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New Wetlands Discovery Voids DOE OK ** Cancer Rates Higher Near Airport ** In Brief
[Page 2]
Neighborhood Sues King County for "Rush to Judgment" on Boeing Field Expansion ** Rep. Adam Smith Calls For GAO Investigation of Port Insulation Program ** ACC Takes Four Suits to State Court of Appeals ** **
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Port Still Dragging Feet On Assistance to Highline Schools ** Funny­money financing for runway still can’t foot the bill­­now $1.5 billion
[Page 4]
** Westside Owners Force Port to Court ** Traffic Problems ** Where Does the Fill Originate? ** What’s the Deal With the Dirt? ** [Page 5]
** Editorial: What the Third Runway Fight Has Achieved ** C.A.S.E. Monthly Meetings Resume ** RCAA Needs You!

[Page 1]

In Brief Port Can’t Fund Runway Port has only part of money to build runway. Airlines balk at funding the expansion. Cost of borrowing money likely to drive actual price tag over $1.5 billion. See article on page 3 Dirt Trucks Roll, But Not to Runway Site The Port sent out press releases announcing the start of third runway construction and set the trucks a­rolling, but they aren’t rolling to the third runway construction site. What’s going on? See article on page 4 Port to Settle with C.A.S.E. On Discharge Permit Contaminated water from Sea-Tac Airport will be treated in a new $20 million facility, according to sources involved in negotiations between the state Department of Ecology, C.A.S.E., and the Airport. Both C.A.S.E. and the Airport appealed the terms of a waste-water discharge permit issued earlier this year by the Ecology. C.A.S.E. has held out for much more stringent conditions, including a new facility to treat all waste-water. Settlement documents will be signed in early September, with the Port conceding most of what C.A.S.E. demanded. Good news for the people, fish, and birds along Miller and Des Moines Creeks Floatplanes May Fly From Seattle Waterfront Kenmore Air spokesperson Tim Brooks said in late August that in the next few weeks the firm will probably re­activate its application to run 72 floatplane flights per day from Seattle’s central waterfront. Brooks expects speedy approval from Seattle’s Department of Construction and Land Use.

Sea-Tac third-runway construction schedules have been set back again, this time because of problems with permits for construction in wetlands in the headwaters of Miller Creek. The Airport’s application now pending with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must be re-written and re-submitted, owing to serious underestimates of the amount of wetlands to be filled. At least 8 and possibly more acres have been found, with more studies to do. A prior approval issued by the Department of Ecology has been rescinded. As Sea-Tac expansion plans come under increasingly professional scrutiny, more and more problems emerge. Securing approval to fill in wetlands and to alter the headwaters of local creeks requires the Port of Seattle to obey tightly crafted regulations and specific plans, increasingly difficult to comply with, endangering success of the project. To grant certification of the Port’s compliance with sec. 401 of the federal Clean Water Act, the Department of Ecology has imposed what one observer calls the most stringent rules ever imposed on the Port, with tables of automatic penalties ranging up to $1000 per day for relatively minor water-quality violations, accompanied by continuing requirements for a host of reports and follow-up plans. To the distress of local conservationists, however, Ecology also gave the Port approval for destruction of 11.42 acres of wetlands in the Miller Creek watershed on the promise of replacement wetlands in Auburn, in the watershed of the Green River. This action was rescinded because of the newly discovered wetlands. The Corps has a strong preference for not allowing wetlands to be filled at all and has told the Port to rework its plan so as to locate replacements in the same drainage system.

Runway Funding Falls Short

See story on pg. 3

Unusually high incidences of cancers, including rare brain cancers, have been reported in areas within three miles of Sea-Tac Airport. Area residents Rose Clark and Audrey Richter have been collecting cancer and other health data for years. Their work, summarized in an area map, shows higher than expected levels of cancers among past and present residents in the area, a finding confirmed in early Summer by preliminary work of the State Department of Health as to all cancers and as to the rare brain cancer, glioblastoma.

In a series of meetings chaired by Sen. Julia Patterson (D., 33), the State and County health departments have agreed on a work program for further studies of health concerns around Sea-Tac Airport. The first step will be to analyze data in the state cancer registry, to learn what types of cancers are most prevalent around the Airport, with a report to be issued in November 1998. An effort will be made to locate all cases of glioblastoma in the Sea-Tac area, by using cancer registries, community records, and all available medical records, including the resources of Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center. Then, discovered glioblastoma cases will be mapped, to determine spatial relationships to the Airport.

Neighborhood Sues King County for
“Rush to Judgment” on Boeing Field Expansion

A Seattle neighborhood group, Georgetown Crime Prevention and Community Council, has sued King County in an effort to prevent a major expansion of King County International Airport from being put in place before required environmental review is begun. Airport management, and now County Executive Ron Sims and the Council, wish to double the number of cargo flights in and out of the facility. Granting long-term leases to the preferred operators would lock the County into its preferred alternative for the Airport’s future, long before any environmental impact statement was prepared or submitted for public review.

The Master Plan, already identified by the Council as its preferred alternative for the Airport, includes extending the existing 9200-foot runway another 800 feet, and adding a 400-foot-long “blast pad”, northward towards the 1500 residents in the residentially-zoned areas of Georgetown. This extension, which is NOT required by FAA, is an accommodation to one tenant.

“Area residents have every reason to be concerned for their health and quality of life in light of the County’s current plan now being implemented,” said Lorna Dove, 37-year Georgetown resident, and Project Manager of the neighborhood’s EPA Environmental Justice Grant. Airport Manager Cynthia Stewart told Georgetown residents in November 1997 that when the Master Plan is fully implemented, she could not imagine any one wanting to live in Georgetown because of the adverse impacts. In a case filed on August 12, the community council seeks to stop the airport from granting long-term leases of groundside facilities to package-express firms before environmental reviews are done. Two recently adopted ordinances are described as steps to implement the Master Plan update proposed by airport management. One allows the Council to lift its own moratorium on long-term leases of County-owned land & buildings at the Airport. This seemingly innocuous measure would permit Airport management to commit its limited groundside support facilities to its preferred customers, the overnight-package delivery carriers. These operators use older, noisier aircraft, at night. Cargo flights generate 74 percent of the 3647 identifiable noise complaints at the county-owned airport.

The complaint in the lawsuit points out that State environmental law requires environmental review, for the guidance of decision makers, before any action having potential for environmental harm is taken. The procedure followed by County Executive Sims and the Council “turns the State Environmental Protection Policy Act on its head”, the Georgetown council said, “by approving …Sims’ Master Plan prior to completion of any environmental review”. An alternative plan for development of the airport, proposed by community members of the advisory King County Roundtable, was summarily rejected by the Airport, County Executive Sims, and the Council, and will not be studied if an environmental impact statement is performed.

The neighborhood’s suit seeks unspecified money damages and an injunction. The group is represented by Seattle land-use attorney Anthony Reifers.

Further information is available on the website of Seattle Council on Airport Affairs. http://www.scn.org/activism/scaa/

Rep. Adam Smith Calls For GAO Investigation of Port Insulation Program

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D., 9) has called on the U.S. General Accounting Office to conduct an investigation of the residential noise-insulation program of the Port of Seattle. The Port has failed to obtain written declarations of support for its program from the surrounding cities. The Federal grants that support the program require such support.

Burien resident Minnie O.Brasher has asked the Burien City Council to conduct its own investigation of irregularities and inadequacies in the Port noise-remedy program. Sen. Julia Patterson and Rep. Karen Keiser (both D., 33) support further investigation. They point out that the requirement for involvement of surrounding cities is the only rule that “guarantees taxpayers affected by airport impacts have a voice in the noise insulation programs funded by the FAA”.

Funny-money financing for runway
still can’t foot the bill--now $1.5 billion

Airport construction is expensive. Airport construction at Sea-Tac is amazingly expensive. The “sticker” price for Sea-Tac’s proposed 8500-foot third runway, the most costly runway ever proposed in the U.S., is just over $587 million, not including interest costs. Runways of this length usually cost between $85 and $165 million. The Port of Seattle, Sea-Tac’s operator, now has in hand commitments for just $294 million from FAA grants and from revenue bonds repaid by ticket taxes, called” passenger facility charges (PFCs).” With interest on the revenue bonds, the cost is expected to rise to $842 million.

No Ready Sources

But there’s more. The Port still has to find $293 million in up-front cash. It can’t dip further into its PFC receipts for the years 1998 through 2022, because the rest of those revenues are committed to other expansion projects, through the year 2022. The only other source (except car washes, raffles, etc.) is profit on its leases with the commercial airlines. Those leases will be up for renewal in 2001. To cover the costs of third-runway and other big-ticket projects (totaling $1,700 million minimum), lease rates will have to take a big jump. (The Port has not released any estimates on the amount.) Alaska Airlines supports Sea-Tac expansion and is expected to agree to the new rates, whatever they are. United, Delta, TWA, and America West have expressed very serious doubts about the project, and especially the third runway, in comments about using the PFCs for expansion. The new leases will make Sea-Tac uncompetitive with near-by airports. Without financial participation by the airlines, the Port’s financing plans will fail.

At least one major airline is rumored to be planning to move its operations to Portland, and more may follow. The more who leave, the greater the financial burden on the remainder, and the greater the incentive for those who remain to find a cheaper airport. (Vancouver B.C., Moses Lake, Paine Field, and Portland) all are possibilities. No airline is required by law to serve Seattle. They can move wherever they can rent facilities, wherever they can make the best return on the dollar. Using lease payments for the missing $293 million in up-front construction money will add to the financing costs. The Port is still working on the details, but the plan is to issue more bonds, pledging revenues from the leases as security. If this second set of bonds is as costly as the PFC bonds, the estimated interest will amount to $657 million, bringing total cost (before the over-runs) to a whopping $1,499 million.

Purpose? To Cut Delay

The sole reason given for this huge expenditure is to reduce “delay” at Sea-Tac – delay supposedly incurred by arriving passengers. In recent comments filed with the Port United Airlines “disputes the assertion that a third runway is necessary to eliminate a seven minute delay average delay at the airport” and asserts that “none of that delay is attributable to the lack of the third runway, but a number of other factors.” United also said that “the airport’s estimate that a third runway will provide $60 million of operational savings is not supportable using standard business calculations.” TWA, in concert with Delta and United, believes that extending Runway 16L/34LR, instead of building a new runway, is the best alternative to address capacity issues caused by warm weather and Pacific Rim operation.

How Much Delay? None

A study for National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) of major U.S. airports with parallel runways (including Seattle), published in May 1998, and partly funded by FAA, analyzed arrival delays at those airports. What was the report on Sea-Tac? “Arrival delay factors: None”. So, the Port of Seattle wants to spend $1,082 millions of passenger and tax money to cure a problem that outside experts say doesn’t exist! The PFCs, remember, are paid by passengers, most of them from Western Washington. This project would put a billion dollar tax on businesses and private citizens of our area, for which they would receive nothing except the satisfation of knowing that they were landing on the most expensive runway on Planet Earth.

What’s the Deal
With the Dirt?
All those trucks and still less than 4% of the fill

Despite dozens of dual-load dump lumbering to Sea-Tac Airport for months,the new year will find the Port with only four percent of the fill needed for the third runway. RCAA’s analysis shows that at the current rates of delivery, the final loads will arrive in late 2004, the year that the runway is supposed to open. Then many months will be needed for compaction and grading followed by underlayment and huge pours of concrete topped by asphalting.

Where Does the Dirt Go?

According to the Port’s staging plans, 830,000 cubic yards (c.y.) will be stockpiled on Port property this year with another 1 to 3 million c.y. next year. The fill materials go to two locations within the present airport campus. Some is being stockpiled along the western edge, where SR 509 feeds into So. 188th. This stockpile is plainly visible from the street or the highway. Dirt from this stockpile could be used for any of a number of Port construction projects, such as the safety area. The rest, which enters the campus from SR 518 at So. 154th is being used to fill in a low spot in the north-west corner of the Airport, to the east of the site where the Port hopes to build the runway.

Not to the “Third Runway”

No fill has been delivered to the site of the proposed runway. Anyone can drive through the area, from 12th So, west to Des Moines Memorial Drive and see that no construction activity is underway – only destruction of houses & bulldozing of trees. The Port is buying property for the site, and has now acquired a fourth of the needed space, in scattered blocks. Construction (including delivery of fill) is not practical in scattered blocks. The Port’s acquisition plan assumes that the site will be in full Port ownership in Fall 1999. Maybe then third-runway construction could begin. It is NOT underway now.

Neighbors say that the Port is stockpiling dirt while claiming construction has started because it wants to demoralize the citizens in the airport communities whose opposition is one important obstacle to actual construction.

How Much Gravel Is Needed?

Fill for these major projects must meet tough specifications. Construction debris and similar rubbish are inadequate. Port documents and spokespersons have given various numbers as to the amount of fill required. Here are the facts: The biggest single project, in terms of fill, would be the berm for the third runway: the present plan calls for a berm with a volume of 17.25 million c.y. This is not the amount of fill required, for the materials must be compacted after delivery to the site. The Port uses a 15 percent compaction figure, so a total of 19.84 million c.y. will be needed for this purpose. This is equivalent to 1.2 million truck loads, with type of trucks now clogging the highways to Sea-Tac. A cubic yard of fill gravel weighs almost exactly one and one-half tons.

For Sea-Tac’s other construction projects, at least another 5.71 million cubic yards of fill will be required. By the Port’s official estimates, that means some 26.4 million c.y. must be mined and moved.

Christopher Brown and Jimmie Hinze, experts at the University of Florida retained by the Airport Communities Coalition, have said that the Port’s compaction rate is too low; it should be 21.6 percent, making the actual amount needed for all pending projects 27.91 million c.y.

Where Will They Go Next?

No one source in the Central Puget Sound region has enough fill for the Airport’s expansion projects. Sites as far away as DuPont, in Pierce County, and Maltby, in Snohomish County, have been considered. The main candidate is on Maury Island, “little brother” to Vashon Island, where the firm Lone Star Northwest owns a site estimated to hold 14 million cubic yards of suitable materials. Materials would have to be moved to the mainland by barge, either up the Duwamish, or to the City of Des Moines City waterfront. A proposed conveyor belt would then run through city parklands along Des Moines Creek, and be built. This proposal is bitterly opposed by the residents of Des Moines.

Not on Our Waterfront

The City of Des Moines is insisting on a full environmental review, if the conveyor-belt proposal is pushed. There is no support for the proposal on the Des Moines City Council. Vashon-Maury Island Community Council opposes the huge expansion of mining activities that the Lone Star plan would require, and is already making plans to contest any favorable environmental review, according to spokesman Mark Salkind. The site has been operating only intermittently, at a very low level. To meet the Airport’s needs, year ‘round day and night operations would be required, with conveyor belts running to the shore.

The site is contaminated by arsenic fall-out from the former Asarco smelter at Ruston. King County’s Department of Development and Environmental Services has determined that a full environmental review is required.

Title, Title, Who Holds the Title?

The permit process is complicated by the fact that Lone Star says it owns the site, while records in the County Assessor’s office show that Oregon City Leasing Company owns the site. The permit applicant is a third entity, Northwest Aggregates, reported to be a subsidiary of Lone Star. Lone Star itself was recently acquired by offshore interests.

Another site, being touted by the Seattle Times, is a proposed gravel mine near North Bend, on scenic forest land just to the north of I-90. Bond attorney Jim Ellis has put together a deal whereby Ellis and prominent environmentalists will help Weyerhaueser (owner of the land) and the gravel firm, Cadman, to obtain necessary permits for gravel mining, in return for donation of the depleted mine to the public 25 years later, and sale of other land in the parcel to the environmentalists “for public use”. Sea-Tac’s third runway is mentioned by the Times as a likely destination for the gravel. This would add 40 to 70 dump trucks per hour to I-90/I-405 traffic.

How Much Fill?

The amount of fill may increase after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completes its project review. Preliminary plans for the runway, recently obtained by RCAA through a request for disclosure of public documents, show a 2:1 ratio for the slope of the runway berm. That’s steep for any earth-fill project, posing risks of flooding, erosion, and stream siltation. Ratios of 2.8:1 or 3:1 are usual. This is potentially unacceptable to the Corps of Engineers, as guardians of the streams that flow down to Puget Sound from the Airport. If a 3:1 slope were required, the base of the berm would be much extended, and a large additional quantity of fill would be required.

Also under question is the Port’s plan for a 200-foot vertical wall at a critical point in the berm, where it most closely approaches Miller Creek. This may have to be reduced in height, by a wider underlying berm at that point, which would also expand the fill requirements in an unknown amount, as well as causing a need for complex and costly relocation of a portion of Miller Creek.

Editorial
What the Third Runway Fight Has Achieved

The initial excitement of filing lawsuits against various aspects of Sea-Tac expansion has now worn off, and understandably some folks are wondering, What has all this trouble and expense brought us, other than lawyer bills?

The cities opposed to expansion of the Airport have resisted hard, with advice and participation from their lawyers, all during the long process of third runway approval by Puget Sound Regional Council, through the three environmental reviews, and through the review by the Expert Arbitration Panel — where the communities won a clear victory, only to have it taken away by political chicanery. Then came lawsuits and administrative hearings, and permit processes, still ongoing.

Delay, Delay

The Port’s plan was to have the third runway in operation in 1996. Instead, they are now aiming to open the runway in 2004, while falling further behind every day. So, first of all, we have gained eight years without the third runway’s traffic roaring overhead.

In the interim, the H-O-K study identified an estimated $2.95 billion in potential mitigation costs to the surrounding communities. The Highline School District is insisting fix the damages to its schools from the second runway first. Although the Port has tried to pooh-pooh the first study as “incomplete” and dragged its heels on the second, the cities and the district know that letting the Port off the hook for environmental damage would cost their citizens hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

Initial approvals for Sea-Tac expansion were either political NIMBYism by politicians or else routine bureaucratic log-rolling (you OK my project & I’ll OK yours). Now serious agencies are taking hard looks at this extravagent project and its out-of-control sponsor. Water pollution from Sea-Tac is being aggressively tackled by the Department of Ecology (see related story, p. 1). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is opposed to plans to replace lost wetlands in another river basin, in Auburn. Even the Port admits that it needs to make a major investment in treatment of run-off from de-icing operations — a big win for citizens concerned about stream degradation.

Costs Too High,
Airlines Say Goodbye

Major airlines serving Sea-Tac are unhappy about the Port’s plans to shift the third runway costs to the airlines & their passengers. Rumors of airline relocation to other cities are rife. And in a classic PR blunder, the Port rumbles its dirt-hauling trucks up and down South King County highways, alerting thousands of otherwise apathetic residents to the out-of-scale work plan. Over a million truck trips? In the abstract, a million doesn’t mean much. But when we see the impact of the first few hundred trips, a MILLION truck trips comes into focus. Too much! The average citizen is now drawing the obvious conclusion: this is too many trucks, too much dirt — too much money. More and more people are asking the hard question, Why should the public pay for this monstrosity? The lawsuits continue to delay the project until the public can persuade the political leaders of the area, and the State, that they must pull the plug on this brain-dead beast.

Why Quit Now?

A few faint hearts say that we’ve made our protest and should now quietly slink away, leaving victory to the Port of Seattle, just because the lawsuits are now moving into the appeals courts, as many people expected they would. Would the Port quit if IT had lost the opening round? Does a baseball team quit because they’re not ahead after the first two or three innings? We’ve lost one consolidated suit before one judge, and some interim scraps before a low-level administrative body.

Higher courts will have the last legal word. We expect to see this project grind to a halt, out money, out of enthusiam, bogged down in permits, restrictions and mitigation, and finally, out of time. Win, lose, or draw, the lawsuits will make that possible.

Regional Commission on Airport Affairs
http://www.rcaanews.org/rcaa
19900 4th Ave. S.W.
Normandy Park, WA 98166
(206) 824-3120 FAX: (206)824-3541