Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Among Those Arrested at Vermont Protest of F-35 Fighter Jets

Ahead of a Tuesday referendum in Burlington, Vermont on whether local officials should fight plans to base F-35 bomber planes at the city airport next year, protesters—including the co-founder of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company—were arrested Saturday for a demonstration featuring a simulation of the jet noise that will be generated by the aircrafts.

“If it’s legal for the F-35 to make this noise 16 times per day, 4-6 days per week, 52 weeks a year, for the next 50 years, it should be legal for us to do this limited demonstration of extreme jet blasts.”
—Ben Cohen, activist and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder

The activists, including Ben Cohen—whose ice cream company is based in Burlington—were arrested for disorderly conduct and violating city noise ordinances by playing “jet noise from a tower of speakers mounted on the back of a pickup truck at a level they said simulated what it would be like to be underneath the flight path,” the Burlington Free Press reported.

Cohen’s sound machine played 115 decibels of jet blast noise for six minutes—the same amount of time that residents would be exposed to the F-35’s jet blast if the planes are sent to the Vermont Air National Guard Station at the city’s airport, according to a statement from the group Save Our Skies Vermont, which opposes the basing plans.

“If the F-35 comes to Vermont, the Air Force says that over 6,600 adults and children will live in a zone that the Federal Government declares to be ‘unsuitable for residential use,'” Cohen said.