There can be nothing but sympathy for the residents of rural communities whose tranquility has been shattered by the constant drone of jets on the flight path to the new airport. And, regrettably, that is all they can expect: sympathy, but not much else.
The Civil Aviation Department may go through the motions of seeking new routes to minimise the noise affecting Sha Tin, Sai Kung and Tsing Yi, but there are clear signals that it intends to stick with the ones it has. If the department can demonstrate that the alternative routes proposed by the newly-formed action group are unsafe, or impractical, then people are simply going to have to get used to the noise, provided it stays within acceptable limits. It will be difficult for villagers born and raised in the country to adjust to the loss of their peaceful existence. And galling for people who commute from town so that they can enjoy the calm of country living, to find themselves pursued by the nuisance that once plagued Kowloon, albeit from a much higher altitude.
The opening of Chek Lap Kok has turned areas of Lantau and the New Territories into the land of lost content, but, short of insisting that official noise restrictions are observed, there is nothing to be done about it. We live in a shrinking planet, where silence is as endangered as the Siberian Tiger. Urban Hong Kong is arguably the noisiest place on that planet, with a population which has a tolerance to sound and clamour that verges on the saintly.
Kowloon residents grew accustomed to planes flying 200 metres overhead because the din at ground level was even worse. People in Sai Kung find the sound of aircraft 1,400 metres above them intolerable because their ears are attuned to the sound of birdsong, lapping waves and barking dogs. Experiments done elsewhere show that human tolerance for noise increases according to the sound levels they are used to, and that is the pattern we are seeing in here.
But that does not mean that the residents of Sha Lo Wan should be expected to put up with a deafening 86 decibels of engine noise 31 times a day. No one living under the flight path should be exposed to levels that exceeds the international 'noise contour'.
Noise is a serious form of pollution and the Airport Authority has an obligation to control it as much as possible, or aid people to install insulation. If alternative routes can be found which do not infringe on protected country parks and are not a hazard to pilots, that is the obvious answer. But flight paths chosen long ago are unlikely to be altered. And matters can be expected only to get worse when the second runway opens in December.
