The STNI 2023 State Legislative Agenda
A letter to members of the Washington State House and Senate representing the airport communities.
On behalf of SeaTacNoise.Info: As always, thank you for your efforts this year on behalf of airport communities. They are much appreciated.However, I write today to say that not only are we not moving forward, we have actually been moving backwards for some time. A complacency has metastasized here at exactly the wrong time given the impending debut of SR-509 Stage II and the Southern Access to the airport (we refer to those projects collectively as The Fourth Runway.)
Therefore, we are urging everyone in the coming year to do much, much more to address the long-standing grievances of our residents living under the flight path.
As such, here is a brief explainer, and our legislative ‘asks’ for 2023.
What we were promised…
In the early 70’s the Sea-Tac Communities Plan was created by a once-in-a-generation coalition of residents, King County, the Port of Seattle, the FAA, scientists and Highline Schools. They came together with the express goal of creating a win-win relationship between what was referred to as the Highline Community and Sea-Tac Airport.
From the Peat, Marwick first year audit of the plan The Sea-Tac Success Story
As one of the first airport sponsors in the country to be sued… the Port had little or no guidance from elsewhere as to how to deal with the problem(s). In the absence of such guidance, what may be termed a “let them sue” approach was essentially followed by the Port during the period from 1957 to 1972. Under this approach, every lawsuit was contested in court. If the Port won, no further action would be taken…
That was the problem the STCP was intended to solve. The goal was to be proactive; to develop a system whereby both the airport and the communities could grow together, in a truly sustainable way. And anyone who reads through it will be amazed at how much was accomplished. Land. Property buyouts. Noise monitors. Plans for comprehensive air quality monitoring. Everything we try to do now, they made real progress on, or at least, developed strategies to do.
Of course, it was easier to have high expectations given the greater relative power of King County and the much stronger environmental laws at that time. But regardless, those expectations were the right expectations to have. Over the decades we’ve learned to accept far less than we were promised and deserve. We’re asking you to help restore those expectations.
What happened…
Since then, the Port has unwound nearly all that progress, reverting to the “let them sue” approach, and in fact utilizing much of the land and benefits meant for the communities for itself. The facts are clear: the Port has become stronger, communities weaker, and there has been no significant progress on any of the major issues mentioned in the STCP.
The only significant achievements, improvements to water quality, and sound insulation for schools, required exactly the kinds of law suits the STCP was meant to end–and nearly bled our communities dry.
Where we are vs. where we were supposed to be…
Noise: Not one new property has been identified as eligible for sound insulation since 1996. In fact, with each Part 150 Study, the number of eligible homes decreases! Although you sponsored 1legislation to allow the Port to provide sound insulation updates, to date they have done absolutely nothing to move that forward. The minor change to the Glide Slope (to bring Sea-Tac into conformity with other major airports) was planned as early as 41971. Still waiting.
Air Quality: In developing the Sea-Tac Communities Plan, major goals included creating a network of noise monitors and a comprehensive network of air quality monitors. The first noise monitoring network was implemented in 1979 and has continued to be updated. To this date there is still not a single AQM station anywhere near the airport. While I recognize that you and others are working on one such monitor, one monitor is not a complete network–and not what is needed. Frankly, scientists only talk about one because that is all they think is possible. How far we have fallen: scientists can’t even ask for the small amounts of money necessary to obtain justice.
Land Use: The Port has been able to leverage its special taxing authority with its unique ability to obtain Federal and State lands to become a commercial real estate superpower–often using 6property intended for community benefit to enrich itself at the expense of our residents.
Revenue Sharing: The Sea-Tac Communities Plan recognized that property buyouts would have a significant impact on local tax bases–especially schools. Again, these issues were easier to swallow when much of the area was governed by King County–and before the end of Equalization in 1999. Today, that lack of structural income is absolutely punishing for cities like Des Moines which were never designed to support a major business tax base. Only SeaTac has managed to achieve the kind of revenue sharing envisioned in 1976. Highline Schools has never recovered.
Distractions and Substitutions
Instead, the Port has offered a series of distractions and substitutions in the form of small grants (redistributing our own property taxes) and neoliberal (and exaggerated) promises of Jobs! and Growth! Most cynically of all, the ‘affordability’ we tout for our area comes at the cost of our own poor health and poor education.
Jobs and growth are important, but ultimately there are no apprenticeships or one-time construction projects or tree plantings that can ever compare to the hundreds of millions of dollars of ongoing and unrecognized externalities. Maritime High is a great opportunity for a few hundred, but it pales next to the impacts for the other 20,000+ students of Highline and Federal Way Schools under the flight path. The Des Moines Creek Business Park looks very nice, but an FAA building provides no property tax for the City of Des Moines.
The Port continues to use the vast majority of its State-mandated Tax Levy not for community benefit but to accelerate repayment of GO bonds for its 5capital projects–in effect, using our own money to fund the airport expansions that harm us.
And, the Port of Seattle and every local jurisdiction have aligned their legislative agenda such that one cannot tell one from the other. The grand argument is that the Port and the cities both want the same things from the FAA and congress. This is simply another form of ‘trickle down economics’. The cities’ interests are not the same as the Port’s (or at least, they shouldn’t be!) It is not only irresponsible but cynical. Since Airline Deregulation in 1978 Congress has never had more than forty votes in favor of any legislation which benefits airport community interests.
The ultimate distraction: a second airport
We have all bought into the dream that a second airport might provide some relief for residents near Sea-Tac Airport, although the 3CACC, WSDOT, the PSRC all make it quite clear that it will not.
We must begin educating the public that ‘demand’ will fill up Sea-Tac and then move towards other airports. Sea-Tac will always be maxed out before traffic goes to other places and those airports will be used for very different purposes.
Oddly, the most disturbing part of the CACC discussions has centered around the insistence that this new airport be made more ‘healthy’, meaning of course, not be like Sea-Tac Airport! By stressing that a new airport 2“will be not be Sea-Tac 2.0!” you’re sending residents near those proposed sites exactly the opposite message. Think about the maxim, “Children see what parents do, not what they say.”
If we want residents of Enumclaw, or Pierce or Thurston Counties to believe these messages of a “better second airport”, we must prove it by demanding that the residents near Sea-Tac finally obtain the relief they were promised in 1976.
Primary Asks
We’re asking you to consider what decisive actions you can take in 2023 to obtain the relief we cannot obtain through StART or the Highline Forum or ‘Federal legislation’. Realistically speaking, those bodies can only maintain the status quo. They literally cannot even ask for what the communities really need.
Sound Insulation: You supported legislation to allow the Port to provide sound insulation updates. It would take only $1MM/year to create a working update program based on the SFO model we’ve previously discussed.
Air Quality: For another few million we can fund the air quality monitoring network envisioned in 1976. The airport communities are now majority BIPOC. And yet, we struggle to be ranked properly on any number of Environmental Justice metrics because neither noise or aviation emissions are subject to State regulations. We have a saying in the engineering world: “No data. No problem.” This is outrageous.
As with lead in the 60’s, as with noise in the 70’s, as with any regulation of dangerous externalities, the real solution begins not with more one-off studies but without routine, comprehensive, longitudinal measuring.
Revenue Sharing: By virtue of the very RCW which gives the Port its taxing and profit-making authorities, the State has tools to provide structural revenue to the airport communities. None risk running afoul of King County or the FAA. Here are just a few:
- A portion of the Property Tax Levy could be set aside for each city.
- A fraction of sales tax collected by the Port from non-aeronautical revenue can also be set aside.
- A small portion of the millions in Leasehold Excise Tax from commercial properties. This would be truly just since many of these lands were purchased with FAA grant money (eg. Des Moines Creek Business Park)
Cities deserve a portion of those monies because above all else, the airport communities need structural revenue, not another grant opportunity.
Second Airport: Since the growth of Sea-Tac Airport is a fait accompli, any political support for a second airport should come with direct benefits for the residents of Sea-Tac Airport.
And there is precedence for that. We remind you that, way back in 1996, the PSRC insisted that the Port begin work on a sound insulation program for 12,000 properties before construction could begin. It wasn’t because they were so concerned about residents under the Third Runway. It was to address those unfulfilled promises left over from the Second Runway.
The same case should be made today: No second airport, until there is justice for residents near Sea-Tac.
Now
We reiterate: you have done great things on these issues. No one who does not hold your office can pretend to fully understand the complexities of State politics. But despite all that, the moment demands more. And to the extent that you can, we feel you have an obligation to work on the above issues now.
The Sustain Airport Master Plan (SAMP) is happening now. SR-509 and the southern access point are happening now. In 2027, they will create a Fourth Runway as impactful to our area as every other previous airport expansion. We’re calling on you to act now because you know yourselves that by the time ‘NEPA’ and ‘SEPA’ hearings occur it will be far too late.
And if there is to be a second airport, it would also be immoral to build a ‘healthier’ second airport without first providing relief to residents near Sea-Tac.
Respectfully, the time is now.
Sincerely,
—JC
1 WA House Bill HB2315, 2020.
2Warren Hendrickson, non-voting CACC member from the Washington State Aviation Alliance (WSAA).
3Warren Hendrickson, non-voting CACC member from the Washington State Aviation Alliance (WSAA).
4Letter from Robert O. Brown, FAA NW Regional Director to Don Shay, Port of Seattle.
5Port of Seattle Commission Meeting, 11/29/2022 on Tax Levy/Budget for 2023.
6eg. Des Moines Creek Business Park which was originally funded with the help of Senator Warren Magnuson as the South Clear Zone portion of the STCP.