The invisible bombing

MA sold his house on the outskirts of Madrid because "he could no longer stand" the noise of the aircraft taking off and landing at Barajas airport. To forget about airplanes, he emigrated to "quieter lands without air traffic" for years. From Cáceres, disconnected "both personally and professionally" from the fight against noise pollution to which she dedicated almost a decade , the woman asks not to participate in a report on anonymous neighbors who suffer noise levels higher than recommended. It would bring to mind, excuse yourself, memories you prefer to forget.

Meetings with politicians, demonstrations, technical studies, noise analysis, visits to lawyers, complaints against the airport manager AENA ... Attrition takes its toll on neighbors who stand up to the noise of the planes flying over their homes. There are many Madrid activists who, after a decade of struggle, are already considered accurate. Although not everyone has fled Madrid as MA, they have abandoned the battle against the constant rumble of the devices. "After 13 years of fighting and not seeing any results, you want to continue," says Pedro López, head of the Association Against Noise and Risk of Three Canto Aircraft (A3CA), a town where The same day, more than 300 aircraft have been counted, almost half of the daily take-offs in Madrid. "They are too many. It is unsettling. To hear a plane every five hours would not be bothersome, but one per minute is unbearable. The noise is not deafening, but the pace is constant. It is a continuous drip and a tiredness," criticizes the man.

The neighbors denounce that the aircraft cause discomfort from 55 decibels. Virtually all airplanes exceed the legal noise allowed, they lament. The problem is the intensity and frequency of the rumble. Tres Cantos is one of the main towns affected by the noise of Barajas. But not the only one: Torrejón de Ardoz, Coslada, Mejorada del Campo, Velilla de San Antonio, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, San Sebastián de los Reyes and Algete also suffer from noise pollution.

Residents of the Santo Domingo urbanization, in Algete, are determined to reduce air traffic after suffering discomfort arising from the increase in traffic that led to the expansion of one of the runways of the Madrid airfield. They demand that the airplanes stop flying over their roofs and threaten to return to declare before the judge the figure of the president of AENA for crimes against the environment.

EXHAUSTION

Activists like Pedro López, after 14 years of noise and frustration in their neighborhood of Tres Cantos, lament "the abandonment" in which politicians have plunged the neighbors who fight against the noise of the main Spanish airport. "They know that the environmental impact on the territory is illegal, but they only lend their support from palaba and when they are in an election campaign. Politicians are more interested in economic interests," he criticizes. "And the judges are pressured by the influence of AENA, which is enormous," López said, who has taken the conflict to the State Air Safety Agency, the City Council and the Community of Madrid, to the Ministries of Development and Environment , to the European Parliament and even to La Zarzuela through a letter addressed to the Queen. Unsuccessfully.

The man feels exhausted. The complaint of his association against AENA, prepared for five years, was immediately dismissed. "It's like hitting a head against a wall," Lopez laments at a time when the aircraft are better than before, but the noise persists. The origin of the conflict is in 2005, when a neighborhood association requested and achieved a modification in the use of the Barajas tracks. The objective was to minimize the nuisance of noise pollution in one part of the territory, but the consequence is that it increased in another. "AENA accepted the change because it benefited it. And the current operating system harms many more neighbors than before," says the activist, determined to continue defending that in the Madrid airfield "there was no study of environmental impact" of the routes of the planes.

The expansion of Barajas was "a mistake motivated by a political decision," lament those affected by the increase in air traffic, neighbors convinced that the road to follow is marked by infrastructure such as London or Paris, capitals with more than one airport. The residents of the Santo Domingo urbanization sued AENA in 2008 for crimes against the environment and disobedience. The top leaders of the airport manager sat on the bench. And they won. But the planes have not stopped flying over their homes.

"They keep crushing us," explains one of the historic Madrid activists in the fight against aircraft noise, Carlos Vega, 66, a resident of San Fernando de Henares and newly retired, in a tone between resignation and unperturbation . "Nothing has improved since the 80s. When we fought against the expansion of Barajas 30 years ago, he already warned of what was going to happen," recalls the man, who admits to being "frustrated", but closer to putting a Complaint or going outside to throw in the towel.

You are not alone. The neighborhood leader has the support of the City of San Fernando de Henares , determined to resume contact with AENA and the battle for rest and tranquility of the 40,000 inhabitants of the municipality. "We will demand that the legality is fulfilled," says the mayor, Javier Corpa, willing to take the battle against noise to another 30 municipalities in Madrid affected by the noise generated by the aircraft passing through the territory. The victims multiply. "AENA is routinely using a configuration that it should only use in exceptional situations. It does so unreasonably," protests the president. "Just go out for a while to suffer this unbearable situation."

40 YEARS

Around the plane the municipality flies over every minute. Carlos Vega, of the Parque Henares Association, is one of the members of the new Anti-Noise Platform born in San Fernando de Henares. "We have been in this fight for 40 years. After the total abandonment in which politicians left us in recent years, the conflict is now being taken seriously," says the activist, who points to AENA for having breached "all agreements reached" , such as the restriction of night flights. The surveillance of the Madrid airport had been abandoned, but the neighbors return to the load: they take photos of the airplanes; They know the operation of a web page that informs about the trajectory of the flights, and they will move "from south to north" in the airport environment this autumn. They claim that early morning flights show that AENA "only thinks about making cash," because "it only cares about air traffic, well above the serious inconvenience to the neighbors." And they ask the airport manager to build a second airport in Madrid: "Another rooster will sing to us if he contemplated it. It could already be in operation today if he had listened to us," says Vega, who remembers what is "the biggest lie" heard in Four decades of fighting noise: "It is what says that airports were before neighborhoods. This is a false approach."

Many members have become disenchanted with the fight. Witnessing the inactivity of airports without flights, such as Ciudad Real, in the face of the "need to build a second airfield" in Madrid, disappointed them. But the platform contrary to the expansion of Barajas, with associated neighborhood entities, has been reborn in San Fernando de Henares with a spirit similar to that of its colleagues in Barcelona.

In a development of Castelldefels, 12 kilometers from the El Prat airport, a two-storey private house houses something similar to the headquarters of the Prou ​​Soroll platform, used for 14 years to finance technical studies, carry out slow vehicle marches to the terminals and sit on the bench of the accused to the top officials of AENA. In a large soundproof room, the president of the entity, Josep Velasco, 70, receives us to notify the authorities that the neighbors are not willing to throw in the towel in front of the intention of Promotion to expand the facilities and increase the landings and takeoffs. "You can't tolerate frivolizing yourself with people's health. The neighbors don't have to pay for the effects of poor airport planning."

RECONFIGURATION

AENA plans to make the construction of the new satellite terminal of El Prat a reality in 2026. This will imply that the airport's capacity goes from the current 55 million passengers per year to 70 million. The members of the entities Prou ​​Soroll Platform, Preservem Castelldefels, Association of Neighbors of Gavà Mar and Association of People Affected by the Air Pollution of Air Navigation jointly express their opposition to "any form of growth" of the airport.

Every two minutes a plane flies over inhabited cores of Castelldefels and Gavà. Velasco argues that El Prat's solution is "in the decrease and not in the growth". The eventual change in the use of runways, linked to the commissioning of the satellite building, will mean that "two planes will land and take off at the same time, and you will not be able to live under that noise."

The president of Prou ​​Soroll (Noise Basta) recalls that the Barcelona City Council "does not agree with the expansion of the airport because, at a time when 82% of tourists arrive by plane, there is no capacity for another 20 million more in the city. " From the neighboring city, the Gavà Mar Neighborhood Association qualifies as "unilateral" the decision of AENA to expand the capacity of El Prat. The president of the entity, Carmen Torres, demands that the growth of the volume of business of the aerodrome be "respectful" with the quality of life of the neighbors that surround it.

The number of passengers in El Prat grows month by month. The airport transports more than 50 million annual travelers, a record that will be sprayed again in 2019. The Barcelona Chamber of Commerce would like a higher figure, which is why it urges AENA to change the runway configuration system and extend the third runway so that the roof of the airport reaches 90 million users in the coming years. The price is not less: alter the rest of the surrounding neighbors.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project