Sea-Tac Airport expansion plan riles surrounding community

Expansion at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is generally considered necessary to keep Seattle economically competitive, accommodate increasing traveler volume and support business in Washington. But for neighboring communities, efforts to accommodate more flights would further fray the relationship between the airport and residents in the area.

The latest iteration of the airport debate passionately played out last Thursday during the fifth public comment session hosted by the Port of Seattle as it considers implementing its Sustainable Aviation Master Plan.

That assessment was questioned by Burien Mayor Sarah Moore, who called on the port to conduct its own studies on how increased air traffic would affect the health of nearby residents.

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In May, the port released its own draft review of the 31 projects under the State Environmental Policy Act. The final environmental impact statement will be released later this year.

After that, port commissioners will vote individually on each project under the SAMP plan. Any expansion projects will take place following each vote.

Moore and others say the SEPA does not go far enough, and they want officials to do more to mitigate the neighborhood impact.

“The negative impacts of airport growth have fallen disproportionately on communities like ours, and the port hasn’t sufficiently addressed this imbalance,” said Des Moines Mayor Yoshiko Grace Matsui. “What we get is decades of noise, air-quality impacts and a tax base that is permanently constrained by our proximity to the airport.”

Other politicians and business groups, including the chambers of commerce for Seattle and Bellevue, say those projects are needed to increase capacity at the airport, which hit a record 52.6 million passengers last year.

“Our advantage of being a center for innovation is at risk if we fail to invest in ensuring that SEA can accommodate future demand, but SEA has reached the limits of what is possible within its existing facilities,” said Lars Erickson, a public affairs official with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

The challenge for Sea-Tac is finding room for that growth in its small footprint. Sea-Tac sits on about 2,500 acres. Compared with Denver International Airport (34,000 acres), San Francisco International Airport (5,100 acres), Los Angeles International Airport (3,500 acres) and Portland International Airport (3,000 acres), Sea-Tac’s expansion options are limited.

If Sea-Tac can’t accommodate growth, expansion proponents warn, the FAA could impose flight restrictions, ticket prices would jump and service would suffer.

If the proposed projects are completed, the port estimates that Sea-Tac can accommodate 64 million passengers annually by 2037. Without them, it estimates the airport can serve 59.48 million passengers in 2037.

But expanding the airport has long been a contentious issue — almost as contentious as building a new one.

A state working group tried to advance plans for a new airport in Pierce County in 2022, but shelved the project after local backlash. A new state working group is studying which airports can take on that projected capacity, though any measures short of building a new airport may not be enough, a state report found in May.

Jeff Paulson, a Seattle-area resident and frequent traveler through Sea-Tac, said he thought the expansion was inevitable. As a youth sports coach whose team pep talks have been interrupted by jets passing overhead, he also understands the community’s frustration.

“On the back end, with these additional planes coming in, with the additional revenue that will be driven to our economy — which I think is a great thing — I think a portion of that needs to be disseminated down to the people both within the flight path … as well as outside of that,” he said during the public comments Thursday.