Why Malverne has airplane noise, and how you can help

Are you tired of the airplane noise over Malverne, particularly when you’re trying to sleep? Does noise from the sky seem louder than the noise coming from the Long Island Rail Road, which is less than a mile away for most villagers? Lifelong Malverne resident Larry Hoppenhauer feels your pain, and asks for only two minutes of your time — to file a complaint.

Hoppenhauer suggests you call the Airport Noise Complaint Line, (800) 225-1071. You only need to do it once.

Hoppenhauer is Malverne’s representative on the Town-Village Aircraft Safety & Noise Abatement Committee, which has been leading the charge to reduce the plane noise overhead. He explained to the Herald that the complaints help make it clear that the noise is a nuisance for residents.

“Very few people are actually registering complaints,” he said. “It’s hard to say, ‘The residents are complaining about airplane noise’ when the Port Authority stats don’t show that.” Even daily complaints from the same person, Hoppenhauer explained, don’t add to the tally of complaints kept by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

Though Malvernites are well aware of the plane noise and complain about it often to one another, “Many don’t understand why, all of a sudden, we got air traffic,” he said.

The noise began in 2010, when the Port Authority was repairing a runway at Kennedy International Airport and had to divert traffic to runway 4L, which sends departing flights over Malverne. After the runway was repaired, however, the traffic didn’t revert back to its previous pattern. The village government joined TVASNAC that year, and Hoppenhauer joined the committee shortly afterward as the village’s representative.