by Stuart Jenner
The Port of Seattle has recently sponsored open houses about the “Sustainable” Airport Master Plan for Seatac (SAMP). At the open houses, held in Federal Way, Des Moines, and Burien, 20 or more port employees, joined by at least four consultants who flew in from Ohio, staffed 30 easels holding slides that gave an overview of the “sustainable” airport plan.
Attendance was good at the Mt. Rainier open house. However, parking at Highline HS presented a challenge to some who had planned to attend. Highline HS hosted a large volleyball tournament and a middle school performance on the same night, so parking lots were full. I was told later that some people chose to skip this informational open house, solely due to parking.
One more SAMP open house is scheduled at McMicken Heights Elementary School in Seatac on November 16 from 10 am to noon.
Algorithms
How do algorithms shape our world? Well, we know that search engine algorithms like Google review millions of pages to decide which ones are the best match. Is there bias? Are the pages really the best? (not always) Algorithms for other online content, like videos, continue to show you more on the same topic.
Well, it turns out algorithms also play a major role in how the FAA evaluates airport master plans. Who knew? I didn’t until a conversation with Steve Rybolt, a senior manager for the Port. Long-time residents may remember he played a key role in the third runway, and now he’s the airport’s reviewer for all comments submitted on the SAMP plan.
At the open house on November 14, I asked Steve how the review process works for all the comments. He said he and FAA staff read all the comments, group them, then respond to them in the Environmental Assessment. They do not provide individual responses.
Earlier in the evening, I had noticed a poster board with some numbers:
- Under the plan the Port wants, Seatac would handle 64.1 million passengers in 2037, up from 45.9 million in 2022, an increase of nearly 40%.
- The number of aircraft operations would increase from 401,351 in 2022 to 509,892 in 2037, an increase of 27%.
- Note the percentage of seats filled on current flights is very high, and if the number of passengers goes up 40% but the number of operations increases by only 27%, the only way to move more passengers is to have bigger planes, which are generally noisier.
I then asked an employee how the poster board that she was standing by could state there were “no significant impacts” from the expansion and increases in traffic getting to and from the airport or flights overhead. Her response, eventually, was “well, there aren’t because the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) has frameworks, and under those frameworks the impacts are not considered, or are not significant.”
I followed up on this later conversation by asking Steve “how is significance defined?” I continued, “When is an Environmental Impact Statement needed, as opposed to the Environmental Assessment that’s supposedly all that’s needed for SAMP?”
His response was chilling… He said “an FAA employee makes the call, a nearly 40% increase in passengers at Seatac is not ‘significant’ because the computer model the FAA uses says so. The model is called AEDT, it is ‘state of the art;’ it has been around for 70 years but is updated, and it is the industry standard for airport impacts.”
I asked who reviews the algorithms used in the computer model. The response was along the lines of “oh anyone can comment on it.” No. The only people who can submit feedback are those with a login.gov account. What a convenient way to freeze out citizens, prevent any review of the code to make sure it is accurate, and keep pesky citizens from asking how air pollution is compared to increased cargo capacity.
So, “Algorithms.” There’s an algorithm to suit every need, just like the Port wanted to use tests for lead, arsenic, and other pollutants in the fill placed on top of our aquifers – tests that would not detect contaminants until the levels were several orders of magnitude above legally permissible levels.
Anxiety
I talked with some attendees at the open houses. I wonder how “algorithms” handle “anxiety?”
- At the Des Moines open house, Melissa T, a mom of a bubbly pre-schooler who was also at the Mt Rainier HS cafeteria, talked about her anxieties: “are my kids safe? Already we can’t really have a conversation in our backyard because of the plane noise. What’s ahead?”
- At Burien, Dani, a long-time resident, voiced her frustration at the open house setup: “no overall presentation, lots of deflection by the employees and consultants, and not a lot of substance.”
- And Tina Orwall, state representative from the 33rd District, said that legislators and electeds from the area asked for an extension of comments to 2025 …. But the Port and FAA extended just a week, to December 13, 2024.
From past experiences, my anxiety is, “What are we missing; What are the Port and FAA slipping by us; Is this going to be another situation where there a lot of promises, but then those promises turn out to be tummy rubbing pinkie promises?” or “well, you should have known this is what we really meant …”
SAMP Information and Where to Submit Comments
To learn more about SAMP, specifically the draft environmental assessment, visit the project website (assembled by the same consultants who have worked on Part 150 studies, including the one where noise readings from Vashon were ruined by placing a noise meter close to a metal roof during the rainy season.)
- You can see the same slides as were presented at the open houses.
- And you can submit comments here.
- While there’s no presentation to the community, the staff did present to the Port Commission in October 2024: video here.
There is one more open house on Saturday, November 16 at McMicken Heights Elementary School in Seatac, 10am to noon.
Some Closing Questions and Observations
- What is sustainability?
- Is it unlimited expansion, with little or no calculation of impacts?
At the Des Moines open house, I asked one of the out-of-state consultants if ultrafine particle impacts were being computed or considered. His response was, “No, that’s not NEPA; that’s under SEPA, the State Environmental Protection Act.” A paraphrase of his additional comments is, “We don’t look at the impacts in this phase. We come up with the plan, but then look at the impacts later.” I walked away, biting my lip, hurriedly, so I would not lash out physically or verbally.
This is NOT sustainability. Sustainability is when external impacts are considered UP FRONT and feed into the initial shape of the plans. Sustainable means UP FRONT impacts are acknowledged and addressed, and when mitigation is not feasible, then some of the wish list doesn’t get included in the plan in the first place.
The Seatac plan pencils out as “sustainable” only because the algorithm is set to ignore negative impacts of “highlights” such as 19 additional gates, more parking for more cars (which means more air pollution from vehicle traffic. No, there’s no mention of having thousands of electric vehicle charging stations) and more cargo operations.
