TagVashon Island Fair Skies(23)

Vashon Island Fair Skies, a Washington nonprofit corporation, has filed a petition for review against the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Case No. 25-7373), docketed on November 24, 2025. The case challenges an FAA decision and is represented on the petitioner's side by attorney Steven M. Taber of Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman, with the FAA and U.S. Department of Justice defending the agency's position. This case likely relates to aircraft noise or airspace management issues affecting Vashon Island, located near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

This document is a Waiver of Conflict signed by the cities of Burien, Des Moines, and SeaTac, Washington, acknowledging that their legal interests may potentially conflict with those of Vashon Island Fair Skies while being jointly represented by the law firm Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman, Inc. The three cities voluntarily consent to this shared legal representation in connection with a formal challenge to the FAA's environmental review decision regarding near-term construction projects outlined in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport's Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP). The cities also acknowledge they were advised of their right to seek independent legal counsel before signing the waiver.

Vashon Island Fair Skies (VIFS), a Washington nonprofit representing residents affected by aircraft noise, has filed a petition in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging a September 2025 FAA decision approving near-term expansion projects at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The group argues that the FAA's environmental review failed to adequately address the significant noise impacts on Vashon and Maury Islands resulting from concentrated, low-altitude flight paths introduced under the FAA's NextGen navigation program. VIFS has been actively opposing these flight path changes since 2018, when new Performance-Based Navigation procedures began routing more aircraft directly over the islands at lower altitudes.

Law firm Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman, Inc. sent this November 2025 letter to the cities of Burien, Des Moines, and SeaTac, Washington, along with Vashon Island Fair Skies, Inc., requesting their consent to be represented together in legal challenges against the FAA's environmental approval of near-term construction projects at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The firm explains that while a potential conflict of interest exists in representing multiple clients simultaneously, all parties currently share a common goal of contesting the FAA's Finding of No Significant Impact related to increased aviation noise. The letter outlines the conditions of the joint representation, including fee-sharing arrangements, attorney-client privilege limitations, and procedures the firm will follow if the clients' interests diverge.

The cities of Burien, Des Moines, and SeaTac, Washington signed a conflict waiver on November 21, 2025, acknowledging that their legal interests may potentially conflict with those of Vashon Island Fair Skies, while all being represented by the same law firm, Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman, Inc. The waiver relates to a legal challenge — a Petition for Review — of the FAA's Finding of No Significant Impact and Record of Decision for the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) Near-Term Projects at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. All three cities knowingly consented to the concurrent representation and to legal fees being paid by a third party on their behalf.

Written comments submitted by Vashon Island Fair Skies to the FAA regarding noise policy review, focusing on ambient noise considerations and challenges in modeling airframe noise generation for aircraft arrivals. The document criticizes the current DNL metric and discusses technical issues with Sound Exposure Level calculations and airframe noise modeling.

Vashon Island Fair Skies, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, wrote to the SeaTac City Council in July 2020 requesting help pressuring the Port of Seattle to retain raw second-by-second data from its 24 airport noise monitors, which vendor L3Harris currently purges after processing. The letter argues this raw data is essential for accurate noise analysis, demonstrating with December 2019 monitor data that high background noise at some sites causes the processing software to miss many actual aircraft overflight events. The group asks the city to urge the Port to make a simple procedural change — either downloading the data itself or requiring L3Harris to deliver it — noting the storage requirement is a modest ~62 MB per monitor per month.