You'll Live HERE and You'll LIKE it!

If you were a goose...?

   A recent Reuters' article had me shaking my head, again. It seems that there is a problem with Canada Goose droppings in the US capital. The filtration system at the Commons is having some issues dealing with the volume of bio-matter the geese are leaving behind. The fact that they have decided that releasing dogs to chase the geese away is absurd, but not the source of my amusement.

   Not long ago, actor and recreational pilot Harrison Ford had a mechanical issue with his vintage aircraft and came up short of his intended airfield, only to plow a furrow through a public golf course. Within hours of the crash, protestors set up signs bemoaning how unsafe it is to have an airport in the middle of a populated area.

   At first glance it is difficult to see a connection between these two events. the question one has to ask is; Which came first, the Goose or the reflecting pool?
Time and time again common sense seems to come up short. In fact, I have long since learned to refer to it as un-common sense. It seems that everywhere you look today you find people complaining about situations they have created for themselves.

   I'll admit that the Canada Goose issue is a bit of a stretch, but it was the turd that broke the camel's back, as it were. Migratory birds have been using the same routes for millennia. Long before there were golf courses, parks or monuments for them to befoul. Anyone choosing to build a great big pond in the middle of a goose's migration route MUST be a great friend of the goose. Where would you expect the goose to land? It is not as though the geese fly hundreds of miles out of their way just to visit the Washington Monument. Hardly a shortcoming as far as the geese are concerned. I would call it bad planning on your part.

Named after a World War I aviator,
not a clover field, Santa Monica Airport
is nearly 100 years old.

   What about the protestors at the small Santa Monica airport? Well first you need to know a little bit about the place. One of the US's oldest continuously operating airports, Clover Field as it was once known, is where the worlds first circumnavigation of the globe, by air, started and finished. The maker of the famous DC-3 (or C-47 for the military), Douglas Aircraft Company based itself there until 1958. By then so many people had bought land, built houses and set up shop surrounding the airport that the local government was forced to deny Douglas a request to extend the runway to allow testing of their new DC-8 airliner. Douglas pulled the plug on Santa Monica, closed the plant, laid off the workforce and moved operations to Long Beach. The people that lobbied against the expansion were the same idiots that moved in next to the airport.

Would you choose to buy a house next to an airport
if you longed for peace and quite?

   Today, Santa Monica Airport operates under all manner of restrictions. The airport is close to having its operating certificate removed. The surrounding neighborhood is continuously complaining about the noise and the risk of having low flying aircraft directly over their homes and businesses. Back up a minute here. Who's idea was it to build an airport in the middle of a high density neighborhood? No-one's! Morons made a choice to move into the neighborhood AFTER the airport was already there. No-one beat these people with sticks, handed them a mortgage and told them they had to live there. These "protestors" moved in all on their own. They CHOSE to live on an approach path, a hundred feet from the end of a runway.

Don't get me wrong. I get that there are lots of people that are fascinated by aviation. They love airplanes and want to live where they can sit in the backyard with a cold beer, watching planes go over all day. They are not the ones complaining. The ones complaining are the ones that think aircraft are inherently unsafe, that the noise they generate disturbs sleep patterns and is the cause of numerous health problems and neurological disorders. Yet they made a conscious decision to move in next to an airport.

I have to wonder how that process unfolded...
    - "Honey, I just love the house and the yard is perfect."

    - "But the airport right over the back fence doesn't worry you? You know it will keep the baby up.
        And what if there is a plane crash? We could end up with an airplane in the kitchen!"

    - "No, no. Once we move in we will start a petition to have that shut down."

    - "OK, we'll take it"
Really, it couldn't have gone much differently from that.

   Airports, stadiums, race tracks, railways and freeways all have an appeal to some. However most people realize that there is generally a downside to living next to any of them. Strangely enough, you can fire up Google and find news stories every day about people protesting those very things that they knew were next door, BEFORE they moved in. There are examples everywhere of communities expanding into undesirable landscapes. Expanding to surround an existing industrial zone. Expanding into a flood plain. Expanding into avalanche or land slide zones. You really have to shake your head when you turn on the TV and see someone sitting on the roof of their house begging to be rescued from a flood. Water does not run uphill. Areas that have flooded before are very likely to flood again. Areas that have never experienced flooding probably won't suddenly end up under water. Un-common sense would tell us that water erosion surrounding our building site is usually a sign that we should build somewhere else. If you want to buy a house with a 200 foot LED billboard shining into the back yard, accept the fact that the money you saved on the property will likely get used up buying really thick curtains.

The majority of North American homes destroyed or damaged
by floods are rebuilt in the same location. Smart?
Some survivors boast about the number of
times they have been flooded out of their homes.
Geniuses, right?

   Humans have a way about them. Pick a spot and change it to be the way we want it. Buy some property on the seaside and then build closer to the water than anyone else, so that their decks don't obstruct our view. Then when a storm washes our house out to sea, cry, "poor me!" then have the insurance company build us another one. We really need to step back occasionally and ask ourselves what dangers or even inconveniences are lurking in the shadow of the perfect place. Engineers look at one-hundred year flood events to decide how high the water might get before they build a bridge over a creek. Bridges over creeks get washed out all the time. Is the worst flood in the last one hundred years really the worst flood event that could strike? Obviously not.

If you are not an aviation enthusiast, I would strongly advise against purchasing property anywhere near an airport. Unless you have weekly "engineer" meetings with your local "N" Gauge club, that half acre with a rail line along the back fence is probably not going to be your retirement dream. If you do live next to a rail line, an airport, a major sports stadium or a ferry terminal, listen very carefully. Unless you were there first, learn to like it or move. Do not inflict your stupidity on the rest of us. No-one will offer you sympathy if you hit yourself in the forehead with a hammer and no-one will offer you sympathy because you chose to buy a home in the wrong place. They really are the same thing. Make sense? Oh and please, quit building in places nature already has a claim on. You will lose and my insurance rate will go up, along with my blood pressure. Just use a little uncommon sense.