Introduction by bill sponsors Senator Keiser and Representative Orwall: 0:00:00
Public Comments: 1:32:50
Chair Duerr and Members of the Committee,
Following up on my testimony today re. SB5955 (Port Package updates).
We wanted to provide a couple of (small) clarifications to the comments we heard during the hearing which we believe are salient.
Problem Scope
Sea-Tac Noise.Info, has been building a list of homes with Port Package Problems since 2017. We did no advertising or active outreach. We simply put up a passive web form where people could contact us with their issues. When people contacted us, we verified that they had received a Port Package and tallied the costs, contractors, permits and invoices paid from publicly available documents. That list currently contains over 1,300 homes. This is out of over 9,400 total installs.
Of those, we’ve conducted almost 350 in-home site inspections. And we get more almost every week (I’m doing another site visit myself this Friday.)
It isn’t hard to guess from these anecdotes what an active and rigorous assessment will find.
Demography
The majority of current homeowners with Port Package Problems are not elderly. A far more ‘typical’ Port Package homeowner would be 40ish, BIPOC, and have young children. This is because they are the second or third homeowner since the original system was installed and those are the demographic trends of Burien, Des Moines and SeaTac. Families move near the airport for the last bit of middle-income housing in King County.
Wear and Tear?
One person mentioned they’d had to replace their windows twice. That is unfortunate. And also extremely unusual for a good Port Package. In fact, the sound insulation systems the Port got right (and definitely the new systems they install today), typically perform well after many decades. If there were problems, it was not due to ‘normal wear and tear’.
Causes
We try to avoid blame and shame. However, in 1996 the PSRC required the Port to install all those sound insulation systems before being given funding to build the Third Runway. The extreme sense of urgency led to a unique combination of poor HVAC design, poor materials, poor installs and poor oversight. That is was created the unique situation to be addressed by SB5955. And that is why now the Port does such a good job and why the new systems last. Put simply: they learned from their mistakes.
Middle-Housing is Fairness and Justice
Everyone struggles so hard to building any new housing in WA. We would argue that protecting this essential housing stock for this group of homeowners is essential to maintaining our communities. In that light SB5955 seems only prudent, especially when each fix will likely serve many families for many decades to come.
It is also fair and just, given the billions of dollars in annual economic benefit Sea-Tac Airport provides the State of Washington, that the State help create a solution for the people under the flight path–people who traded 1,000 flights a day over their heads for a sound insulation system that does not work as intended.
Sincerely,
JC Harris
on behalf of Sea-Tac Noise.Info