Des Moines Airport Advisory Committee Meeting May 11, 2026

Chair: All right. Looking at the agenda, I think we should flip it. After we approve the minutes, let’s take item two up last. Jeff and Steve have done some work on complaints that we need to hear about. Items three and four are just brief updates from the last meeting. The main item is item five — I’d like to get everyone’s comments on it and talk about how we’re going to move forward.If everyone’s had a chance to review the minutes, do I have a motion to approve?

Member: Motion.

Chair: Second from Steve. Todd moved, Steve seconded. All in favor?

[Unanimous approval.]

Chair: Let me back up. We’re all here at the start of the meeting except for Barton. Jeff Harbaugh from the Burien Airport Advisory Committee is here observing. Jeff and I have been trading places — I go to his meetings, he comes to ours. We’re trying to keep the panels open.

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Item 5: Reorganizing StART

Chair: Let me frame what we’re trying to do. There’s the StART committee — the Sea-Tac Stakeholder Advisory Round Table. The city council appoints two citizen representatives to StART. We’ve also created an additional body, the Airport Advisory Committee, and the council has appointed us to that. There’s a lot of overlap, so it’s hard to keep straight which hat we’re wearing — AAC or StART community reps.

What’s been happening: at StART meetings, the community representatives from Burien, Des Moines, and in some cases SeaTac have been talking. Over the last year and a half this has come to a head. Six of us got together at the last meeting — reps from Burien, Des Moines, one rep from SeaTac, and Maria from Normandy Park. We came up with this document about how we’d like to see StART reorganized.

What kicked the conversation off was our introduction to the Round Table of Roundtables — we got to see how other StARTs around the country operate. That was a catalyst. What could we do to make StART more responsive, larger, cover more area, have more people at the table — especially people with capacity to make decisions, so information could go from the round table back to county council, city councils, the state legislature?

First, let’s talk about the draft working document and get your input. Then the proposed additional work plan element, because we’re hoping to take this work plan to council before our next meeting.

Staff: We will have one more meeting on June 8th — it just won’t be before the packet’s due.

Chair: So the packet has to be put together. The report and any PowerPoint needs to be in by the first.

Any comments on the proposal? We’re going to council saying: here’s our work plan, we’re proposing this additional element be added.

Member: It’s what we talked about — getting ideas from other airports.

Jeff: The additional element — that’s in this discussion right now?

Chair: Yes. Remember, at the last meeting we decided we’re not going to delete any existing elements — they may be useful in the future — but we’re going to add this one.

Member: This is a good addition.

Member: I don’t have anything to add. I missed last month.

Chair: Do we need a motion to approve?

Staff: Yes. The only additional thing — when we were doing this draft, I missed the second bullet point under two. I’d like to make minor amendments to remove the eminent domain language. We’re going back to council anyway. We’d keep the spirit of researching additional mitigation measures beyond sound insulation — compatible uses that can tolerate higher noise volumes, additional mitigation recommendations. Just removing “eminent domain” from your purview.

Chair: So the motion is to approve the proposed additional work plan element, with the rewording of bullet point two under section two as suggested.

Todd: Motion.

Steve: Second.

Chair: Any further discussion? All in favor?

[Unanimous.]

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How to present to council

Chair: Now I want to talk about how we present this to city council. We’re going to them and saying: we don’t like the way StART is organized. We have knowledge of other round tables, especially in the top tier of airports where there are lots of impacts. The StART community reps came up with this document and asked the committee to study it and close the loop on what we think would work for reorganizing StART.

[Barton arrives.]

Chair: Barton, we’ve approved the motion to add language for the additional work plan element. Now we’re talking about the draft we received.

The way I frame it: we’ve looked at other airports. Every airport is unique, but you can put them in baskets and talk about different types and their constraints. Then talk about our airport and our constraints — and why our draft says we no longer have any expectation of reducing noise, particulate pollution, or the number of operations at Sea-Tac. We need to explain to council why we feel that way. Some PowerPoint slides: here’s why we think we’re locked into this situation.

Jeff, you’ve spoken before about reservations on their projections for total operations. I’d like to hear from you on that — we’re making a pretty big stipulation.

Jeff: We should press on the estimates so everybody understands. Several different organizations have made different ranges of growth. It’s clear they’re all increasing, but the range can be quite broad.

There are also issues with what we don’t get from StART in its current form. We don’t get feedback on complaints. I don’t hear what the community is getting back from thousands of complaints. How many are being responded to by the FAA? By the Port? What feedback are they providing? They may not give specifics, but it would be nice to know the bigger picture. It’s just a big repository where complaints go. It also needs to be clearer what we’re doing to provide feedback to them.

The current organization doesn’t allow for that range right now. If the audience — the people participating — had broader participation across the organizations we represent, that’s why we’re suggesting broadening it. We can get things addressed and onto the agenda. We don’t have all the tools to make things hit the agenda in the current form. We’d like to equalize that.

Chair: At the last StART meeting, the presentation was them going back over their projections — where they got their numbers, how they got them. I was talking about traffic. I tried to challenge them: what happens if it’s way worse? How do we deal with that? All they’re doing is adjusting the signalization — they’re not even talking about traffic volume outside the airport. They fended me off. Steve responded — they’ve got a methodology, they sound competent, they’re confident in their analysis.

That’s fine, as long as the analysis acknowledges the exceptions. They throw out a lot of numbers, but what’s the methodology? What’s the margin of error? Like any forecast, there’s a range.

Jeff: That loops back to what we’re saying — our working assumption is that we agree with their numbers. It’s going to increase. We don’t need to talk about that anymore. We need to start talking about mitigation.

Particularly in the upper bounds — increased local traffic, increased volumes, increased capacity, additional concourses and taxiways, new automation from the airport — what are our mitigations right now to take care of that? That’s what should be discussed. Not the lowest-case numbers. The worst case is worse for us. We’re simply saying we’re not challenging the growth. Let’s talk about mitigation. How do we mitigate externalities that affect everything from traffic to quality of life to property values? We push for the right mitigation and the right funding to support it. And it needs to be recognized early.

Chair: That was the point I was trying to make with their staff. This is 2026 and you’re talking about 2037 — 10 years out. Is everything in the SEIS just carved in stone? In 2037, if things are a lot worse, do we go back and say, “This is a lot worse than you said it was going to be — you agreed to it”? How does that work? Is the discussion closed once SEPA is approved, or is there a mechanism to reopen?

On the downside — if traffic and operations were less, they’ve got other problems and we’re probably not worried. But if it’s a lot more, what do we do? How do we check in?

That seemed to be missing with the Third Runway. We got to the end, said okay, build the runway. Then I didn’t hear anything more. That might be my fault — maybe I wasn’t paying attention. But nobody came along five years in and said, “We told you we were only going to use this in specific situations, but we grew so much we’re using it all the time.” I don’t remember that discussion. Is there a mechanism written into SEPA?

Member: I believe there has to be a mechanism. I wasn’t here, but if it was in the environmental document on the Third Runway that it would only be used a certain way — was that written, or just verbally said? If verbal, the comments should have said it needs to incorporate those restrictions.

I don’t know the right legal language to trigger those thresholds, but folks who understand should be engaged. You want to look through those kinds of things when the SEIS comes out. If it says something is only used during a certain period, make sure the associated comment is that there are true restrictions and a change in operations would need to be evaluated separately. The study should be based on something. If a runway is being studied based on not being used full-time, the comment should say: if there’s no restriction on actual time of use, the environmental review should be based on full use.

Chair: So the SEIS comes down, it’s approved, they’re their own SEPA official. Once they’ve addressed all the comments, they can issue the final EIS and their determination. Then it goes back to their board, the board says it’s signed, sealed, and delivered, and authorizes the projects.

That’s where everything gets chiseled in stone — unless there’s language saying otherwise, or an appeal on the environmental document. The point I’m trying to make: we have these projections. I have no reason to doubt them. They sound super confident, they have their methodology, they can talk about it for 10 minutes straight. I don’t understand it, but they’re confident. What if it’s a lot more? How do we deal with that?

What I’m trying to get from the group is whether this wording in the bullet point is okay as our first assumption.

Member: Who monitors all the usage in the environmental? Is it the Port? They self-monitor? No third party?

Chair: They bring it to StART. They tell us operations and passenger count.

Member: Does StART have any power to change anything, or is it just advisory?

Chair: Not even advisory. It’s a listening board. A receiving board. We receive information and take it back to our communities.

There are StARTs that are review boards — I learned at the conference that there’s at least one where certain procedures are required to go through StART for comment or recommendation before they change. But that came out of a whole different process. There’s no FAA requirement or Port requirement for anything to go through StART here.

Jeff: You’re getting feedback about internal processes. The Port is running many of these themselves. They have to legally do some things.

Member: Have we talked about — to get the most buy-in for changing StART — collaboration with the other communities? Are you prepared to talk about that?

Chair: Yes. We’re thinking that however long it takes, we need Des Moines, Burien, SeaTac — these city councils — to say yes, go for it. At the very least, it would be nice to get Federal Way. We’re not going to get Normandy Park.

Member: Really?

Chair: They’re not anywhere close to the runways. They don’t feel the need.

Staff: My suggestion on the presentation to council: the primary piece is the amendment to the work plan. Then what I hear you saying is you’re also asking the committee whether to present, as a StART rep, to get a head nod on whether this approach is okay to continue working on among the other cities.

Chair: I think we have to somehow give them this document and say: here’s what we got back from the community reps to StART. We need to make the connection — we’re asking you to add this to our work plan, and here’s what we’re actually trying to do with that authorization.

Staff: There are two different points. You’re asking, in a sense, for a head nod that they’re comfortable with this approach, before you go for a formal recommendation or formal letter. My guess: you’re working this as a StART representative, which is in your work plan, and part of the resolution that created the committee says to help you be StART reps. If you end up wanting council support on the changes, you’d go back to council and make a formal recommendation asking for their support, or asking them to sign onto a support letter — once you’ve finalized what you want to request.

So the meeting next month would be: we want to add this to our work plan. It’s come up through as a StART representative. We want to do more work as a whole committee. Here’s the draft we have. We want to make sure council is generally supportive as we continue working with other airport committees and StART community representatives.

Chair: We present this draft document from the reps as: here’s some things we want to talk about, some issues we want to discuss among the StART representatives and as a committee.

Staff: When we send community reps to StART, here’s what we want to talk to them about. Bullet point those. Some structural changes. Some procedural changes. We may not get everything, and we may not have the support of the Port. There will be some give and take. We may get some place to be responsive — additional folks representing our community, additional procedural changes within the current organization. We don’t know how that’s going to go, but that’s what we’re asking to do.

Chair: We start the presentation talking about wording we’d like to add to our work plan. Then: if you authorize us to go forward, here’s some things we’d like to talk about. The mechanism is our community reps go to StART and band together with the other community reps to start talking about these issues. The key one being mitigation — the kind of compensation funding that’s required.

We’re not going to stop the Third Runway — there might have been a time when that got denied, but we’re not going to stop what’s going on. The fact is there’s going to be incredible impact on the community. It’s bad now and only going to get worse. The only way to be fair, to have environmental justice, is to find funding for compensation. Then it’s up to city council to figure out where it goes. With the Third Runway, they built new schools — a lot of that got done, great. What are we going to do now?

Member: The only issue with mitigation — we need to mention it up front, but we also have to be careful. Remember we’ve got another whole process going with the ILA cities — Burien, SeaTac, and us. The exact form mitigation takes is with the lawyers.

Chair: We can mention mitigation, but we don’t want to get too far into how it’s going to look. This other group is negotiating with the Port as we speak. They’ve got a cone of silence to maintain. We can’t step on their efforts by saying something in contradiction.

So in the presentation: bring out the additional wording. Start with that, then pivot to here’s what we’d like to accomplish. The reason we’re stipulating these assumptions — we need to talk about our specific airport and why we’re never going to get changes. We’re not going to reroute traffic patterns.

Member: One suggestion on wording. “We no longer have any expectation” — I don’t think we want to close ourselves off. That sounds very closed. Something like “we assume we’re not going to be able to have any effect on this.” That way we can still go at it as: do we have an opportunity to hold the line? We know we’re not going to stop the growth, but let’s not make it sound totally closed.

Chair: Soften it. Say the assumption is it’s going to continue to grow — not that we don’t have any expectations. It leaves us open to having an effect if something comes up.

Jeff: It’s difficult to say we don’t assume we can do anything, because there have been successes with monitoring. That adds to the body of evidence specific to Sea-Tac — evidence that can be brought forward both legally and procedurally. Hopefully that affects national policy. These become national issues very quickly. Federal preemption prevents us from moving forward on many things — barring night flights, things like that. But there are pockets where we can make a difference.

Staff: Time check. I want to make sure we have enough time for complaints.

Chair: I’ll start working on the presentation. I’ll share it among everybody.

Staff: It needs to be done by the end of the month — that’s when everything needs to be in the packet.

Chair: I’ll be gone the end of the month — I’m going to North Dakota. I’ll be reaching out to all of you for help on certain areas.

To wrap up: I want to leave council with the message that this isn’t just about SAMP. Reorganizing StART is about having an effective ongoing organization that can deal with issues over the next decade as this rolls out. It’s not going to stop with SEPA and the Port approving projects. There will be a lot more discussions. We need an organization more effective, more responsive, more accountable to us as voters and citizens.

—

Items 3 and 4: StART updates

Chair: Two quick updates from the last StART meeting. They were going over how they came up with their numbers — we covered that. They also gave an update on the Sustainable Airport Master Plan, rolled out their schedule for public meetings. Feedback we gave them: not enough meetings, not enough time. For a project of this magnitude, you have to do a better job contacting the public and getting feedback.

Member: Was there a comment that you can’t just submit questions — the give and take, the ability to ask uncomfortable questions and get a response, needs to be there?

Chair: Yes. The general tone of the discussion was no one thought it was enough. Too bare bones.

In the off months we have the working groups — noise and policy. I suggested putting those aside and having another full body meeting to talk about the rollout. I haven’t heard a word about that, but I noticed they haven’t scheduled the working group meetings. All those sub-meetings — it’s not a conversation. We could get that a month later in a catch-up meeting.

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Item 2: Complaints analysis

Chair: Steve, you and Jeff did quite a bit of work analyzing volume of complaints. Tell us what you found, then Jeff follow up.

Steve: Under a public records request, we got several years of logs — not just what people filled out on the website form, but voicemails too. A lot of the comments are transcripts of voicemails people left.

It was for zip codes 98198 and 98148. That’s mostly Des Moines, but bleeds over into SeaTac and Burien. I downloaded all entries from January 2025 to March 2026 — the most recent data available. Over 48,000 individual entries.

Member: Sounds like a lot.

Steve: 40,000 of those 48,000 came from three people. One person had 25,000 entries. Another had 15,000. Another had 5,000. There were others with hundreds. When you boil it down to individual addresses, it was 128 addresses. Jeff plotted them on a map.

Not every entry had a comment field, but you could tell — some high-volume people, every night, every time a plane came over. Someone would say “that was 70 dB.” I’m curious whether the Port is responding to these people, or just gathering information. One person who did 5,000 posted consistently from February 2025 to January 2026. By their comments, they were getting increasingly angry. F-bombs, threatening the planes flying over their house, threatening to show up at offices.

Member: You just turned it into a federal felony.

Steve: I’m hoping the Port has done something. The person stopped in January. Did the Port deal with it, or should we be worried? That’s why I tagged Catherine to bring it up to the Port. I don’t know if the Port is doing anything.

Grabbing some comments — there were also people just asking, “Hey, I want to find out about a Port package.” A number of people asking about Port packages.

Jeff: Did they get current feedback? We owe that to our citizens here in Des Moines — to give them feedback on how the process is going to work. That’s a respectable thing to do.

Steve: I left it in the data even though it wasn’t a noise complaint per se. If they’re asking about Port packages, they have concerns about noise.

Jeff: What’s missing in a lot of these — you make the assumption people putting in complaints are going to use FlightView to tell you which plane it is. Throw in a flight number. Appropriately, one would be able to track that and say, “That does exceed our standard.” We have a Quiet Skies program. It’d be nice to have feedback.

That’s a lot of work to respond to. But for only 150 folks, that’s not so much work. Specifically when they have very specific complaints about a specific plane, they should hear back. That would round out the noise program. We owe that to them — particularly if they email us, we should give them some level of feedback.

Chair: I want to hear from the Port what kind of responses they’re doing. They’re the Port reps — the StART reps. You should be able to go to StART and ask: what are you doing in terms of feedback? That’d be a great thing to show success on. Not just a big repository.

Steve: Let me point out — I made this request March 9th. The specific request was complaints received from Des Moines residents or where the source was in Des Moines within the last 10 years, relating to airport operations including noise and emissions air quality. They responded with questions, which is why I gave them the two zip codes — I don’t think they had a shape file for the city. I got another email today saying they’re still searching and reviewing for responsive documents and need additional time. They estimate the next installment before June 1st.

So we may be getting another set of data. If you want to do something with the data, I want to make you aware they have not determined the request is complete. We could still be getting more — written notice, something else. They have phone calls, email, a web page, an app. They have not determined the full request has been responsive yet. You’ve just started with a portion of what they feel is responsive.

Member: But we could still ask.

Steve: Absolutely. I’m just letting you know if you’re mapping stuff, you don’t have the full data yet.

Member: You’d think they’d have a tracking mechanism — “we responded back” — or they say, “Here’s a thousand from the same person, maybe we should respond.” But shouldn’t they be doing that work, not you?

Chair: What they’re saying is: ask StART. How are they responding? How do they decide who to respond to? Are they responding to every complaint? If they’re not, maybe this starts something. All I’m doing is looking at the information they provided.

Two questions. Do we want more data?

Steve: It’s going to come anyway. The request has been made. They’ll keep contacting me until I get the final letter saying the request is fulfilled.

Chair: You two get together and put down in a paragraph what we’re asking the Port to do. We’ll take that to the next meeting — get it right the first time.

Is that enough of a follow-up? We’ll wait for more data.

Steve: There’s also a lot of data online you can download yourself. Every single noise event has been captured by multiple sensors that can be analyzed. I’m not suggesting we do that for every case, but there are certain ones where it seems extremely odd to just say, “Yes, you’re right.”

Chair: Does this say anything about our citizens’ awareness or concern about noise? We got so few people with so many complaints.

Member: I don’t think the average person knows there’s a way to complain about noise. I had no idea.

Steve: The ones actually saying something about the noise — not just looking for a Port package — are people who are tuned in.

Chair: Most of the noise is made by a limited number of complaints. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.

Member: The procedure — to get online to call, particularly if you don’t think anything’s going to happen anyway, particularly night flights. If you’re complaining at two or three in the morning, you’ve got to get to a phone, go to FlightView, find the track. That’s asking a lot. People perhaps tried it years ago and said, “I’m sick of that.” It’s just one slice of reflection.

Steve: It begs the question — what is the Port doing with this? What’s the response? Once we find out, if they’re doing things, great. What can we enhance? Or: “Hey guys, you need to at least be sending these people something saying you’ve got their feedback.”

Member: They can’t really mitigate, other than take a report.

Member: It’s not about mitigation. It’s about having a system where you complain and get no feedback.

Member: I don’t even know if that’s quite true. We don’t know. Let’s find out.

Chair: That’s our mission — find out what they’re doing, and we’ll get more data.

Member: Did we implement, when people send an email to us, a standard way for them to complain to the FAA?

Staff: Your response letter included their contact. However, we have not received any complaints since we started that process. We have the form letter we were going to send for any complaints that came to the committee — “We got your complaint, we’ll discuss it at our next meeting.” No one has done a formal complaint. The only thing we received today is the only one, but it’s not the same as a noise complaint meant for that form letter.

Steve: Another little thing — Jeff plotted these and I scrolled in. They’re all over the place, but there are three clumps. North Hill, of course, is what you’d expect. A smaller clump around Mount Rainier High School — that tracks to the hill. And a smaller clump just south of downtown, going down Marine View Drive. Not quite Zenith — right on the edge of downtown, south of downtown. Everything else is all over the place.

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STNI letter

Chair: We got this letter from Sea-Tac Noise Info, the website. I’ve read through it but not in depth. My first reaction: it’s a serious letter with important points we should think about and discuss. It’s addressed to us and the city manager, so we should respond — in the tone it was presented to us. Even if it takes another meeting to talk about this specifically. I don’t know how you feel.

Staff: We can look at the schedule for a special meeting and put out a poll to see what works for everyone.

Member: Really good points, focus areas, historical perspectives that affect our work plan and give us ideas about how to move forward. There are some things effective for Des Moines we’d like to respond back to.

Chair: You’ll give us a couple of dates and we’ll come up with a date. I hate to add it, but I think it’s important we respond.

Member: It’s a thoughtful note. Give us time to run through it.

Staff: It might be helpful if someone takes a crack first at a response, so you have something to base discussion off of. It’s much easier to amend language or add paragraphs than to start with nothing and try to get it done in an hour.

Chair: I’ll send out an email and we’ll figure out how to put a draft together.

—

Questions for StART

Chair: One last thing. In StART meetings, I always think of a question after it’s over. I’ll send a document around — everyone can add questions, I’ll keep the master list.

A couple I was thinking about. They talked about the increase in passenger count and number of operations. Does that projection depend on air traffic control technology being used on the west downwind leg now being installed on Sea-Tac’s east downwind leg?

My wife and I went to Lake Wilderness to hike, and — what the heck, there’s an airplane. That downwind leg must be five or six miles wide over there. Judging from what happened when they scrunched it down to a narrow lane over Vashon — all we got was angry people and a lawsuit.

Member: Capability and data allowed them to get very tight on their turns. That allows concentration of aircraft in a particular area. Approaches are in constant automatic control. That allows them to coordinate tight. That’s what you notice — really fast. To be spread out — it’s not unknown, it’s been well documented all over the country.

Chair: I was thinking — why would we want the county supervisor from Auburn, Kent East Hill, or Renton Highlands? If this is going to happen to them in 10 years — the same thing that happened to Vashon — has anybody talked to them? Thirty years ago that was a collection of five-acre llama farms. Now it’s one of the most densely populated areas in South King County.

That’s what I’m getting at. There’s a lot we talk about and I want to formulate it down into questions to take back to StART. Another: COG’s annual report from last November said they met at Paine Field in Everett, and the staff and leadership said by 2040 they’re going to be doing six million enplanements a year. Six million is significant. Is that reflected in the projection for Sea-Tac? Does that cannibalize the Sea-Tac number? They’re saying 70 million. Is it 70 minus 6, or have you accounted for growth at Paine Field?

I think there are questions we need to get to them, but I don’t think of them in the heat of the moment when I’m trying to think of something snarky to say.

Member: That’s the problem with Zoom.

Chair: I’ll send this around — add your questions, keep a running total.

Member: When’s your next StART meeting?

Chair: They haven’t told us. We made them mad, I guess. Maybe I should have kept quiet.

Member: A few questions for StART — how are they engaging in a deep, productive way at the national level? We have some of the best data, some great noise monitoring. All that information — we should be deeply involved in getting it to DC, to the people working on new law. We really need that for long-term solutions. The things that really need to be taken care of won’t be changed without that discussion.

I’m in the downtown Seattle Rotary Club. I went to the program chair and said — we have a new director, Ryan. He went to my — I tried to think — we could invite him to come and speak. I first floated that through our StART people. They said, “We’d love to have the board director.” No, we don’t want the board director. We want the chair of the Port. We kind of raised it up. They’re trying to get a date. It’ll be sometime in the fall. I’d be delighted to have you all come as guests, and questions.

Chair: Fantastic. Totally sabotage it.

Member: Anyway, I’ve been thinking ahead. Might be six months.

Chair: I wanted to go to the next COG meeting but I missed it. It was in April in Moses Lake. I’m trying to get on their list.

Member: I have the next StART meeting on June 24th or 25th.

Chair: This is the off month for working groups — we haven’t heard about that yet. We asked them not to do that and to set up another meeting, but we’re getting the silent treatment.

Member: Anything that cumbersome goes through the filter.

Chair: Motion to adjourn.

Member: Second.

Chair: All in favor? All right. Thanks everyone. Thanks staff for hanging around with us.

—

[Meeting adjourned.]

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