Under The Flight Path: A Community History of Sea-Tac Airport 2023 Grant Application

Short Description

We will create a documentary about the Airport Communities of Sea-Tac from 1949 to 2019: Tukwila, Normandy Park, Des Moines, Federal Way, SeaTac and Burien. This will be the first modern history of South King County and also the first about any similar group of communities co-existing alongside any major US Airport. The film will be supplemented by a web site which will provide complete versions of all materials referenced in the film.

Description

The stories of Sea-Tac Airport and the Airport Communities are both complex and inextricably linked. When the decision was made to make Sea-Tac the main regional airport in 1949, traffic was less than 30 flights a day—and half of those being smaller ‘general aviation’ aircraft. That number remained quite tolerable to residents through the decades, only beginning to skyrocket during the 90’s long after the addition of a second runway.

But from then on the increase in daily flights has been meteoric. In 2008 the airfield added a third runway and by 2019 now handled over 1,100 flights every day; almost all commercial jets, and all on the smallest footprint of any major airport.

This dramatic growth now provides 80% of the Port’s revenues, making it “The economic engine of King County”. Having becoming so essential to the State’s economy, the Port faces constant pressure to maintain and further expand airport operations. And since the airport is owned by the Port of Seattle, an independent government with its own taxing authority, it is not directly accountable to other local governments for any negative impacts.

During those same years, peopl flocked to what ultimately became the Airport Communities, lured by beautiful environment, great schools, good jobs in the airline industry and “The Airport Discount” the best deal for homes at the small cost of hearing a small number of flights every day. Today the entire area consists of densely populated residential neighborhoods.

Over the past sixty years, Seattle media coverage of Sea-Tac has been almost exclusively positive, focusing on the economic benefits. When there was negative coverage, it was usually focused on the impacts to passengers. That created an enormous challenge for Airport Communities. Not only did they struggle to address the profound and very real negative impacts, when they did get their story told it was often characterized as “NIMBYs who should move if they don’t like the noise!”

But the reality is this: on average, the nearer you live near Sea-Tac Airport, the less money you make, the poorer your children’s educational opportunities, and the shorter your lifespan. And for the growing majority people of color, those effects are only multiplied.

We will tell this important story in a one hour film which will be interesting and entertaining even for general audiences unfamiliar with the subject matter or the region. To do so we’ll use graphics and animations complex ideas meaningful, clear and interesting for laypersons. We’ll describe events but also demonstrate how the growth in operations affects demography, jobs, educational attainments, incomes, property values, revenue to the airport, economic benefits for each city, plus a variety of health disparities relative to the rest of King County.

We will present, for the first time, an accurate picture of each of the Airport Communities. When we talk about the airport, it will be within the context of its effects on each city. We’ll explain the unique character of each city and both how and why it has been so challenging for them to work together to respond effectively to the challenges presented by the airport’s growth.

In short, we’ll show what it means to four generations of communities in an idyllic area, when a small local airport grows so quickly to become the dominant force for an entire region.

Impact

Both Seattle and national media coverage of Sea-Tac Airport have always tilted heavily towards the romance of air travel and the economic benefits to the region writ large. Each time the airport has expanded, local governments and community groups have activated to address concerns about a variety of negative impacts, including noise and pollution. But those outcomes have always ended in frustration and a mass community exodus. This turnover has results in a loss of ongoing institutional knowledge. Every subsequent generation ends up ‘re-inventing the wheel’– re-learning even the basics of what their rights are and how to advocate with the appropriate organizations.

This combination of slanted media coverage and a lack of institutional memory has created a series of enduring myths that consistently worked to the disadvantage of both local governments and their residents, including:

• “The noise and pollution are just annoyances”
• “The Port of Seattle and particularly the airport provides great jobs!”
• “The airport is an economic plus for everyone!”

A primary goal of this project is to bust those myths:

• Both the noise and emissions correlate with several serious negative health outcomes ranging from low birth weight to reductions in life expectancy
• In 2020 only 59 residents of Des Moines had living wage jobs with the Port of Seattle and less than 500 had living wage jobs with any of their main contractors or the airline industry
• The overwhelming benefits of the airport have been felt by Seattle and East Side communities.

The growth of Sea-Tac Airport has dramatically changed every aspect of the Airport Communities including the natural environment. Large areas of SeaTac, Des Moines and Burien have been and continue to be terra-formed to accommodate expansion, dramatically affecting not only residents, but also waterways, wild life and tree cover.

Factory Town

As soon as Sea-Tac Airport began providing commercial service, the Airport Communities began to look a lot like the Rust Belt towns of the American Midwest. Boeing workers and airline employees settled near the airport and developed a fierce and enduring loyalty to both the airport and the industry writ large—long after that industry has moved elsewhere.

And like those towns of the Rust Belt, the Airport Communities also had a factory at their center. The beautiful glass and steel façade of a modern airport looks nothing like a traditional factory, but functionally its job is simply to move people and cargo. And like all factories, the money overwhelmingly flowed far away (in our case to the north and the east of King County) while the negative impacts stayed close to home. Put simply: Sea-Tac became, and will remain, the second largest emitter of C02 in all of Washington State.

Advancing Equity

Like all factory towns, as our Airport Communities have matured, they have become more diverse and in most areas now majority/minority. In the 1960 census, over 90% of the residents of Des Moines identified as White. In 2020 that number is now 50%, with roughly 20.0% Hispanic, 12% Asian, 10% African-American, 4% Pacific Islander and 1% Native American.

And also like traditional factory towns, over time, the economic benefits and well-paid jobs once provided by the airport tend to move away from the people who live nearest the airport. Put simply: as flight operations increase, the money moves further way, and residents who can move, do. Lower income people move in to take advantage of ‘The Airport Discount’ and local government budgets get starved—notably schools.

A person of color living near the runways has an average life expectancy almost a decade less than a similar person living in Bellevue. Highline Schools, once rated near the top in Washington State, now consistently rank near the bottom. And  to drive home this point: those, and dozens of other, negative effects tend to correlate with one’s proximity to the flight path and distance from the end of the runways.

For politicians, this often makes for strange bedfellows, pitting “jobs” and “affordability” against concerns over environment, health and educational outcomes. They, as well as academics and activists, struggle to balance these competing priorities. The daunting level of bureaucracy  involved with the Port’s ownership of the airport and the FAA’s control of flight paths and environmental mitigation have hindered communities from advocating for or even understanding their rights.

By giving community members a clear and understandable picture of how the airport affects their lives and their communities, we hope to empower them to obtain more equitable outcomes for residents who live under the flight path.

Expertise

Our project lead will be JC Harris. Mr. Harris is a licensed professional engineer and has extensive experience in web development and multi-media project management having performed similar tasks with companies including Walmart, Disney and AT&T. He has been a consultant for the Des Moines Historical Society and currently serves on the Des Moines City Council.

He will be supported by Paula Rodrigues who will handle administrative functions, bookkeeping and project scheduling. Miles Benjamin and Stephen McFarren will provide fact checking on legal and aviation respectively.

All members will participate in the primary hiring decision–the external contractor who will provide video editing, and in weekly meetings to keep the project on schedule. They will all share in outreach and promotional duties.

Implementation

Over the past five years SeaTacNoise.Info has amassed the largest archive of information concerning Airport Community, Sea-Tac Airport and Port of Seattle history going back to 1949. These include every available piece of video, audio and newspaper account from major outlets such as the Seattle Times and Seattle PI, plus local papers including the Des Moines News and Highline Times. We’ve also included the records of every Port of Seattle Commission meeting, legal documents, community events, political races, health studies, and the personal libraries of over two dozen local activists going back to the 1960’s. Additionally, we have compiled over 100 hours of interviews with local, county, state and federal politicians, academics and local activists from each major airport expansion project.

We have already compiled all the source materials we will need and prepared an outline of scenes and their requirements. The most critical decisions will be in choosing a video editor and deciding on which shots should be outsourced to them.

We project 600 hrs of in-house work on the film and another 200 for the web site. Mr. Harris and Ms. Rodrigues are retired and have already set aside the requisite time to complete the project on schedule.

Our timeline is as follows:

July 2022	Begin project assembly and make final decisions on video editing. Put out request for bids for web server and video editor.
August 2022	Select Video Editor and Web Server provider. Begin weekly meetings
January 2023	Submit rough cut to key stakeholders for feedback, prepare promotional materials
March 2023	Conduct debut screenings

After the close of the project, all materials will be made available through our website SeatacNoise.Info as well as via our social media presence on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.

Copies of film will also be provided to the Seatle Times, the Des Moines Historical Society, Highline Heritage Museum, Highline College and Highline School District high school libraries.

In terms of media reach we have the following goals:

• At each screening, we hope for 100 attendees
• Publicize through a range of media outlets including our own mailing list (2,100 members), website (5,000 monthly visits)
• Engage with both King County Library System, Seattle Public Library, Highline College and Highline Heritage Museum to conduct future screenings