Representative Smith, I had a conversation yesterday with your wonderful aide . I mentioned the idea of bringing ‘conservation’ into the discussion of air travel and she must have thought I was nuts. It is hard to explain to younger people how much Americans used to glamourise cars. The idea that we might ever feel
Commissioners, After many years of preparation, the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) will finally swing into gear this summer. For me, there is an eerie resemblance between today and the last expansion at Sea-Tac Airport–the Third Runway. As you know, the Port was granted permission to begin construction of the Third Runway in 1996 based
The Sea-Tac Annual Air Quality Monitoring Program – a proposal Background Since 1971 there have roughly thirteen ‘studies’ of various air toxins around Sea-Tac Airport. We put the word ‘studies’ in air quotes because almost all of them have been limited either to a single toxin or to a subset of the complete Sea-Tac air
This is in response to the 11/10/2020 Port Of Seattle’s Regular Commission Meeting. As a Port District, the Port is allowed to enact a property tax, colloquially referred to as the ‘Tax Levy’. It is typically only a few dollars for every resident. Unlike other Port revenue, use of the Tax Levy is almost totally
Currently, FAA law has extremely complicated rules for establishing a noise boundary around airports. (A noise boundary is a geographic area inside which there is a certain acceptable noise level.) This is referred to as the DNL65. and it has several major flaws. The FAA Reauthorization Act Of 2018 attempted to address these flaws in several ways. This letter, from a caucus of Congressmen engaged on airport community issues complains to the Administrator that the spirit of the law is not being adhered to and demands that he make attempts to put his agency into compliance.
The language is fairly technical, however there are a couple of basic points they raise: First, that the noise boundary be determined by actual noise measurements (currently the noise boundaries are 'modeled' and those calculations often do not reflect in any way the lived experience for residents.) Second, that the 'acceptable' noise level of sixty five decibels (hence DNL65) has been determined to be far too high to conform with current understandings of healthy living.