The informational session with public comment last Monday seemed relatively civil, at least the part that could be heard over the roar of jets making their approach to the airport over 320th and Pacific Highway South.

The Transportation and Land Use Committee, along with representatives from the Port of Seattle and citizens of Federal Way shared an evening of discussion regarding Sea-Tac air traffic noise.

When the Federal Aviation Administration first developed these flight tracks, the affected area carried just a fraction of the population density it does today.

And now with more homes, more condos, more people and more ears in Federal Way, some citizens have grown tired of the steady scream of jet engines dropping altitude over their neighborhoods.

John Creighton, the Port of Seattle Commission President, brought a team of his associates to City Hall last week to discuss with the committee and Federal Way citizens some of the Port's plans for noise abatement in the future.

Councilmember Linda Kochmar spearheaded the campaign to bring the Port of Seattle group to the council chambers.

"This is typically a very emotional topic," Creighton said, "There are lots of different views."

"We know it's a very important issue for your community...and we think it's very important to keep that dialogue open with the community," he said.

The Port is currently in the process of undergoing a Part 150 analysis for noise impact in the flight tracks into Sea-Tac. The study will determine the extent of noise impact in communities like Federal Way and what noise mitigation, if any, the cities can receive from the FAA and the Port of Seattle.

Stan Shepherd, Airport Noise Programs Manager for the Port of Seattle. Said Sea-Tac's last Part 150 study included such noise abatement programs as increased fines for violations to engine testing on the ground, the airport's Fly Quiet Program, a condominium insulation program inside the 70 DNL zone, and a relocation of mobile homes inside the 70 DNL zone. The Port has also acquired more than 60 residential parcels in what it calls the North Approach Transition Zone of Sea-Tac Airport.

Sea-Tac has also increased its fines for planes that test their engines on the ground, an event that usually occurs once a day.

As many as 3,000 aircraft can take off and land at Sea-Tac during a 24-hour period.

Shepherd said the noise generated from running up the throttle on those engines generates a great deal of excess noise for the airport's neighbors.

Sea-Tac also implemented the Fly Quiet Program, an incentive-based program that offers an award for the airport's quietest airline.

"One of the most important ways we've been mitigating noise in the past few years is by getting into quieter aircraft," Creighton said, "As time goes by, the older aircraft are being swapped out of airline's inventory."

Creighton said that the older 727s and 737s, as well as older Airbus planes are being replaced by "much more modern aircraft with quieter engines."

The Port also uses 25 noise-monitoring units around the area to gauge noise levels around the flight path communities. Two of these are located in Federal Way; one in Twin Lakes and one at the Federal Way School District bus depot.

According to Shepherd, the devices allow the Port to collect data to respond to community concerns and maintain a historic record of noise produced by air traffic over Sea-Tac.

Normally, the Part 150 program analyzes noise issues and flight patterns over a five-year period.

This time around, the Port of Seattle must wait on the opening of the third runway and the accumulation of a year's worth of data before they can begin working with the FAA on new noise abatement programs.

The study should take place in 2009.

"We need to get two or three seasons' worth of noise data with aircraft flying over the communities," said Shepherd.

The data rates noise in terms of DNL (Day-Night Sound level), which averages any amount of noise generated over a period of time. The FFA establishes a 65 DNL Contour as the impacted area around the northern tip of Federal Way, Shepherd said.

The figure uses an algorithmic average to determine the overall noise levels that certain areas experience due to flights arriving and departing from Sea-Tac.

"The airport really has to abide by that (figure)," Creighton said, "because we receive our funding from the FFA for all of our programs."

Kochmar voiced her concern over the third runway generating increased decibel levels in Federal Way, on top of a bump in frequency of planes cruising at lower altitudes over the city with the third runway operational.

One solution posed by members of the council and the residents in attendence suggested the Port reroute certain troublesome flights-larger, louder jets that fly in early morning hours-to different flight tracks outside Federal Way.

"Our goal-and the FAA's goal-is to never move noise from one community to another unless there is a significant reduction in the noise impact to the communities," Shepherd said.

Kochmar, acknowledging that the Port designated these flight paths when Federal Way and its surrounding communities did not have nearly the population densities they do today, pressed the Port for relocating these landing avenues further west over the tideflats.

"This would impact far fewer people," Kochmar said.

"Changing flight paths is not as easy as it looks like," Shepherd responded, noting that few communities voluntarily sacrifice the serenity of the their neighborhoods with the roar of jet engines.

With strict control from FFA regulations on the Port, "our hands are tied," Shepherd said.

The Noise Programs Manager told the committee that the last time the FFA authorized a change, planes departing Sea-Tac took off and made a hard turn out over the water.

"At that time, we received the most complaints from Federal Way than we ever have," Shepherd said. "When we changed them back, the complaints went down."

Shepherd said that the Port must receive the buy off from the impacted communities-an unlikely propostion-before they switch flight tracks.

"We went to those communities and they said 'absolutely not,'" Shepherd told the committee, "and that's understandable."

But Fly Quiet awards didn't seem to satisfy the area residents in attendance, particularly those roused each morning to the roar of a fully loaded Eva Airlines jet bound for Taiwan rattling their windows at 3:30 a.m.

Rick Hughes, who lives in Federal Way near Marine Hills, is one of the frustrated ones.

He said it's bad enough that some of those flights circle around his house between 2,000 and 3,000 feet overhead, but the Eva Airlines in the mornings "is ridiculous."

Hughes vented his frustration with the Port at the meeting, telling Shepherd and Creighton that his complaints "have gone nowhere."

Nancy Combs, who lives near Metropolitan Market, echoed Hughes complaints. She said she thought an intruder had broken into her home when a jet shook her house and caused her ironing board to crash into the floor.

"I have begged the Port of Seattle to help us with noise," she said. "I put a new roof on my house, new windows and new insulation," she said.

Hughes added that her complaints yielded nothing more than lip service from the Port.

The meeting did not end with Council action, but rather a plan to continue providing feedback to the Port about the city's growing discontentment with air noise.

Only with consistent and persistent community feedback, Shepherd said, can the Port accurately incorporate citizen's demands into the new Part 150 study.

"That's you may not have a fix tomorrow, but if we earmark it and we can start working through the system to get change," said councilmember Jack Dovey, "though it may not happen as fast as we like."