Bay Area neighbors hated airport noise. Then came the billionaires.

An annual and highly hush-hush summer soiree for one of the most secretive fraternal clubs in the country unwittingly solved an ongoing noise issue at a Bay Area airport. However, after the Bohemian Grove event ends on Sunday, the racket returns for neighbors living near the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport.

Read more Tourists harassing sea lions at busy La Jolla beach

The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily adjusted the departure procedures at Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport leading up to the Bohemian Grove earlier this month. A spokesperson for the agency in an email to SFGATE cited “safety reasons due to the increased air traffic from the nearby Bohemian Grove event.”  

For flying out of the airport, there are a few possible departure procedures, including the previously standard CHRLY8 and the newer RREHD1. The latter has recently become a persistent problem for residents in Sebastopol and other West County communities.

Pilots departing the airport using the RREHD1 protocol fly at lower altitudes over homes. Since the FAA updated departure procedures for the airport in January 2024, noise complaints have skyrocketed. According to a report in the Press Democrat, there were nearly 30,000 complaints filed last year and over 15,000 in the first quarter of this year.

However, for the last three weeks, the Bay Area communities found an unexpected reprieve from the Bohemian Club. The FAA’s temporary adjustment directed pilots to use the other departure procedure. The Press Democrat reported that this reduced outbound flights on the noisy route by 82% since July 9, the day the Bohemian Grove started.  

Read more Tourists are still harassing the sea lions at La Jolla Cove

Headquartered in San Francisco, the club hosts the Bohemian Grove gathering, a reverie in the redwoods for its affluent and often Republican members. Tales of drunken debauchery and a ritual effigy burning leak out from time to time; last year, a lawsuit filed from former employees alleged that a politically influential billionaire told staff to clean his underwear by hand during a Bohemian Grove gathering. 

The FAA said it will switch back to the previous procedures when the event ends. “The agency continuously works to help reduce the number of people exposed to aviation noise in communities around airports,” the spokesperson wrote.