Wrangling over the “Ramboll Report”

In this article, we will refer back and forth between two very different documents. The first is the Community Health and Airport Operations Related Pollution Report. The second is a Powerpoint® review of that study the Port Commission received in May of 2021.

A Timeline

• In 2019, the State of Washington passed HB 1109. This bill provided the funding of a study led by Dr. Kris Johnson of Seattle/King County Department of Health, called the Community Health and Airport Operations Related Pollution Report. The goal was to provide a summary of all current known health impacts from the airport on the people who live nearby. We’ll call this is ‘the KCDOH Study’.
• In May of 2021 the Port of Seattle hired the well-known environmental consultancy Ramboll to analyze the report and provide a summary presentation to Port Commissioners. That presentation included a series of  Powerpoint® slides. That is ‘the Ramboll Report’.
• Quiet Skies Puget Sound member Steve Edmiston requested a copy of that Powerpoint through the Port’s public records request system. The copy he received (which he referred to as ‘the Ramboll Report’ was heavily redacted, being marked as protected attorney/client privilege.
• On September 29, 2022, Mr. Edmiston filed a complaint in King County Superior Court to obtain an unredacted copy of that Powerpoint. Steve Edmiston v. Port of Seattle Complaint for disclosure under Public Records Act.
• The judge denied the request saying that the statute of limitations had expired.
• In March of 2023, Quiet Skies Puget Sound began encouraging as many people as possible to file a similar PRR, assuming that, since these were new requests, they could not be denied for that same reason. Apparently, there was also an element of protest involved. The thought seemed to be that having numerous people making the same request would demonstrate a public demand for transparency from the Port.
• Quiet Skies also held two tent meetings to discuss the controversy, inviting Port Commissioner Felleman to one of them to demand that the Port release the unredacted version of that Powerpoint. Coverage in the Waterland Blog.
• On May 11th, QSPS invited the author of the original KCDOH Study, Dr. Kris Johnson, to do a presentation on that KCHDOH Study at a local church in Des Moines.
• On May 30th, the Port’s Public Records Office released an unredacted version of the Powerpoint to the 40+ people who made that same request.

And after all that, the response to the unredacted version from the Quiet Skies community? Crickets.

Optics…

At first glance, the optics of the situation were not great.

Redacted Ramboll Powerpoint…

Unredacted Ramboll Powerpoint.

Without reading the details, it looks terrible. What could the Port be hiding?

However….

Our concern all along has been that the public is focusing more on some perceived ‘coverup’ than what Dr. Johnson’s work is trying to say. By the time people saw that highly redacted “Ramboll Powerpoint”, the original KCDOH Study was already three years old. During that time (sadly) her work had garnered almost no attention. But the ‘Ramboll Report’ with its sinister looking redactions was getting all sorts of attention.

Now that we can see the unredacted copy, the answers are clear.

The Port (and the Ramboll Powerpoint) were discussing a freely available document (the KCDOH Study), not talking over some damning internal research like Big Tobacco back in the 1960’s. There was no ‘cover-up’. The Port’s legal department may have been over-zealous, but that is what lawyers do. Every corporation will want to defend its ability to speak candidly–and in private –even when there is nothing to see. We are usually pleased to see large numbers of the public take collective action. It is often the only way to get anywhere on these kinds of issues. However, we fear that this campaign to uncover ‘the truth’ took advantage of public anger, only adding to the confusion.

More importantly, the Ramboll Powerpoint is a short summary of legitimate research concerns, not a smoking gun. Since the original KCDOH Study has been public now for three years, we think it would be more useful to focus activism on what the Community Health Study says than on anything the Port might have to say about it.

Perhaps the most useful activism in the kerfuffle was getting members of the public to hear Dr. Johnson speak at that church, because that is what people should be paying attention to. Sadly, her presentation went unrecorded.

However, she gives the same presentation frequently and here is a version she gave to the Burien City Council in January 2023. We encourage everyone to watch it because it is the work that really matters.

It does the job…

Reading the Ramboll Powerpoint carefully, the analysis does the job for all sides. Frankly, many scientists are not the best explainers of their own work. The Ramboll Powerpoint is valuable because it points out several key issues that both the Port and the community should confront.

• There are real problems of public health.
• There are suggestions of other problems that merit investigation.
• However, in many areas, the research is not where it needs to be to get to regulatory authority.
• The Study identifies those gaps — the places where more work is needed to get to that place.
• And all sides bear responsibility for not giving researchers the tools to get there.

If anything, the KCDOH Study reads to us likes a researcher’s cry for help. And we should hear that cry and simply give them what they need.

The vicious circle

1. Electeds and industry have been consistently complicit in saying “more research is needed!”, regurgitating existing and incomplete work.
2. Frustrated residents and activists say “enough studies!” and push for immediate relief, bypassing the current state of the science.
3. This impatience gives pro-aviation stakeholders all the ammunition they need to cycle back to #1.

Rinse and repeat.

The conversation you cannot have

What changes environmental law is data; data adequate to achieve a regulatory standard. Gathering the kind of rigorous data that leads to regulation takes years. It never occurs from one-off studies. It happens with boring, long term, comprehensive data collection. (eg.  the Department of Ecology has spent over $11M on various sensors to monitor Puget Sound every month.)

If we had started years ago, we’d be there by now. We did not. There are no shortcuts. So we may as well start now.

Until now, we’ve done nothing but one-off studies. They are always suggestive, but never enough to impose limits. We should focus on giving researchers the money and commitment to do that. Because the dirty little secret is that we never give researchers the money they really need to get the answers.

• The FAA will spend tens of millions funding research towards arcane items like better thermal coatings for engines, but only offer a few hundred thousand to scientists trying to understand ultrafine particulates.
• The State of Washington has repeatedly funded expensive summary studies of health impacts — which contain no original research.
• Airport communities will put “support for Sustainable Aviation Fuels” or ‘Second Airport!’ on their legislative agendas, rather than show support for research.

Rarely do we invest in the real work that pushes the ball down the field.

Researchers do not complain. Many scientists self-censor; not asking for the funding they really need. To do so risks the appearance of bias, or loss of grant opportunities.

Summary

Community activism is a wonderful thing when channeled towards the right goals. Unfortunately, the public’s long standing frustrations make it easy to get off target. We have to stop using the FAA, the Port, or any other bogeyman, as excuses for things we can do ourselves. By campaigning for things that are impossible, rather than asking electeds for the things researchers have told us they need we are contributing to problem.

It is just as easy for forty people to write their legislator in support of the proper air quality monitors, sound insulation and a host of other practical interventions, as it is to make the same public records request over and over.

There are no shortcuts. We encourage concerned residents to apply the same energy towards listening to what researchers have been telling us they need for decades and making sure they get it.