Ward 6 resident Mary Stevens says that she hears at least four helicopters flying near her home every day. “It’s like clockwork,” she says. Allison Bishop, who lives four doors down from her, adds that she thinks the helicopters have become “worse than they were before.”
Stevens and Bishop are some of the nearly 40 people that packed into the lower-level conference room at Southeast Library Monday evening for an ANC 6B meeting on the relocation of the South Capitol Street Heliport. Amid a lack of information about the plans for the heliport, they both worry that the move could make the noise worse.
The meeting was led by ANC Commissioners Corey Holman of 6B06, Kelly Waud of 6B07, and Kirsten Oldenburg of 6B04, who opened the evening by saying that they themselves knew very little about the relocation. Waud adds that the 6B commissioners only found out about the proposed change roughly six weeks ago, and “it’s been hard to do anything about it without information.”
The heliport, which is owned and operated by the company Congressional Aviation, currently sits near the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge along the western side of the Anacostia River. It is slated to be relocated within the next three years. Its two landing pads and refueling services are used by the city’s police department for air support and by Children’s Hospital and George Washington University Hospital to transport critical patients, according to CEO Geoff Rankin.
“I personally don’t want to move,” Rankin told residents at the meeting. He said the change-up is driven by the fact that the lease for the land currently housing the heliport lapses in 2022.
The city is in initial discussions with Congressional Aviation to assist the group in identifying potential relocation sites, Department of General Services director Keith Anderson said in an emailed statement to DCist. “At this time there are no official recommendations,” he said. “Any recommended locations will undergo substantial evaluation and public engagement.”
While no site has officially been recommended yet, Rankin says that “right now, the focal point is the 11th Street Bridge,” specifically a parcel of land along the banks of the Anacostia near 12th and Water streets SE.
Scott Kratz, who lives in ANC 6B and is the director of the forthcoming 11th Street Bridge Park, tells DCist he’s worried that relocating the heliport near the bridge would interfere with the park’s planned outdoor amphitheater. “I wouldn’t want to be listening to some spoken word piece or an orchestra piece and have a helicopter landing or taking off,” he says.
Rankin says via email that, as part of the group’s exploration efforts, they enlisted the assistance of a third party to conduct a “noise study” of the proposed area and found that the area already experienced “noise pollution” from trains, highway traffic, and boats at the nearby Washington Yacht Club.
Another resident at the meeting was concerned about the environmental impacts that the heliport’s fueling services might have on river restoration efforts, questioning if the city would conduct an environmental impact statement before choosing a site and if there would be protocols in place to prevent a fuel spill.
“South Capitol Street Heliport has a history of excellent fuel storage along the Anacostia,” Rankin says. “We aren’t intending to impede any of the admirable environmental work that has been done by the entire community.”
Ariel Trahan, who directs the Anacostia Watershed Society’s river restoration program, tells DCist via email that this is a concern that’s on the group’s radar. “As the river continues to recover, we need to carefully and critically think about the best use of our valuable riverfront property,” she says.
Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen has also voiced his opposition to relocating the heliport near the 11th Street Bridge, and representatives of his office were at the meeting. “We certainly do need a helipad, but this just isn’t the right location,” Allen tells DCist over the phone. “It’s a poor use of that land … I see this as a retreat from the work that we’ve been doing to rebound the Anacostia River.”
Oldenburg says that the 6B commissioners will submit a list of questions from the evening to the Office of the City Administrator and have invited City Administrator Rashad Young to their next meeting in early September.
