When Earth Day began in 1970 the problems of environmental damage were obvious to everyone. There was almost complete bipartisan support for major legislation to improve the quality of life for everyone in America — including airports. Even President Nixon was on board, signing into law every piece of environmental legislation that still matters.
We want you to know that we understand your frustration. As we have tried to say in Under The Flight Path, and in most of our materials, we see the problem as a sea-change in attitudes towards the environment.
The Sea-Tac Communities Plan of 1976 was groundbreaking–for all airport communities–with proposals to deal with land use, noise, air quality, essentially every complaint people today have. And every major form of remedy any airport community has ever received.
As frustrated as we all feel today, we are convinced that no property buyouts, sound insulation, noise, air, water quality improvements–including what became North SeaTac Park would have been possible without the energy generated in 1970 towards improving the environment and public health.
It has been challenging for us to convince people of that today because there have been so many broken promises. Broken promises from fifty years ago may as well be the Middle Ages.
Around the same time the Port, King County, and the FAA were finishing the STCP, Americans were already becoming weary of environmentalism. We have short attention spans, and we made so much progress so quickly, it felt to many Americans like ‘job done’, especially after an even bigger oil crisis and a major recession with sky high interest rates.
In 1978 President Jimmy Carter signed airline deregulation into law. Three years later, President Ronald Reagan removed solar panels from the roof of the White House.
Since then, there has been a growing split over anything to do with issues of environmentalism–which also means the harms of aviation for individuals and their communities.
When we began we interviewed the founder of Earth Day, Denis Hayes. He reflected on this growing divide. In 1970, even factory unions supported the idea. By the 1980s, the world had shifted into ‘jobs and growth’.
This year, our nation will use more, not less fossil fuel than 1976. The levels of regulated pollutants are dramatically better. But pollutants which were unknown then like UFPs and PFAS are still not properly measured, let alone regulated. Unlike fifty years ago we lack even that amount courage–for fear it might be a ‘job killer!’ And then there is the noise. So much worse than 1970.
And the only ‘solutions’ the Port of Seattle proposes are oxymorons like sustainable aviation fuel, and multi-million dollar sound insulation programs exist only on paper.
Despite King County’s ongoing interest in conservation, and health, Seattle is also the home of Rick Steves, who, more than any single individual, is responsible for creating the culture of inexpensive flying as almost a basic human right.
We’re not quite sure how to square that circle. But we do know that the promises airports make come with a significant asterisk. People who live near airports are far less healthy, and so are their local governments than they were decades ago. The rising tide did not lift all boats and that should not be acceptable in the richest nation in human history.
1976 should not be as good as it will ever get. For us, the lessons of both Earth Day, and the Sea-Tac Communities Plan, are how much progress we can make when we put our minds to it. Instead of looking for something ‘new’, we hope to redirect the conversation back to where it never should have left.