Noise doesn't float for some on Willow Lake

Frontiersman

WILLOW — Controversy is still swirling over competing uses of Willow Lake, but a state official said he’s optimistic a compromise plan can calm the waters before the state has to impose strict rules about who can use the lake.

A state-sponsored study found aircraft noise does indeed impact some lakefront property owners. The state reaffirmed to Willow lake property owners that the Department of Transportation can and — if necessary —will regulate lake usage if it has to do so. Property owners have long complained of aircraft noise on a lake designated in the 1960s as a float plane base affiliated with the Willow Airport.

Property owners are aware that the state has condemnation as an option to clear homes and docks if residential uses can’t exist side by side with a level of float plane use that is expected to increase as the state grows in population.

DOT Chief of Statewide Airport Leasing Ron Stroman said a big problem for residents is that many did not get disclosure before they bought lakefront land that the lake is considered an airport and float planes do use it, including a busy commercial business.

Strohman said a proposed document drafted by resident Cheryl Fuglestad about how the lake might be shared is the starting point for DOT’s efforts to reach a community compromise.

Another meeting by the end of the year could result in residents and float plane operators working out boundaries that will cut down on both noise and confrontations between commercial and recreational lake users.

The Willow Lake Noise Study says the south end of the lake is noisy. What to do about that impact is still up in the air. Consultants suggest float planes could taxi to the middle of the lake to take off, ceding the first 200 feet of lakefront to recreational water craft.

The study was commissioned to address continuing complaints from some lakefront residents about noise from float planes. It has not been made public yet, but its authors gave the public an overview on Wednesday and they’ll send the full report to the state, which will post it online if it accepts the results.

One set of mitigation measures discussed included making it a practice that planes warm up in the northeast corner of the lake and taking off toward the south.

The state manages the lake and gets to decide appropriate uses. Presently there are no restrictions on recreational watercraft that also use the lake. Management of the lake was given to the state by the federal government and in 1962 it went to the Department of Transportation for management as an airport property. DOT manager Ron Stroman told about 70 Willow-area residents who came to the Oct. 10 meeting that DOT has the management authority to restrict uses on the lake.

“Willow Lake is an airport,” Stroman said as some residents questioned DOT’s management authority over the area.

Not only is it an airport under DOT control, it’s likely to remain an airport, said John Lovett of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airports Division.

Lovett said the FAA would have to approve relinquishing any land that is designated for airport use, and that “is a big deal. There is existing use of the lake by aeronautical operations.”

Some area property owners don’t want DOT to manage the lake, and one wrote Sen. Charles Huggins to say so.

Linda Lou Holzman of Anchorage, whose family has owner property there since 1959, also copied her letter to state Rep. Mark Neuman seeking abandonment of Willow lake as a “quasi-seaplane base.”

Holzman wrote that the community could lose property tax revenues if lakefront property is devalued, and she bridled at past suggestions by DOT staff that the state might “condemn private property for the purpose of a proposed seaplane base.”

“This has created an atmosphere of fear to build new homes or to invest in new improvements for the impacted property owners,” she wrote.

Stroman said the state can control the water use on Willow Lake, “and if we have to get involved with it our laws are pretty restrictive.”

Stroman, who deals with 259 airports, said he expects float plane use to increase at places like Willow Lake. He wants a new law in place forcing disclosure of “noise centers” like airports to property buyers so they don’t think they’re buying in a quiet spot and wind up with a noisy plane for a neighbor. That law won’t help current land owners, he said, but will help in the future. Until then he said he liked what he was hearing by the end of a meeting that was tense in the middle and productive toward the end.

“After listening to the people, more and more each one is more willing to compromise,” he said.

Land owners must know, he said, that use will increase there and if the uses eventually can’t coexist “some day a decision will have to be made” about whether aviation uses or residential and recreational uses belong there.

Will that mean a taking of private property some time in he future?

“If this doesn’t work out, that’s a very good question,” Stroman said.

Consultant Brad Nicholas of Miller and Hanson Inc. said noise readings were taken at Willow Lake from June 5 to June 13 at four locations, and the noisiest end of the lake is the south end.

The upper or north end of the lake did not have as much noise impact during the time the study was made. Nicholas told the group the study was timed in an attempt to coincide with king salmon season.

Contact John R. Moses at john.moses@frontiersman.com or call 352-2270.