Dozens of mayors and heads of local councils in central Israel are calling on the government to move Ben Gurion International Airport from its present location, citing security, environmental and economic issues.

Thirty of them recently convened to sign a pact to establish a public council to promote lobbying efforts, and a public relations campaign is underway.

"We represent 3.5 million residents, but the government doesn't care," Moshe Sinai, the mayor of Rosh Ha'ayin, a city of 40,000, told the Yedioth Ahronot's business supplement, according to a Sunday report.

"We ask one thing in everyone's name: let us sleep quietly! It cannot be that the runways will bother so many residents," Sinai said.

The airport's terminal and runways, located 20 km southeast of Tel Aviv, stretch over 7,000 acres and accommodate dozens of daily international flights. Tens of thousands of residents of towns and communities in the vicinity have been complaining for years about the unbearable noise.

Behind the current initiative is architect Yisrael Gudovich, the former Tel Aviv city engineer, who is promoting the idea of reconstructing the airport on an artificial island facing Tel Aviv 's beaches, which he said would free up thousands of precious acres for multi-billion dollar real estate projects.

Praising the large turnout of mayors who responded to his invitation to attend the first meeting on the issue, Gudovich said that senior security officials he spoke with last week were receptive to the idea.

"They, too, understand that the airport, located at the heart of the most crowded civilian population in the country, is becoming a security threat," he told Yedioth Ahronoth. "They agreed that it must be moved immediately, but this kind of decision, of course, is ultimately made by the government."

Gudovic presented plans drawn by Japanese architect Arta Isuzaki, who headed a team appointed to rehabilitate the areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Fukushima in March 2011, which include building airports at sea.

Isuzaki, during a recent visit to Israel, said that doing the same here is absolutely necessary, Gudovich said.

But not all the mayors who have joined the initiative are in favor of a sea-based port, saying it should be relocated to the southern Negev desert.

"One way or the other, we will soon launch a struggle to turn this airport to history and liberate us of the nuisance," Gudovich said.