Tag350 Seattle(9)

The SeaTac Airport Community Coalition for Justice is hosting a candidate forum on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, from 5:30–8 PM in Downtown Burien, bringing together Port of Seattle Commissioner and 33rd Legislative District candidates to discuss airport noise, air pollution, and community impacts. The event covers themes including environmental and health justice, workforce access, and policy coordination, with attendance available in person or via Zoom (registration required). The forum aims to hold local elected officials accountable for decisions affecting residents who live near Sea-Tac Airport.

At a May 2022 Highline Forum meeting, Federal Way resident Bernedine Lund criticized the Port of Seattle's StART program for reducing transparency in its annual reporting, noting that the 2021 report replaced detailed meeting summaries with a glossy, brochure-style format lacking substantive information. She further raised concerns that StART Steering Committee meetings, which began in 2021 and include outside parties like the FAA, have no published minutes or summaries, leaving the public no way to know what decisions were made. Lund argued this lack of openness is especially problematic given that the Port of Seattle is a publicly funded taxing district supported by local property taxes.

This document from 350 Seattle argues that alternative aviation fuels (AAFs), often marketed as 'sustainable aviation fuels' or SAFs, are largely a greenwashing tactic by the aviation industry and cannot meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially as flight volumes continue to grow. It highlights that planes burning AAFs still emit carbon just like conventional jet fuel, and that scaling up AAF production raises serious equity concerns, including health impacts on low-income communities and people of color living near Sea-Tac Airport and under flight paths. 350 Seattle instead calls for an emissions cap on aviation, a halt to airport expansion, and investment in true zero-emission solutions.

In a March 2021 public comment to the Highline Forum, Federal Way resident Bernedine Lund urged Sea-Tac Airport officials to request that the FAA disperse departure flight paths to reduce concentrated aircraft noise over residential areas. Drawing on examples from the 2021 Aviation Noise & Emissions Symposium, she highlighted how Charlotte Douglas International Airport successfully spread departure tracks from a 1.6-mile-wide corridor to 2.5 miles, and noted that similar tightly clustered flight paths exist over Federal Way. She pointed to FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, Section 175, which allows airport operators—in consultation with affected communities—to formally request dispersal of departure procedures between the surface and 6,000 feet, provided the change does not increase noise over sensitive areas.

At a September 2020 Highline Forum meeting, Federal Way resident Bernedine Lund argued that Sea-Tac Airport and the FAA are misleading the public about aircraft emissions by only measuring fuel use during takeoff and landing, while ignoring the far larger greenhouse gas output of full flights. She called on the Port and FAA to be transparent about the total global climate impact of aircraft using Sea-Tac. Her comments emphasized that environmental responsibility must extend beyond airport-specific operations to include the aircraft themselves.

Federal Way resident Bernedine Lund submitted public comments to the Port of Seattle Commission on May 26-27, 2020, calling for stronger environmental and community health protections in the Port's Century Agenda. She urged the Port to add goals addressing aircraft noise and pollution impacts on local communities, take responsibility for jet fuel emissions rather than limiting green energy claims to airport operations only, and plan for reduced flight numbers by developing proposals for a transportation-communication hub. Lund also suggested the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to rethink long-term aviation growth targets.