Kailua-Kona
Fireworks-related?
Suspicious bird deaths
I’m a life-long observer of birds and I know their songs and calls quite well. The leothrix is Kona’s most melodious songbird. It’s sometimes known as the Chinese nightingale and its song is long, complicated and heavenly.
On this New Year’s Day when all the fireworks exploded, there was one super-loud boom, which shook our whole house. It was much louder than any fireworks in previous years. Now there are no leothrix in the Honaunau School neighborhood.
That one huge boom killed them all. We found one dead in our yard and have attached the picture. Its body looked unharmed and it had just fallen from the sky.
It was proven in Arkansas that super-loud fireworks kills certain species of birds. They just fall dead from the sky. Since Dec. 31, there has not been one leothrix song in our neighborhood.
There used to be many, and the air was sometimes filled with their beautiful songs.
Clear Englebert
Honaunau
Aircraft noise
A sensible suggestion
The recent flurry of letters debating the merits of military flight training over residential areas has been interesting philosophically, but has little relevance to the question of what we can do to staunch the deterioration of our quality of life because of the exponential increase in aircraft noise over the last few years.
The vast majority of the objectionable noise (apart from leaf blowers, hedge trimmers and loud mufflers) in the Kailua-Kona area comes not from military aircraft, but from small air tour planes and helicopters and pilot training helicopters that fly over residential areas at low altitude at all hours of the day and night. The Federal Aviation Administration is unwilling to invest resources in policing altitude limits, and, in any case, these aircraft generate considerable noise during quiet hours even while within legal limits.
The state Department of Transportation, however, can create “noise abatement areas,” which aircraft are requested voluntarily to avoid. This at least provides some official pressure on these companies to avoid over-flying residential areas when they have no compelling reason to use those routes.
The person in charge of designating these areas is the state general aviation officer, Henry P. Buckner (henry.p.bruckner@hawaii.gov) or 838-8701. A courteous letter or phone call to Mr. Bruckner to request that he designate Kailua-Kona as a noise abatement area might be helpful.
Does anyone remember what a quiet little town this was only three years ago, before the air tour business revved up?
We could get some of that peace and quiet back, without these companies losing any business, if we can create an incentive for them to fly over the ocean or uninhabited areas rather than directly over where we eat, work, play and sleep.
Doug Perrine
Kailua-Kona