EPA wailing sounds sweet to FedEx foes.

The proposed Federal Express hub is generating a lot of noise in the Triad. It's not those lumbering aircargo planes -- the $300 million project Greensboro landed amid great fanfare two years ago is still in the planning stages. It's the opponents, many of whom live in neighborhoods near Piedmont Triad International Airport, where a third runway is planned to accommodate FedEx planes ferrying packages in and out during the night. "There's a letter in the newspaper just about every day," says Andrew Brod, director of business and economic research at UNC Greensboro's business school.

Critics turned up the volume this summer following the release of an Environmental Protection Agency report recommending the hub not be built if the only choices are the five layouts now under consideration. The EPA has no control over the hub's fate. Its comments are among many the Federal Aviation Administration will consider in drafting its final environmental-impact statement. The airport needs FAA approval so that it can receive federal funding (about $122 million) to help build the new runway.

Still, proponents of the project -- which would employ 1,500 and, according...