Portspin:
At its 7th Annual
Air Transportation Progress Workshop on October 22, the
Puget Sound Regional
Council (PSRC) was very pleased to announce “progress” on
meeting the requirements of reducing the aircraft noise
impacts of Sea-Tac Airport. These requirements were imposed
by the General Assembly of PSRC in its Resolution A-96-02,
the formal action giving planning permission to the Port,
so that it could receive federal funds for Sea-Tac expansion.
PSRC accepts at face value the idea that Port of Seattle
has reduced the impacts of aircraft noise just because
it conducted a Part 150 Noise Planning Process. Under Part
150, a committee can make recommendations on noise abatement
measures. PSRC's idea back in 1996 was to require that
the Port include on its Part 150 Committee a goodly number
of interested local people, appointed by the near-by cities,
instead of the usual mix of airport and FAA staff, paid
consultants, and airport users. This would ensure that
the results of the study would reflect the needs of the
community.
The study was duly held, with
active participation by well-informed citizens appointed
by the near-by cities.
Ain’t it just WONDERFUL! the PSRC reports implies.
In particular, this Part 150 Committee
was strong on the important reduction in noise impacts
that could be gained
by the relatively small expense of adding a hush house
for engine run-up noise at Sea-Tac. (Portland
has already built their hush house for a much smaller facility.
King County (BFI) is planning a hush house, a recommendation
out of their Part 150 Committee,
which was approved by the COunty Council in October 2002.)
The only kicker is that the Port Commission rejected nearly
every recommendation of the Part 150 Committee, especially
those like the hush house, which would require the Airport
to invest some of its own profits in environmental mitigation.
Those are costs of doing business the Port has never, ever
been willing to pay. Unless some other agency is willing
to foot the bill for the Port, the plan is to pass those
costs on to the neighbors while issuing a long stream of
press releases about what a wonderful noise program they
have at the Airport.
Now the Port noise program doesn’t have to deal
with that pesky Part 150 committee. It has something called
the Fly Quiet Committee, where the community representatives
are appointed by the Port and report to it, not to anyone
else--not likely to ask for hush houses or
anything the Port doesn’t want to pay for. But PSRC
can say, "Mission accomplished. A study was conducted.
Who cares if anything good came of it?"
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