The Airport Communities Podcast
On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.
In Ep #33, we said that, after public health, the best comment you can make concerns socioeconomics. Public health considers the impacts on individuals, but socioeconomics considers the impacts on the place you live.
We take a beat to reinforce that. Researchers have known for decades that the impacts of pollution and rapid change to any community is generational. It is an awkward discussion because even if you perform a massive ‘cleanup’, even if people move in and out, the negative impacts for the community seem to persist. It is awkward because these harms create so many perverse incentives. Residents like the artificial ‘affordability’. Developers like to say that they have the solution. And no elected wants to admit that their city is stuck. We refer to this as the airport discount. But airport expansion has a lot to do with why airport communities get stuck.
The topic for today is 2018. People like to blame ‘COVID’ for everything, but every few years activists cycle in and out on airport issues and avoid all the great work done by their predecessors.
The 2026 SAMP is almost literally a do-over from 2018. But back then there was more preparation and larger budgets. So there are many good reasons to go back and look at that earlier process. Sadly, airport law is unchanged, research did not make the progress we’d hoped. People essentially took their eyes off the ball. But on the plus side:
- If you find the SAMP/SEPA DEIS intimidating, just use these more digestible pieces below.
- If you want to check to see if your ideas track? These will tell you.
- If you’re concerned that some of the Port’s current information also may not seem to track (and you should be), checking what they said before is a great idea.
- And you want a different POV — not just STNI, but from others who do not work for the Port of Seattle or the FAA? Here they are.
Today’s “Do” is simple: Rather than slog through thousands of pages of SAMP, put to work what hundreds of other concerned residents and professionals have done to help all of us!
2018 SAMP Comments/Research
- 2023 – Dr. Kris Johnson presentation to Burien City Council
- 2018 Federal Way Quiet and Healthy Skies Task Force
- 2018 – Leigh Fisher Facilities_Implementation and Financial Feasibility
- 2018 SAMP Comments
Other Topics
- 2026 – SAMP/SEPA Draft EIS
- 1997 – HOK Community Impacts/Mitigation Study
- 1976 – Sea-Tac Communities Plan
To learn how you can make a difference:
- STNI.info/subscribe
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