“With its strip malls, auto repair shops and used car lots, the stretch of East Washington Avenue between Aberg Avenue and Stoughton Road shows no signs of the revitalization happening a couple of miles to the west, near Downtown.
That could soon change with the addition of a planned bus rapid transit system.
Bill Connors, who heads a coalition of real estate developers, envisions three- and four-story buildings with ground-floor retail stores below apartments, much like those that have sprung up on the Isthmus.
City plans call for high-density housing that would both provide equitable access regardless of income and support a new bus rapid transit (BRT) system that’s expected to begin shuttling commuters between the city’s East and West sides in 2024.
But with the Air National Guard expected to begin flying a fleet of new F-35 fighter jets from nearby Truax Field in 2023, this ¾-mile strip is expected to be subject to noise levels considered too loud for residential development without significant soundproofing.
The conflict has created a dilemma for leaders of a fast-growing city in desperate need of more housing: By allowing the type of high-density development that would support rapid transit, Madison could also subject thousands more people to unhealthy levels of noise.
Connors argues the market will solve the problem, as builders who don’t do enough to muffle the sound will struggle to keep their buildings full.
City Council president Syed Abbas has appointed a council workgroup to explore possible alternatives, including a development moratorium or zoning changes, in an effort to prevent a situation where poor and minority people bear a disproportionate share of the environmental impacts.
“I have to see the situation with the lens of environmental justice,” Abbas said. “If you go historically, the market decided to put all the people of color there — Black and brown folks.”
There is disagreement on just how much louder the F-35s will be compared to the F-16s that currently fly out of Truax. But there would be more takeoffs and landings, at least initially, which would increase the overall noise exposure for those living near the airport.
In its environmental study, the Air Force estimated at least 1,019 homes would be subject to average daily noise levels above 65 decibels, a level deemed “incompatible” with residential use. Poor and minority residents would be disproportionately affected.
Noise models created for the study show that the 65-decibel zone would extend south into the Carpenter-Ridgeway, Darbo-Worthington and Hawthorne neighborhoods, enveloping a section of East Washington considered ripe for redevelopment.
Areas to the west of the airport would also be subject to more noise, including several parcels being eyed for development such as the 63.6-acre Raemisch Farm, where the council earlier this year nixed a development proposal over noise concerns.
Within the new noise zones, the city’s planning staff has identified a total of 10 sites considered ripe for development that could support up to 1,600 housing units, including as many as 1,200 on BRT routes.
Potential noted
That’s not to say that there are proposals on the table or that the sites are even for sale, though many along East Washington are identified in the neighborhood plan as targets for redevelopment. Yet most have changed little since that plan was adopted 20 years ago.
“The East Washington corridor is important,” said Heather Stouder, the city’s director of planning. “It’s an important piece of the puzzle in regards to accommodating a large amount of growth … in a way that’s fiscally and environmentally responsible and puts more people in easy reach of sustainable transportation options.”
Connors, executive director of Smart Growth Greater Madison, envisions the same type of construction boom that has revitalized parts of East Washington on the Isthmus.
“It just keeps spreading north and east,” Connors said. “The next area that’s probably going to go would be out by the airport.”
“At a minimum I would see a bunch of buildings like that in this stretch. Some possibly larger, like the ones closer to the (Capitol) Square,” Connors said. “There’s a lot of very underutilized properties there.”
Buyer beware?
Touyeng Xiong lives in the Truax Apartments, a public housing complex a couple of blocks north of East Washington. Even outside the 65-decibel zone, Xiong said the noise can be “unbearable” when F-16s take off, shaking the building and making it impossible to talk or concentrate.
“You cannot do anything until the sound goes away,” Xiong said. “It’s not just one. It’s one taking off followed by another, for a good minute or two. It’s extremely uncomfortable.”
As long as developers build market-rate housing, Connors said no one would be forced to live there.
“Why don’t you just let renters and developers figure this out?” he said. “Renters are free to go. Maybe not to a place with similar amenities and conveniences, but that’s how the world works: You’re always making these tradeoffs.”
But Xiong questions why anyone would choose to live near the airport and is dubious of claims that people who don’t like the noise would be able to move away given the current cost of housing in Madison.
“It’s not that easy,” Xiong said.
For Abbas, whose district includes the neighborhoods just west and south of the airport, the noise exposure is a matter of public health policy, which he says should be set by elected leaders and not the market.
Research has shown prolonged exposure to noise disrupts sleep and can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease and impair cognitive development. And while buildings can be insulated to dampen noise, there’s no way to mitigate sound outdoors.
Leaders of the council workgroup did not respond to interview requests, but at a recent meeting Ald. Tag Evers said markets aren’t always transparent.
“You could say, ‘Buyer beware,’ but if these things aren’t disclosed to someone looking for housing and they end up in an untenable situation and unable to break their lease, that’s an injustice,” Evers said. “That’s what we’re trying to address.”
Wait and see
Abbas said he hopes the workgroup can bring a proposal to the council by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Connors said the discussion, along with the council’s vote to deny development of the Raemisch Farm, has scared developers off any sites with potential noise impacts, creating a de facto moratorium.
In order to accommodate population growth and reach a “healthy” vacancy rate of 5%, Madison needs to add about 2,000 housing units per year on top of an immediate 3,000, according to city staff.
“The city struggles every year to get to that 2,000 figure,” Connors said. “If you take an area that’s prime for redevelopment and say we’re taking that off the menu of what’s possible, it makes it even harder to hit that figure.”
Abbas said there are other East Side sites — including the former Oscar Mayer plant and the Voit Farm on Milwaukee Street — that could be used for residential development.
He suggested using the East Washington corridor for commercial and office buildings, which would help boost BRT ridership without subjecting people to unhealthy noise in their homes.
Abbas notes that the noise contours are simply projections based on modeled flight patterns and may not represent the actual noise levels when the jets are in service.
“My house is one block away from 65 decibels. Sometimes the planes are not too loud. Sometimes they’re extremely loud,” he said. “If the planes are not coming or the scientific data shows the impact is not that bad … we could build housing in the future.”
The people of Madison and Wisconsin say…
“That the F-35 is a first strike, offensive weapon designed to carry the most dangerous weapon in our nuclear arsenal, the B61-12 guided nuclear bomb. By virtue of housing the delivery vehicle for this nuclear bomb and training pilots to fly it, Madison becomes a target.
That the F-35 project will have a disproportionately negative impact on low-income people, people of color, and children. The Air Force has admitted this in its own Environmental Impact Statement.
That there will be an expected 135% increase in CO2 emissions. Long-term exposure to CO2 creates breathing complications and respiratory illness, decreased cognitive decision making and problem-solving, and heart disease.
That Truax Field will require more PFAS and chemicals to put out an F-35 fire, compromising the safety of Madison’s drinking water, which is already severely, and possibly irreversibly, contaminated.
That this project will cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion over its lifetime, and more than $30,000 per hour to fly one F-35.
Therefore, with all these concerns in mind, we call on you, our senator, to reverse your support of the deployment of the F-35 at Truax Field. We also ask that you pursue a new mission for the Air National Guard at Truax, one that aligns with our humane values of peace, equity, sustainability and overall concern for the health and security of our residents.
“Despite testing that found “forever chemicals” at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport two years ago, the Department of Defense has yet to move forward with a plan to address the contamination, putting nearby residents with private drinking wells at risk.
The Department of Defense was notified by the state Department of Natural Resources that it was the responsible party for contamination from PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — in ground and surface water near the airport in 2019, but no action has yet been taken, according to a new report by the Environmental Working Group.
The environmental advocacy group looked at publicly available data related to PFAS testing at DOD sites across the Great Lakes region and found that several sites, including Mitchell Airport, could be contaminating not only groundwater but the lakes that give the area its name.
Some of the highest levels of the chemicals were found in private drinking wells along the borders of the Milwaukee airport, said Jared Hayes, a policy analyst with the Environmental Working Group. And because no aggressive action has been taken since the discovery of the compounds, some residents in the area may not even know they’re at risk.
The department ordered that the airport needed to determine the source of the contamination, prevent future discharges and develop a cleanup plan. At the time, levels were not high enough to be considered a public health concern, but the department wanted the water utility to monitor levels.
Included in the testing results in 2019 were about six compounds, including PFOA and PFOS, two of the most researched PFAS chemicals.
Though recommendations at the time called for wastewater utilities to start measuring for PFAS, no such rules have yet been instituted, because the utilities are not the source of chemicals but merely a receiver as the chemicals are washed down drains across the state.
Milwaukee isn’t the only city to face a PFAS contamination stemming from its airport. In Madison, contamination stemming from the Dane County Regional Airport — where the 115th Fighter Wing of the Wisconsin Air National Guard is stationed — has been linked to high levels of PFAS in a nearby lake and some nearby wells.
On French Island, which is home to the La Crosse Regional Airport on one side and the Town of Campbell on the other, over a thousand people are receiving bottled water after PFAS were found in private drinking water across the island. Research into the airport’s past has shown that ongoing testing of PFAS-containing firefighting foam and foam used to put out blazes caused by plane crashes are likely responsible for most of the contamination.
PFAS are a family of man-made chemicals used for their water- and stain-resistant qualities in products like clothing and carpet, nonstick cookware, packaging and firefighting foam. The family includes 5,000 compounds, which are persistent, remaining both in the environment and the human body over time.
“It was 8 a.m. and the sleepy Afghan sergeant stood at what he called the front line, one month before the city of Kunduz fell to the Taliban. An unspoken agreement protected both sides. There would be no shooting.
That was the nature of the strange war the Afghans just fought, and lost, with the Taliban.
President Biden and his advisers say the Afghan military’s total collapse proved its unworthiness, vindicating the American pullout. But the extraordinary melting away of government and army, and the bloodless transition in most places so far, point to something more fundamental.
The war the Americans thought they were fighting against the Taliban was not the war their Afghan allies were fighting. That made the American war, like other such neocolonialist adventures, most likely doomed from the start.
Recent history shows it is foolish for Western powers to fight wars in other people’s lands, despite the temptations. Homegrown insurgencies, though seemingly outmatched in money, technology, arms, air power and the rest, are often better motivated, have a constant stream of new recruits, and often draw sustenance from just over the border.
Outside powers are fighting one war as visitors — occupiers — and their erstwhile allies who actually live there, something entirely different. In Afghanistan, it was not good versus evil, as the Americans saw it, but neighbor against neighbor.
When it comes to guerrilla war, Mao once described the relationship that should exist between a people and troops. “The former may be likened to water,” he wrote, “the latter to the fish who inhabit it.”
And when it came to Afghanistan, the Americans were a fish out of water. Just as the Russians had been in the 1980s. Just as the Americans were in Vietnam in the 1960s. And as the French were in Algeria in the 1950s. And the Portuguese during their futile attempts to keep their African colonies in the ’60s and ’70s. And the Israelis during their occupation of southern Lebanon in the ’80s.
Each time the intervening power in all these places announced that the homegrown insurgency had been definitively beaten, or that a corner had been turned, smoldering embers led to new conflagrations.
