“In August 2018, about 250 fed-up Hawaiians filed into a Department of Transportation meeting in Hilo to rail against a steady stream of helicopters passing over their homes—as many as 80 a day—en route to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. One commenter, standing at the microphone, said, “It’s getting to the point where you think I could hit that thing with a .357.”
In 2019, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and Hawaii Island Coalition Malama Pono (HICOP) sued the FAA and NPS to force them to implement the law. Their suit named seven NPS sites: Bryce Canyon, Glacier, Great Smoky Mountains, Haleakala, Hawaii Volcanoes, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and Muir Woods National Monument (which no longer qualifies because it has fewer than 50 overflights per year). “If there is no credible threat of a mandatory limit, tour operators have zero incentive to voluntarily impose one,” says PEER general counsel Paula Dinerstein.”
