Commissioners to review sightseeing helicopter ban

Solid waste proposal to be reviewed Aug. 23

By Lisa Majors-Duff

Instead of listening to Qualla area residents' complaints about noise caused by a sightseeing helicopter in their community and then doing next to nothing, Jackson County commissioners last week instructed their attorney to review the legalities of an ordinance prohibiting such businesses here.

"I think it's time we did something about this and gave these people some relief," Commissioner Conrad Burrell told an audience of about 40 mostly Qualla residents gathered in one of the Justice Center's two courtrooms. "All these folks here tonight are Jackson County taxpayers. I'll bet most of those who ride the helicopter are tourists."

Commissioners first heard complaints from Qualla residents about the sightseeing helicopter owned by Great Smoky Mountain Helicopters in June 1999. About 20 residents said at that time that the noise generated by the helicopter was disrupting their way of life. Board members heard these same complaints again this past February during a Smart Growth meeting held in the community.

"We're in big trouble here and we need help," Qualla resident Elizabeth Abbott told commissioners last week. "We need relief from this helicopter."

Abbott cited safety concerns associated with the helicopter's flight path and altitude, which she described as "low."

"We are captives in our own homes," she said. "We have no privacy unless we are under our own roofs."

Dr. David Trigg, a longtime resident of Qualla community and an emergency room physician at Harris Regional Hospital, pointed out some of the health concerns associated with the noise created by the helicopter.

"Chronic noise has a cumulative effect," he said. "It makes you anxious and makes you want to fight. That's why we're here tonight."

Trigg said he was forced to install a window-unit air conditioner to be able to sleep during the day when he is required to work at night.

"We're all trying to make a living the best way we can, but we all need to be good neighbors, too," Trigg said. "I don't start my chainsaw at 6 in the morning."

"We believe the commissioners will come to our aid," said Jill Hartline, another Qualla resident who brought to the commissioners' attention an ordinance adopted in Haywood County that prohibits helicopter sightseeing operations.

Cherokee Tribal Council member Marie Junaluska spoke briefly about her board's overflight ordinance adopted in 1998, which is geared toward regulating "commercial air tours." Still, she said, people in her district - Painttown - continue to voice complaints about the noise, fumes and lack of privacy caused by the helicopter.

"It's like Chinese water torture," said resident Ron Williams about the helicopter's every-four-minute flight plan. "You either feel the drip or you're waiting for the drip."

"I was hoping (the helicopter issue) would be like a bad haircut," said board Chairman Jay Denton, "that it would go away. But it hasn't."

"If the board wants to, we can forward this to the county attorney and see if anything can be done," he said.

By a unanimous vote, board members agreed to ask their attorney, Raymond Large, who was not present for the Aug. 2 meeting, to draft an ordinance for their review. The decision received a round of applause from the audience.

In other business to come before the board, commissioners agreed to hold a special meeting Thursday, Aug. 23, during which they will meet with members of the solid waste advisory board to review a proposed solid waste management ordinance.

The proposal includes a section outlining duties of private haulers, including the requirement that such businesses be permitted by the county and pay annual fees. The section also requires private haulers to separate recyclables from solid waste and to pay their own landfill tipping fees.

In the section dealing with staffed recycling centers, the proposed ordinance is left open-ended, saying a list of rules and procedures for SRCs will be drafted and posted. The section would also make it illegal for commercial waste to be disposed at an SRC.

Finally, the proposal includes a "pay-as-you-throw" option for review. This section would require residents to purchase stickers and affix them to bags of garbage or items to be left in the "gray goods" containers, a term not defined in the ordinance but generally referring to items too large for a bag or the SRC compactors.

The specific guidelines for implementing the use of stickers would be part of the SRC operating procedures left open in the earlier section. The cost of the stickers would be established and adjusted annually by the board of commissioners. Reproducing or counterfeiting solid waste stickers would be a crime, the document proposes.

Back to Archive: 08/09/01.