West Sonoma county residents, who historically have been largely spared the sight and sound of commercial jets coming out of the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport, have registered more than 40,000 noise complaints in the first six months of this year.
Congressman Jared Huffman registered his own complaint earlier this month when he convened a media event to accuse the “oligarchs and billionaires” of the Bohemian Grove of using their influence to force a change in Federal Aviation Administration procedures to keep the west-county skies temporarily quiet during their annual gathering in Monte Rio.
West Sonoma County residents commenting in this newspaper and at county Board of Supervisors meetings have urged that commercial flights be limited to “the Highway 101 corridor” because, well, it’s already noisy over there.
And, two weeks ago, a resident of Santa Rosa wrote to The Press Democrat that five commercial jets had flown over her house after 11 p.m. on a Monday night. Why us? she seemed to plead.
What’s going on here?
Well, frankly, a lot. New FAA procedures. Temporary changes in those procedures, apparently in deference to the well-connected members of the Bohemian Club. A significant increase in air traffic at STS. And a vigorous campaign from west Sonoma County property owners to send the noise elsewhere.
Let’s take these one at a time, starting with the last item. Complaints about airport noise are not unusual. But the number registered in just the first six months of this year is eye-popping: 40,667. It’s a number hard to comprehend, considering that’s almost as many people who live in all of unincorporated west Sonoma County. But not everyone who lives there is filing a complaint. The 40,667 calls came from just 322 unique callers, according to Airport Manager John Stout. In other words, that group averaged 126 calls per person over a six month period.
Noise complaints about the airport started to grow in January 2024, when new FAA orders sent departing commercial jets into the skies over west county. That month, 185 complaints were logged at the airport. By January 2025, the number was 497. This past January, it was 3,979.
This June: more than 8,000.
Then along came the Bohemians. During the exclusive club’s legendary July bacchanal, air traffic along the west-county takeoff route was severely curtailed. While local officials had little to say about why that happened, the decrease in noise over Monte Rio coincided with a memo from the FAA to STS that came under the subject line “Bohemian Grove” and changed departure procedures. It resulted in widespread silence in west-county skies for the duration of the annual campout. Once the gathering ended, west-county commercial air traffic resumed.
If the billionaires deserve quiet for a couple of weeks, why don’t west Sonoma County residents deserve it every day? asked Huffman and numerous west Sonoma County residents.
Maybe it’s an obvious question, but it continues to leave out three-fourths of Sonoma County.
Air traffic at STS has seen significant growth in the past decade, and we celebrate that as a community. Additional flights to additional destinations indicate a healthy economy for both business and tourism. This expansion represents convenience visitors and for residents who can eliminate long trips through freeway traffic to and from Bay Area airports.
But more planes bring more noise. In 2016, an average 7.3 commercial jets took off each day from STS. This year, from January to July, the average was 19.2 a day. In the first week of this month, it was 23.4 a day. That’s a noticeable difference to those of us on the ground. All of us.
The airport is an asset that benefits and belongs to all of Sonoma County. The noise it creates is undeniably annoying to many who live within its range. But the solution to that should not be to concentrate all the noise in a single corridor that has absorbed that noise for so long already.
The solution should not be to ignore the disparities in the quality of life between say, Roseland and Forestville, and then act to exacerbate those disparities by sending all departing airplanes in one direction.
What is the solution? Airport Manager Stout recently announced that he has asked the FAA to consider another change in takeoff and landing procedures at STS, and maybe that will help.
But I worry the solutions with the loudest proponents focus almost exclusively on how to return quiet to one quadrant of the county, while dumping the extra noise on another.
The noise should be dispersed across a wide landscape. The consideration of impacts should be, too.
If you’ve read this far you might be interested enough in this topic to fill a vacancy on the county’s Aviation Commission, the advisory board at STS. For information, email district3@sonomacounty.gov.
Chris Coursey is Sonoma County’s District Three Supervisor.
