TagAirport Communities Coalition(268)

The Airport Communities Coalition (ACC) filed an emergency motion seeking to stop the Port of Seattle from moving forward with its Third Runway Project without complying with conditions set by the Pollution Control Hearings Board. This supplemental brief, submitted to the Washington Supreme Court, addresses whether the Administrative Procedure Act's stay provisions apply to ACC's request to enjoin the Port from violating the Board's order. ACC argues that the relevant APA provisions do not directly govern its motion, but that an injunction is especially warranted because the Port failed to obtain a stay of the Board's order.

The Airport Communities Coalition (ACC) appealed a federal court decision regarding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a third runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. At issue was whether the Corps was required to incorporate all water quality conditions set by Washington State's Pollution Control Hearings Board (PCHB) into its Clean Water Act Section 404 permit, including protections against polluted fill and wetland impact mitigation measures. The case, heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, centered on whether the Corps acted unlawfully by selectively excluding key state-mandated environmental safeguards from the construction permit.

The Airport Communities Coalition (ACC) filed a motion with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals requesting permission to submit a legal brief that exceeds the standard 14,000-word limit, seeking to file one of 15,195 words instead. The case challenges the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of the Sea-Tac Airport Third Runway Project, one of the largest public works projects in Washington state history, involving the importation of over 23 million cubic yards of fill material. ACC argued the extra length was necessary due to the extreme complexity of the case, which spans a 100,000-page administrative record and raises multiple legal issues under the Clean Water Act and NEPA.

This legal brief was filed before Washington State's Pollution Control Hearings Board by community groups challenging a stormwater discharge permit issued to the Port of Seattle for Sea-Tac Airport. The groups argue that Lake Reba, a detention pond on airport property, should be protected as a 'water of the state' and that the permit unlawfully fails to regulate or monitor the airport's industrial stormwater discharges from Lake Reba into Miller Creek. The appellants contend that, unlike other waterways affected by the airport, Lake Reba's discharge point was not even identified as an outfall, leaving it subject to no effluent limits, monitoring, or reporting requirements.

These Accounts Payable Vendor Master List records from the City of Burien, Washington, document payments made to the Airport Communities Coalition (ACC) between 2002 and 2004, totaling over $547,000 across the three years. The payments, drawn primarily from account 001-03-513-11-41-41C, represent quarterly and annual contributions related to Sea-Tac Airport noise policy advocacy and community planning efforts. Additional charges cover technical work such as Miller Creek Basin Plan modeling and review services.

A June 2, 2017 edition of the Federal Way Mirror features letters to the editor debating airplane noise and airport policy in the Federal Way, Washington area. Residents express frustration over increasing flight noise, with one writer describing it as a 'continual assault' on residents' ears, while another argues that Federal Way should advocate for a second regional airport at Everett's Paine Field rather than expanding Sea-Tac's third runway. The letters reflect ongoing community concern about the quality-of-life impacts of growing air traffic over South Sound neighborhoods.