Plane noise at preserve irritates neighbors

Valeria Belanich thought a perk of retirement would be relaxing on her Dix Hills patio.

But the 74-year-old said sitting outside has been anything but soothing, due to the constant drone of model airplanes nearby at the Edgewood Oak Brush Plains Preserve.

"It's something that overwhelms your brain," she said.

Belanich is not alone. For more than a year, Patricia Burkhart of Deer Park has been battling the Edgewood Flyers, a model aviator group that uses the 850-acre state-owned nature preserve that spans Babylon, Huntington and Islip.

The Flyers have used the site since 1972 and were grandfathered into the preserve's 1994 management plan created by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The plan states that the Flyers' use of the site may be "curtailed or eliminated if it poses an unresolvable conflict with the principal users." Burkhart said the DEC should adhere to this clause, as the plane noise has pushed some people to abandon preserve hikes; and she expressed concern about the possible impacts on animal life in the preserve.

Things came to a head in July when DEC officials advised Burkhart to rethink a scheduled group hike because it coincided with a Flyers event expected to draw more than 200 people, saying that it might not showcase the preserve as "a quiet nature experience."

Burkhart and others disbanded the Friends of Edgewood, which had been a steward of the preserve; and they are now the watchdog group Save the Oak Brush Plains.

"I understand there's not a lot of fields around here for them, but this is not a park, it's a nature preserve," she said. "The DEC is not managing the site correctly."

DEC regional director Peter Scully defended the agency's handling of the preserve and said recent complaints are the first they have heard. "While we will consider any complaint seriously, our experience shows that the group is a responsible and careful user of the property," he said.

The Flyers' John Sabini said the group's 300-plus members fly one or two planes at a time, for up to 10 minutes; and they only fly from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., within a half-mile zone that does not transgress residential areas.

Denis Byrne, who helped found Friends in 2005 and heads Long Island Greenways and Healthy Trails, another steward of the preserve, defended the Flyers and the DEC, which recently ticketed 15 ATV users.

There are "many more serious matters at hand that are a much larger threat to the preserve than the Edgewood Flyers," he said, adding that the group provides "eyes and ears on the site that help prevent other negative users."

Sabini said his group cleans and restores parts of the preserve and provides family-oriented fun. "We don't contribute one iota to the noise footprint that's already there," he said.

But Belanich's daughter Alexandra said the planes are "very loud, very disruptive, and it just goes on all day long."

At her behest, the DEC sent a ranger to test noise levels by having someone fly a large plane; but the noise was barely audible in her home. "He made me feel like I was nuts," she said. "But listening to a plane for five minutes is not like listening to it for five hours."