Runway costs exceed $342,000,000
total budget figures unknown

As of the end of May, the Port of Seattle had spent more than $342 million on its third-runway project at Sea-Tac Airport. According to the RCAA, this amounts to a huge gamble with taxpayers' money, because the Port has no guarantee that it will be allowed to proceed to completion.
As shown by Port financial documents, the runway costs fall into several major categories. The biggest expense so far has been for purchase and condemnation of property. The site for the proposed runway is outside of the pre-existing western boundary of the Airport, so some $158 million has been spent to increase the Airport's area. Port planners are eyeing additional property at the north end of the Airport, in the City of Burien.
The next biggest expense has been for construction of the actual runway embankment, including $67 million just to buy fill, and more than $23 million in other expenses. This is only the beginning, according to Port figures; the total embankment budget is presently set at $350 million.
Another major expense category is building taxiways, to connect the proposed runway to the pre-existing Airport: this work, costing $48 million, is essentially complete.
Reported legal and administrative expenses exceed $15 million.
Engineering and design expenses, in the millions, are scattered under numerous budget categories.
These expenses are detailed in monthly summaries of expenses, released by the Port in July.
The most recent official estimate for total project cost is $773 million, but that figure was released more than three years ago. Since then, Port staff have been quoted as saying that new environmental-mitigation projects would cost another $200 million. In the monthly expense summaries, only $2 million is earmarked for mitigation. The Port claims that there is no up-to-date estimate for the whole project.
"These documents show that the Port is taking a shocking gamble with the public's money," commented Larry Corvari, President of the Regional Commission on Airport Affairs. Mr Corvari added, "Col. Mike Rigsby, head of the Seattle Office of the Army Corps of Engineers, warned Port officials back on November 3rd, 1999 that they would be "proceeding at their own risk", if they started construction without the wetlands permit required by section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Now we learn that nearly $350 million has been spent, with no permit. If the Port doesn't have a Plan B, that money may be down the rat hole."
Stuart Creighton, a member of the executive committee of the Airport Communities Coalition, said "These numbers are shocking, but not surprising. Other airports are able to build full-service, 10,000-foot runways for less than the Port has spent just in buying property for this 8,500-foot part-time runway. Trying to build a runway by piling 20 million cubic yards of fill on the side of a hill just doesn't make sense. Trying to do this in an area full of creeks, wetlands, and ponds makes even less sense."