MAIL dd 1.11.2003 TO THE BULLETIN

Sir,

About your NIMBY-investigation (Not In My Back Yard which I translate as Not In My Brussels Yard) I would like to be more clear than I could be during a first interview on the telephone, in this complicated matter.

Your question: are we happy to give everybody its fair share of nuisance and pollution around the airport should have been answered in two parts.

First: no we are not happy. No one is happy with airplanenoise.

But if you live close to the airport you have planes. Period. The closer the more (because they can only spread after take-of and this goes gradually), the lower and the noisier.

WE did not say everybody has to take its fair share, the judges of the Cour d'Appel say so. And Verhofstadt II said they wanted it to be done this way in their Declaration.

The Noordrand is ready to take its fair share as it has always done.

Till in 2000 the antidemocratic and discrimanatory concentrationprinciple was adopted by Verhofstad I and not stopped by Dewael's Flemish government).

The Noordrand only saw the first consequences of that political decision

- summer 2002 for the day and

- the first of november 2002 for 80% (80%!!!!) of the nightflights,

- the next 20% to be added for the 1st of january 2003 but they did not dare to do that too.

The 11th of June 2003 the Cour d'Appel has ruled and corrected the Belgian State and its two responsible administrations BIAC and Belgocontrol and imposed 'spreiding'.

The Belgian Constitution forbids any form of discrimination and so does the European Declaration of Human Rights.

The idea was to concentrate first, to isolate later (no budget had been voted in 2002, the inhabitants not informed).

Verhofstadt got the idea concentrate-isolate-concentrate further in Schiphol but in Holland they did it very differently there. They voted a budget by parliament (surpassed 10X since but that is another story), informed the inhabitants, did the isolation program and than opened a new runway.

They DID NOT CONCENTRATE NIGHT AND DAY ON THE SAME GROUP OF PEOPLE AS VERHOFSTADT ONE DID ABOVE THE NOORDRAND! THey build new runways to make Schiphol grow. The airport lies west of Amsterdam in the Polders which is favorable for 85% of the prevailing winds, Zaventem lies North-East of Brussels, unfavorable for 85% of the prevailing winds.

The Noordrand got the concentration day and night and a vague promise of isolation within now and five years. No one knew on what conditions, what were the nuisancelevels taken into account, how they were measured and calculated and no one asked if we agreed. We had to sit still, take the day and night concentration, shut up and wait for things to come.

We all lived in de Noordrand before the concentration came sometimes for many many years already (I live here from 1975) and we always accepted our fair share. No one asked us if we agreed to be concentrated, isolated (the answer is NO), and then concentrated again because Zaventem could grow then, but ONLY ABOVE OUR HEADS!!!!

Schiphol has twice the number of runways as Zaventem and uses them in a maximum way and spreads from take-off.

We know from reading the Dutch papers that the consecutive governments there have been lying about nuisance, isolation cost and isolation effectiveness. There are rows and scandals all the time now. Isolation is NOT a solution. If it's effective against noise you get mouldgrowht and allergies in the house; 25% of isolated people sleep with their window open - which cuts any isolation effect - because it's disagreeable to sleep with windows closed as I have been forced to do since DHL started to use very heavy aircraft at night in 1999. I was a fervent open windowsleeper even with frost.

So we are NOT happy to give anybody nuisance, but things being as they are and especcially Zaventem being where it is: too close to Brussels and badly situated, the fair share of nuisance being linked with the distance to the airport, every Belgian citizen can decide for himself how much he trades for living close to Zaventem.

Only if the Noordrand is ABSOLUTELY sure no discrimanatory airport policy will EVER be possible again, we are ready to engage in the debate about the future of the airport, nightflights etc. But as long as we are being discriminated and as long as a certain political, very influentual and powerfull (read my lips) Brussels lobby (ordinary people don't make a big fuss about a few planes per hour and one or two per night if they know everybody gets its fair share), dreams of putting everything above our heads (and yes, us being flemish plays here as does the fact that in the Oostrand there live many fonctionnaires of the European Union) we will fight for our democratic rights.

Let anybody tell me in my face we are not a democracy any more...

J.O.

Grimbergen