







by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI

Northwest Side residents will have an opportunity to review findings of the Federal Aviation Administration’s re-evaluation of an environmental impact study conducted several years ago before the scheduled opening of a new runway in October on the south side of O’Hare International Airport.

The open houses will be held from 1 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, Aug. 10 to 13. Meetings will be held on Monday at White Eagle Banquets, 6839 N. Milwaukee Ave., Niles, on Tuesday at Taft High School, 6530 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., on Wednesday at Monty’s Elegant Banquets, 703 S. York Road, Bensenville, and on Thursday, at Belvedere Events and Banquets, 1170 W. Devon Ave., Elk Grove Village.

The agency is re-evaluating changes with a new schedule for commissioning Runway 10 Right/28 Left and Runway 9 Center/27 Center and the extension of Runway 9 Right/27 Left.

The new runways and the extension were included in the original environmental impact statement, but now they are scheduled for different completion dates. Runway 10R/29 Left will open in October.

Experts will explain the analysis and answer questions at the open houses, and residents will have an opportunity to provide written comments or to provide spoken comments to a court reporter.

The locations were selected because they are under west and east flight patterns, can accommodate at least 500 people and offer a large main room and additional rooms for court reporters and for video or slide show presentations, according to the agency.

The City of Chicago, United Airlines and American Airlines signed an agreement that allowed the O’Hare Modernization Program to move forward with Phase 2A on March 14, 2011. The phase, which will be completed in October, includes construction of Runway 10R/28L on the south side of the airport as well as enabling projects and improvements on the north side of the airport. Phase 2B includes the construction of Runway 9C/27C to be completed in 2020 and the extension to Runway 9R/27L to be completed in 2021.

Because of the new construction schedule, an FAA team conducted a re-evaluation to determine whether data and analyses in the original 2005 environmental impact statement remain valid. The re-evaluation focuses on temporary affects on noise and air quality that would be brought about by adjusting the construction schedule.

The FAA team’s work includes computer model analysis of O’Hare operations for the period after Runway 10R/28L is placed into service but before Runway 9 Center / 27 Center is operating, and for the period after Runway 10R/28L and Runway 9C/27C are open but before Runway 9R/27L is operating with an extension.

The computer model supplies data for the team’s analysis of the temporary noise and air quality impacts.







