The Nantucket County Capital Program Committee on Tuesday voted to include the airport’s $5,000,000 request (NMA 26005) for a noise wall along the south ramp in the committee’s capital program report.

The vote followed a public-comment presentation by Noah Carver of the airport and questions from committee members about acoustical effectiveness, visual impact and how the project would be funded. Carver told the committee the proposed wall would sit inside the existing vegetation, would be about 20 feet high with a 3-foot angled extension to reflect noise back onto the ramp, and that the airport is “still promoting, expected all in cost for construction of $5,000,000.”

Committee members pressed for evidence the wall will reduce community noise and for clarity on long‑term maintenance and precedent. Carver said acoustical modeling had been done with FAA‑sanctioned software used in Part 150 studies and that the wall was designed using that modeling. He also said two noise monitors have been recently installed at the airport so the agency can establish a before‑and‑after dataset if the wall is built. “We did do some acoustical modeling specific to the design of the wall,” Carver said, and described modeled reductions for adjacent homes on the order of “3 to 7, maybe it’s 7 to 12 decibels from sort of an instantaneous noise event.”

On maintenance, Carver said the structure would likely be concrete and compared it to other long‑lived concrete installations: “Typically concrete is a 50 year longer, structure and it involves sort of a 20 year resealing.” On funding, committee members were told the project would be a 100% airport share with no AIP (Airport Improvement Program) federal funding; the airport would seek short‑term borrowing (bank anticipatory notes) and intends to retire those with certified retained earnings in later years.

Several committee members said they had been skeptical of the project previously but that the wall’s proposed location — inside existing vegetation and not visible from the roadway — made them more favorable. Other members reiterated concerns about setting precedent for similar walls along other stretches of airport property; staff said any future extension or different location would require separate permitting and public review under state and local processes.

The committee approved including NMA 26005 in the capital program report after a revote. The airport representative said the design team intends to finish documents for competitive bidding and that bids might align with the town’s annual meeting schedule.

The committee asked staff to preserve the record of public comment and to make available the airport’s acoustical modeling and the airport’s monitoring data once collected. Next steps described on the record: finalize design documents, post for bid, monitor noise levels and return with data if the committee asks for additional evaluation.