kemble says. “They insinuate that if the F-35s don’t come here, the base is going away. That is not true. It’s a completely different process to shut it down. … It’s not going away.”

In Kemble’s view, the temporary construction jobs wouldn’t outweigh the declining property values, displacement of low-income residents, health effects associated with people living in places deemed uninhabitable, and mitigation of impacts to air and water quality.

“To me, it’s a no-brainer,” she says.

William White is a local land-use attorney and former longtime chair of the Dane County Airport Commission. He supports trading in the 115th Fighter Wing’s F-16 Fighting Falcons, despite living by Truax himself and acknowledging that the F-35s would be louder.

“It’s been very helpful to have the Air Guard at the airport, working on safety and maintenance,” he says. “Between the civilian side and military side, we can jointly address safety issues. It’s better to have the military here if there’s an accident.”

White believes the Air National Guard has been a responsible steward of the community’s airspace. He points to data gathered by the Airport Commission’s noise abatement subcommittee indicating that most noise complaints at the airport between October 2018 and March of this year were related to commercial aircraft, not military.

“It’s a tradeoff,” he says. “Admittedly, there is going to be a little more noise. But by the same token, having the Air Guard here and working with us on the civilian side makes a huge positive difference. I don’t know the technical aspects of the F-16s versus the F-35s, but anything can be considered noisy. What’s the difference between the F-35s and a commercial airliner?”

The F-35 is a famously expensive, state-of-the-art stealth fighter capable of delivering nuclear payloads. It has proven controversial in communities across the country because it’s equipped with one of the most powerful military aircraft engines in the world. Due in part to suburban sprawl, the aircraft’s flight patterns often overlap with residential areas. 

The F-35 is roughly four times louder to the human ear than the F-16, according to an EIS for a base in Burlington, Vermont. The report also states that a squadron of F-35s would increase military operations at the airfield by 47 percent. Training sorties would consistently disrupt speech not only in households, but also in classrooms at Lake View Elementary School and Richardson School, an alternative school for children with special needs.

Jamie Wirth would be among the hardest-hit residents. Her house is in the area that would be considered “incompatible with residential use” should the F-35s come to Madison. She bought her house in December for less than $200,000 and says she couldn’t afford real estate anywhere else in Madison on her salary as a nurse at a local elementary school. Her house is her only financial asset.

“I’m concerned about property values, about kids in the schools in this area who won’t be able to have a quality education, about my neighbors who are uninformed,” she says. “I think a lot of people here would be unable to find housing in other areas of the city. If they’re forced out of their homes, where are they going to go?”

Wirth has been trying to spread the word by making flyers and passing them out in her neighborhood, urging people to go to the meeting on Sept. 12. Sometimes it seems like yelling over a jet engine. 

“It feels like I’m doing this all alone,” she says. “When I started talking to my neighbors, nobody had any idea. We have a very short window of public comment and most people aren’t aware that their homes could be affected.”

[Editor's note: This article incorrectly stated that Shannon Ruth-Leigh's home would be consistently exposed to sounds as loud as 65 decibels, the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner at three feet away. The EIS found that their home would be exposed to a daily average of 65 decibels from the F-35s. It also misattributed a comparison of sound levels between F-35 and F-16s, which came from an EIS for a base in Burlington, Vermont, not the EIS for Truax.]