TagRCAA(188)

This community newsletter from the RCAA (Residents for a Cleaner Airport Area) outlines how Highline-area communities near Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport have held the Port of Seattle accountable for noise, water pollution, and runaway construction costs on a proposed third runway. Key victories include a $150 million noise-mitigation settlement for Highline schools, a court-ordered halt to third-runway construction due to unmet environmental permit requirements, and improved water quality in local streams. The document urges residents to stay engaged, warning that the Port continues to pursue runway expansion despite being $3 billion in debt and facing ongoing legal and environmental challenges.

This document traces the history of regional air transportation planning in Washington State from 1942 to 1997, covering key milestones such as the original selection of the Bow Lake airport site, runway expansions, and noise-related lawsuits against the Port of Seattle. It highlights repeated policy decisions—including the 1973 Sea-Tac Communities Plan and the 1985 Master Plan Update—that explicitly ruled out new runways and major site expansions at Sea-Tac International Airport. The chronology also documents growing community concerns about aircraft noise, vibration, and smoke, reflected in legal actions and environmental impact studies throughout the period.

This collection of essays and timeline entries from HistoryLink.org traces the full history of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, from its origins as a World War II-era civilian airport built by the Port of Seattle to the complex debates of the 1980s–2000s over adding a third runway. Key topics include the airport's rapid growth during the jet age, the economic disruptions of the Boeing Bust, and the federal deregulation of airlines in 1978. A central focus is the prolonged public and political battle over noise impacts and runway expansion, which drove up the third runway's projected cost from $430 million to $1.1 billion and delayed its completion by nearly a decade.

An index document listing contents of Box 15, containing videotapes of various public meetings and hearings from 2000-2001. Includes KIRO 7 news coverage, Army Corps of Engineers public hearing, hydrology study workshops, NPDES permit modification meetings, and Miller Creek wetlands/migratory birds documentation.

Community groups C.A.S.E. and the Airport Communities Coalition have appealed Sea-Tac Airport's water pollution permit, pushing for stronger environmental protections while the Port of Seattle seeks to weaken it. Their key concerns include toxic de-icing chemicals entering local streams, inadequate protection of Lake Reba, contaminated soil used in the third-runway construction, and years of delayed compliance with clean-water standards. The groups argue the permit fails to meet legally required industrial pollution controls and undermines previous rulings by the Pollution Control Hearings Board.

This map from King County's Department of Natural Resources and Parks illustrates the jurisdictional boundaries of the Miller/Walker Creek and Salmon Creek drainage basins in the area surrounding Sea-Tac International Airport and King County International Airport. It identifies the municipalities involved—including Burien, SeaTac, Seattle, Tukwila, Normandy Park, Des Moines, and unincorporated King County—along with key sub-basins such as the Hermes Depression, SW 142nd St. Depression, and Puget Sound Drainage areas. The map serves as a reference for stormwater and land-use planning in a region where airport operations and urban development intersect with sensitive waterways and wetlands.

This document is an environmental evaluation prepared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a dredge-and-fill permit application submitted by the Port of Seattle (permit no. 1996-4-02325). It assesses the potential impacts of proposed discharge activities on aquatic ecosystems, including effects on water quality, fish and wildlife, wetlands, and human uses such as fisheries and recreation. The evaluation also examines practicable alternatives and outlines measures to minimize or compensate for unavoidable environmental impacts.

This report challenges a 1995 environmental impact study that recommended building a third runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to handle bad-weather flight delays. It argues that poor weather actually restricts the airport to single-runway operations only about 17% of the year—not the 44% claimed in the official study—and that installing an LDA/DME instrument approach system to Runway 16R would be a sufficient and less disruptive alternative. The analysis draws on detailed hourly weather data from 1993 and 1994 to support the conclusion that a costly new runway is unnecessary.