Prague - Within the next few years the new runway should enhance the capacity of Prague Ruzyně airport but, at the same time more people living in the surrounding areas will have to deal with increased noise levels.
"We face too much noise already now but what the new runway would cause is just insane," said Martina Průšová, member of the initiative Přátelé Hendlova dvora (Friends of Hendl´s neighborhood) that represents residents of Prague neighborhoods of Hanspaulka and Baba who are unhappy about the planned airport construction.
So far the most affected neighborhood by the airport was Nebušice that even filed a successful complaint with the Constitution court which decided to postpone the construction of the airport.
More troubled places afoot
As the new research shows, there will be more places like Nebušice in the future, mainly in the northwest of the capital. The Airport Prague already recommended to people in the district Baba what anti-noise windows to purchase.
The opponents of the planned runway say that it will strike many other areas - like the luxurious part of Prague called Hanspaulka or the popular park Divoká Šárka and others.
Protesting voices come from many Prague residents because too high decibel levels have negative impact on health and might be one of the causes of high blood pressure or diabetes.
"The new runway is built to increase capacity and profits of the private owner of the airport. We will be the ones whose property and living environment will be hurt," five civil initiatives state in their declaration.
Noise levels in question
The Airport denies their accusations saying that no noise limits will be broken in Hanspaulka or Divoká Sárka.
The only possibly over-limit areas are in the northwestern part of Nebušice and southern part of Suchdol, said Eva Krejčí, the spokeswoman for the Airport Prague.
"Those areas are about 1.5 kilometres away from Baba," she said pointing out that the runway will be closed at night.
Martina Průšová from one of the civil initiatives, however, says that even if Baba and Hanspaulka are not part of the over-limit zone it does not mean that the noise levels will not rise profoundly.
"The noise limit lies by sixty decibel. That is an average data, a momentary noise level can be much higher. People are complaining about the noise even now before the runway is built," she said.
The Airport conducted a study about impacts of the planned runway on the environment.
Ministry of Enviroment addressed
It is now being viewed by the Czech Ministry of Environment. The runway opponents hope that Minister Martin Bursík will listen to their complaints and refuse the study.
The Airport claims to be doing everything to minimize the noise levels. It is distributing millions of crowns to surrounding neighborhoods and villages for environmental measurements and anti-noise windows. It measures the noise levels and makes the air companies pay a high noise tax.
"The purpose of our research was to study the worst possible scenario. It is very likely that the real levels will be much more favourable,"said the Airport's spokeswoman Eva Krejčí.
The Airport has been also stressing out that the new runway will have a positive effect on noise levels in different parts of Prague - for example densely populated Řepy.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people expressed their negative opinion on the study at the Ministry of Environment.
The village of Hostivice rebels too
Also the communities in the other side of the runway oppose its planned construction - for example the village of Hostivice in Central Bohemia.
"We absolutely oppose the new runway," the city council says, stressing out that the Airport is not suitable for any additional enlargements.
"The Airport is situated very close to Prague and other towns and communities which contradicts the trend in other EU countries where "old airports" are slowed down and new airports are built away enough from the inner cities - like in Paris, London or Berlin," states Hostivice.
The city council thinks that Prague will keep on rapidly expanding in the next years and therefore Ruzyně will become an inner city airport in the next twenty years. "The location of the airport does not have any future.
The strategical planning of the air transportation from and to the Czech Republic has to be made now and not at the time when additional billions of crowns have been already invested in the airport in Ruzyně," Hostivice say.
