Letter to Commissioners: Port Package Pilot Program

Dear Commissioners,Below is a Pilot Project, which addresses your concerns to quantify the need of Port Package Updates and a way to help affected community members now. The balance of this article explains that necessity–which comes down to the fact that the Part 150 process has been not only useless, but actually harmful to the community interest since 1996.

And to begin: Anyone recognize this guy?

Mr. Shepherd is giving a presentation at a “Community Listening Session” in Normandy Park back in 2010. Wanna know what has changed since then? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that is the problem.

The presentation he made to those people, and to city leaders like Rose Clark (Burien) and Tony Piasecki (Des Moines) a month earlier, was almost word for word the one you received at your last meeting. And the same one he would have given in 2002. And so on. And so on.

It is always a speech which expresses hopefulness and commitment to finding ‘solutions’ but in truth offers less than nothing because literally every month that passes the DNL65 shrinks, and thus fewer and fewer homes are eligible for any future sound insulation (or updates.) Your team assures you that it will redouble its efforts to work with Congress and the FAA, which in effect, moves all the responsibility onto someone else and three to five years down the road.

But having heard reassurances that everything that can be done is being done, the new Commission expresses optimism because, frankly, none of you were around to see that it’s the same show from 2002. And 2010. And 2013. And even 2015.

A few things that do not get mentioned:

• The Port has never provided sound insulation for any building unless it was compelled to do so and paid to do so.
• And the last time that happened was in 1996.
• There have literally been zero homes added to the list of eligible properties since 1996. That bears repeating: the Part 150 program has never, ever, obtained sound insulation for even a single new homeowner beyond that initial survey.
  
• In fact, the list of homes/buildings which are eligible keeps shrinking every time you do a Part 150. That also bears repeating. Every subsequent Part 150 program has reduced the number of eligible homes. The difference between 1996 and 2016 is measured in the thousands.
• Even that 2020 ‘Accelerated Sound Insulation Program’ simply fulfills a commitment left over from 1996.
• The cost to a homeowner for a sound insulation system equivalent to today’s  Port Package can range from $50,000 to almost $100,000.
• Most homeowners who update a poor system will not do an equivalent job, both because they cannot afford it and because they are not experts.
• The only Congressional legislation ever proposed has a series of constraints that would limit eligibility for Port Package updates to less than three hundred homes. And your legislative team is well aware of the fact that there have never been more than forty members of Congress willing to show support.

But the most important fact that never gets presented is this: There is absolutely nothing in FAA regulations which precludes the Port from spending its own money on sound insulation systems or air quality monitoring or any of a dozen programs to address those ongoing community impacts. (In fact, you’re doing that now with the 2020 Accelerated Sound Insulation Program.)

This is not progress

In recent years, the Port Commission has gone through a major evolution towards addressing long standing concerns of equity and justice–reforms I have testified in favour of and acknowledge.

But none of those good works address the  the two things the communities actually care about: the noise and the pollution.

As you’ve just read, decade after decade has gone by now where the Port continues to do exactly the same things when it comes to what impacted residents under the flight path actually care about.

It was not always like this

From the Peat, Marwick, Mitchell audit of the Sea-Tac Communities Plan in September, 1977.

…what may be termed a “let them sue” approach was essentially followed by the Port during the period from 1957 to 1972.

The STCP was created by the Port, the FAA and the communities, between 1973 and 1976 to get past that. But over time, the Port has slowly but surely reverted back to exactly where things stood fifty years ago. You’ve gone back to doing nothing about the noise and pollution unless someone makes you.

Pilot Project

The deeper point of setting aside $1,000,000 for a Port Package Update program is because both Part 150 and NEPA are deeply flawed processes. They. Do. Not. Work. They’re simply compliance boxes to check off. Best case (from your POV) they provide ‘the appearance of engagement’. Worst case, they waste years and millions of dollars of Port money–and still provide no meaningful relief for the communities.

Instead, be the first Port Commission in fifty years with the courage to address the negative impacts of the airport cost-effectively and simply because it is the right thing to do, not only when you are compelled to do so.

1. Set aside $1,000,000. Remember: a budget item is not a spend. It’s just a bucket.

2. Put up a first-come-first-serve, SFO-style web site and start taking applications immediately, using the same criteria they do.

3. Evaluate each applicant. If they meet the criteria? Schedule the work, since you have the bodies. (And while yer at it, do real audio sampling–which you’d do for any new install to verify eligibility.)

4. After one year, have the Noise team report back to the Commission with their results. How many legit applications? How many posers? Demographics? How much of a difference did it make in interior sound reduction? What kinds of problems did the team note on site? There are a lot of practical lessons to be learned from this exercise.

• Worst case? You get few legitimate applications, demonstrate that it isn’t worth the trouble to do outside the Federal process, and put back the unspent portion of the fund. You did exactly that with the ACE Grants program, btw, rolling the unspent amount into the SKCF.
• ‘Best’ case? You replicate SFO’s experience and run out of money almost instantly, because the legitimate demand is so great. But you help at least a few people now. And then both you and SFO can make the case for broader funding.
  

Help people. Collect data. Build the political case. Now.

Today

It takes courage to go against such an entrenched system with so many incentives to do the wrong thing. But whoever says that Part 150 is a way forward is simply not telling you the truth. Quite the opposite, every Part 150 since 1996 have been lengthy and expensive processes that not only end up helping no one, they actually reduce the number of people who can ever be helped. And these repeat performances over more than two decades are the proof.

In contrast, you can take action, at far less cost, and help homeowners who did not get what they deserved. Today.  You can, for the first time in fifty years, do something of your own volition to meaningfully address the core issues of life under the flight path.