Yakima’s interest in using its airport to relieve crowding at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has the attention of state transportation officials.
Amid airspace congestion reports and considerable opposition from west side cities and counties to a new airport, Rob Hodgman, the Washington State Department of Transportation senior aviation planner, said one community in Central Washington has stepped forward to help.
“Just recently, we’ve found a potential partner in Yakima,” Hodgman said Wednesday as he discussed the matter with the Washington State Transportation Commission.
“There’s a lot of work that would be needed to make that happen, but at least we have a willing partner,” he added.
Hodgman was updating the state transportation panel about the Legislature-appointed Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. The commission has been asked to recommend a new site for a regional airport by June.
As The Seattle Times reported in November, an analysis of current and future use of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Paine Field near Everett estimates that current plans for expansion at both sites will enlarge their capacity from 50 million annual passengers pre-pandemic to about 67 million by 2030.
By 2050, air passenger traffic in the Seattle region is expected to increase to 94 million annual passengers, leaving a capacity shortfall of 27 million passengers, The Times reported.
Additionally, air cargo traffic through the region is expected to more than double, from 610,000 tons per year before the pandemic to 1.4 million tons in 2050.
Therefore, the committee recommends that the state expand both Sea-Tac and Paine Field while also building a new airport on undeveloped land, The Times reported.
West side sites tough to find
In 2019, the Legislature voted unanimously and Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill creating the CACC to consider the issue of overcrowding at Sea-Tac and to identify potential sites for a new airport.
According to WSDOT, the commission has 11 voting members (four positions are vacant) and 12 nonvoting members, including Hodgman, State Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, and State Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, who has a background in aviation.
The CACC has been meeting since October 2019 and announced three final site recommendations for a new airport in October 2022: two in Pierce County, southeast of Tacoma, and one in Thurston County, just east of Olympia.
On Wednesday, Hodgman reviewed the criteria used by the commission, including requiring sites to be within 100 miles of Seattle and west of the Cascade Mountains.
“One of the challenges of siting an airport of this size — 3,100 acres and two runways — is that it doesn’t fit in an urban space,” he said.
This prompted the commission to consider greenfield areas. The three finalists revealed in October, although rural areas, have faced objections from elected officials, nearby residents and farmers, The Seattle Times reported.
As Hodgman told the transportation panel, “We haven’t had anyone in Western Washington come forward offering a site for consideration. Quite the contrary: We’ve had many governments and municipalities indicate their opposition.”
In addition, a review of airspace use and capacity over the three finalist sites conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration and military officials show Seattle-area airspace to be extremely congested, Hodgman said.
The three sites where airspace could support a new regional airport — located west of Shelton, near Rochester and near Toledo in southwest Washington — are smaller airports that were eliminated from consideration by the CACC because of other factors, Hodgman added.
Yakima’s potential as a site
All of the above prompted Yakima City Manager Bob Harrison and the Yakima City Council to inquire with WSDOT officials about having Yakima Air Terminal’s site considered for review as the state seeks a new airport.
“It appears the solutions on the west side of the state that were initially identified by WSDOT are not very viable,” Harrison told the Yakima Herald-Republic in December. “The Yakima airport layout and land near the layout would provide an opportunity to expand the runway that would allow for any class of airplane to land and take off.
“Additionally, Yakima airport has several inherent strengths as an option, including but not limited to the close location of rail for movement of produce and goods, excellent interstate transportation in the region, and the presence of education establishments that can provide excellent training of the workforce in the Yakima region,” he added.