I wrote the following article in 2018:
*Why There Is No Second Airport In Site
I’m throwing up that old news in light of the fact that yesterday, the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (CACC) met its statutory obligation to deliver a recommendation on a ‘second airport’, basically by punting a final decision into 2023 which seems to confirm our worst fears:
Commercial-Aviation-Coordinating-Commission-Published Report-October 2022
The headlines are “OMG, there might be a new airport in Pierce or Thurston Counties!” But that isn’t the real news in our opinion. Actually, it isn’t really ‘news’ at all because there are still three options on the table and none of them will have any affect on us.
Two notable quotables from the report, neither of which should make residents near Sea-Tac Airport very happy.
Sea-Tac airport continues to work to meet passenger and shipper needs. The airport is likely to remain the flagship airport for the region, and airport plans can be expected to optimize capacity for passengers and freight into the 2030s
The Commission envisions a gradual transformation of air transportation. Capacity should align with demand, providing additional capacity just-in-time to meet demand but not building until realistic expectations demonstrate the need to do so. Hence, capacity begins with Sea-Tac executing its Sustainable Airport Master Plan.
We’ve seen this movie before…
In previous eras, each time Sea-Tac expanded, there was a similar ‘second airport commission’. The last one was in 1989 called Flight Plan. That commission ended with no recommendation. And that lack of alternatives led to building the Third Runway. So, the clever authors of the CACC insisted that commission members must make a choice. Problem solved!
Not really. It simply forces the commissioners to choose a site that meets none of passenger or commercial airline or PSRC’s goals for addressing the true needs of Central Puget Sound. Oops. Instead, the group will choose a site based mainly on the least amount of legal opposition, and re-frame the decision as an “aviation of the future”, a gift no one actually asked for.
Whether you ‘choose not to choose’ or you choose a site no one wants, the results will be the same as Flight Plan. It will pressure all stakeholders to get Sea-Tac airport to step on the gas.
Last time it was a corrupt Third Runway process. This time it will be SAMP NTP in 2027 and then SAMP LTP in 2034–a process we have dubbed The Fourth Runway because it will have the same devastating consequences for the community as the Third Runway.
Lessons learned
In 1976, the Port, the FAA and King County responded to the complaints from residents and schools by implementing the Sea-Tac Communities Plan.
Since then, the Port has walked back all those gains, making many mistakes along the way, but continuing to grow stronger. And with each expansion, the Port has learned. For the Third Runway, the Port suffered, but it paid almost no out of pocket mitigation. The surrounding cities, however, were the big losers.
Today, there is a Fourth Runway being built right under the public’s nose, but the Port has developed the skills to do this project without creating those public relations or legal disasters–and to pay even less than the Third Runway.
Scapegoats
It would be unfair to lay all the blame with the Port of Seattle. Just as it has always been unfair to be quite so hard on the FAA. To a very large extent the Port simply plays bad cop for the rest of the State of Washington which loves all the money Sea-Tac Airport generates for them.
You do not see either your Governor or your U.S. Senators supporting regulations that would curtail the Port of Seattle in any way. Nor do you hear such calls from local electeds. It would have been impossible for the Port to establish such dominance over our cities without the active help of all of the above.
So, when Pierce County howls about the injustice of an airport on their turf, we would note all the times they have sat at a Puget Sound Clean Air Agency Advisory meeting and voted against PSCAA taking stronger action to attempt to monitor air pollution at Sea-Tac Airport. Back then, their concerns were to make sure PSCAA was focusing all the resources it needed on… “wood smoke.” Uh, huh.
As so many pro-airport politicians have said over the years, “the airport isn’t going anywhere.” On that we agree. So instead of focusing on substitutes which are either ineffective or unlikely to happen anytime soon (including but not limited to
- FAA reform
- Second airports
- Alternative technologies)
…we should focus our efforts on things we can do something about here and now.