The Haines Borough Assembly voted on Tuesday night to overturn a decision by the planning commission. The commission had issued a permit to Chilkat River Adventure for a heliport at its property 24 miles up the Haines Highway. The company intended to use the location as a staging area for its heliskiing tours.
The vote means there will be no helicopters landing there.
Five different appeals challenged the permit, mostly focusing on noise.
Jones P Hotch, Jr., Vice President of the Chilkat Indian Village, spoke of the need to protect traditional life in the valley and protect the animals that live there.
“We have been a tribal government recognized by western culture since 1934, but we have had tribal sovereignty since time immemorial,” he said. “We believe there are already more than enough helicopters in our valley. And we hope the Haines borough understands that the heliport is not compatible with surrounding land uses, including our traditional practices.”
Jessica Kayser-Forester, a consultant to the Chilkat Indian Village, cited studies of noise impact.
“The ambient noise level of this neighborhood was measured at 21 decibels. At the helipad itself the measurements exceeded 104 decibels,” she said. “Seventy is what the EPA and World Health Organization consider safe for human hearing. Forty-five decibels is loud enough to wake up a person within a one mile radius. One hundred four decibels will have a large impact on nearby residents. You cannot say that this is not undue noise. And will impact the village of Klukwan enough to wake residents during their sleep.”
Kayser-Forester cited further studies showing some animals are exponentially more sensitive to noise than humans.
And resident Riley Hall painted a picture of the acoustic properties of the area.
“The only things that mitigate helicopter noise are distance and acoustic barriers,” Hall said. “This specific location has none of those. It’s on flat ground with a mountain backdrop. And my joke about that mountain backdrop is it’s kind of a sound amplifier. If a duck farts in Klukwan I’m going to hear it at my property.”
Chilkat River Adventure owner Sean Gaffney took exception to the noise studies, claiming sound at the study area travels differently than at the River Adventure property.
Following a half hour of discussion about noise impacts, the assembly voted 5-1 that a heliport would create undue noise in the neighborhood. Assembly member Jerry Lapp cast the dissenting vote, citing existing industrial uses in the area.
“If you look at it on parcel viewer, this area is about half industrial,” he said. “You ‘ve got a rock crusher there, you’ve got a rock washer there, and you got another pit just down the road right here on the highway.”
Mayor Doug Olerud said the Planning Commission’s November decision emphasized the need to establish clear communication lines between the Chilkat Indian Village and the Haines Borough.
“To the people of the Chilkat Indian Village, I know during this I’d said certain things about having meetings,” he said. “And unfortunately as I looked through code, those meetings were not allowed for me to do. But as we moved forward with this, I would like to continue on working with you and find a way that we can have a government-to-government relationship that we can codify in some manner so as we go forward with things in the future, there is a mechanism for us to rely on.”
Permit applicant Sean Gaffney, whose company already has other helipads operating in the valley, did not respond to a request for comment.
