December 17, 2018
Elk Grove Village is located directly northwest of the O’Hare airport boundary, represents an area of less than eleven square miles and is home to over 33,000 residents. Like neighboring municipalities’ Wood Dale and Itasca, Elk Grove Village has endured nonstop jet noise and air pollution for five years.
Currently, Elk Grove Village is affected by one flight path (far north black broken line illustrated below): Pratt/Belle Plaine parallel (9L/27R). Two more flight paths will be added or expanded by the end of 2021 (red broken lines illustrated below): parallels (1) Thorndale 9R/27L and (2) Granville/Devon 9C/27C. The runway aligned with Granville/Devon will be open in 2020. The Thorndale runway will be extended to 11,260 feet and widened, and opened in 2021. Both runways are expected to take 60% of the overnight cargo traffic once they are activated. Elk Grove Village residents will be further inundated with additional jet noise and air pollution as a result of these two runways. Countless schools, parks and commercial districts for Elk Grove Village are directly under or adjacent to these three flight paths.
Elk Grove Village residents currently experience jet noise in the range of 80 - 110 decibels on a 24/7 basis. (65 decibels is considered an ‘unhealthy’ threshold, 120 decibels is considered physically damaging to the human body.) As a result, residents experience consistent and sustained general annoyance, stress, sleep disturbance, and impaired cognitive performance. Noise annoyance, chronic stress, and sleep disturbance ultimately contributes to the development of cardiovascular risk of coronary artery disease, arterial hypertension, stroke, and heart failure.
Being within 5-miles of the airport boundary (a red-zone for jet air pollution and ultrafine particulates), Elk Grove Village residents inhale and have skin-contact with a daily dose of toxins. The highest concentration of ultrafine particulates, sulfur dioxides, black carbon, and nitrogen oxides (roughly 10 times above normal) are within a few miles of O’Hare. Schools and homes within Elk Grove Village are being inundated with an overwhelming source of air pollution. The long-term impact on residents’ health will be catastrophic, particularly for school children and the elderly.
According to the official Chicago Department of Aviation/O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission Monthly reports, Elk Grove Village residents logged 466,069 noise complaints for calendar year 2017 (compared to only 17 complaints five years earlier). For the month May 2017, residents logged their greatest number of complaints at 63,610; the highest figure ever recorded in Elk Grove Village’s history. In comparison, the monthly complaint average for 2012 was 1!
