F-16 and F-35 Bombers Threaten Cognitive Health of Children in Vermont Town

An F-16 bomber takes off from Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, November 19, 2013. (Photo: US Air Force)An F-16 bomber takes off from Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, November 19, 2013. (Photo: US Air Force)

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A crisis plagues 976 families in a working-class neighborhood of South Burlington, Vermont. Eighteen screamingly loud F-16 fighter bombers based at Vermont’s main airport are the cause. Worse, the number of families in crisis from this jet noise is set to sharply increase in two years when the Air Force says it will replace the F-16s with four-times-louder F-35 fighter bombers.

The neighboring city of Burlington owns and runs the Burlington International Airport, even though that airport is fully located within South Burlington. The city council of South Burlington has so far restricted itself to adopting a series of polite resolutions regarding the health and safety of the 976 families living in tiny affordable homes in the screeching noise zone of F-16 fighter jets. But these resolutions were all dismissed by Vermont’s political elite who instead successfully lobbied the Air Force to bring on the F-35. 

Nor did Vermont Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders come to the aid of the largely working-class residents living in the airport neighborhood of South Burlington. Both senators refused even to meet with residents, declaring jet-fighter basing a matter of patriotism or jobs.

These 976 South Burlington families have no vote, no representation and no influence over the Burlington City Council that effectively governs health and safety in their neighborhood — a situation flatly contradicting a Vermont Constitutional requirement that officers of government be legally accountable to the people they govern.

An Air Force report acknowledges that the F-16 jets “dominate” noise at the Burlington Airport and that “the contribution of civilian aircraft to noise is negligible compared to the military aircraft contribution.”

The most recent noise…

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