Last week we introduced the the STNI 2026 Legislative Agenda by talking about the HOK, a good study, responding to a previous environmental review, and a bad study trying to do the same thing in 2019.
Housekeeping: We mention so many meetings including recent meetings of the Des Moines Aviation Committee, roundtables in New York City, Europe, KCIA, and the Part 150 - all the events you can follow by subscribing.
Feedback: We hit another record with podcast downloads after our host, JC, went bananas talking about 'no second airport!' We also mention that the HOK Study was no panacea. Every study has weak points. And why the next study should never be run by any government employee!
Everybody Loves Trees: As we keep saying, the cycle of community engagement on airport issues comes and goes every few years. Despite what we no call the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) being introduced in 2012, what seems to have gotten airport communities energized was a tree cutting program around the airport known as the Flight Corridor Safety Program. The Port had begun evaluating around 3,000 trees that might pose an obstruction in 2014, but it was the Commission's approval and several public meetings that really stirred things up.
To respond, the Port created its ACE Fund, an agreement with Hillgrove Cemetery, and a tree canopy study with Forterra. The more general awareness of airport issues led to the creation of community groups like Quiet Skies Puget Sound, and within a year SeaTac, Burien, Federal Way, and then Des Moines had created individual airport committees and StART was on its way.
Although many people blame COVID for dampening interest in airport issues, the energy around the SAMP had started to decline long before that. So very few people noticed that the ACE fund had been folded into the South King County Fund and then re-branded as a South King/Port Fund where almost all the focus (and money) returns to economic grants that are not about airport communities or airport impacts.
In 2023, the Port rolled out a new version of its Land Stewardship Plan, also nothing new. But instead of applying its excellent principles to all its properties, it limited them to area around the airfield (and the Auburn Wetlands which does us no good.)
Last week people in Burien got a wakeup call regarding the next cycle of tree cutting - this time in Mathison Park, even though that inventory has remained the same since 2016.
We talk about why all governments struggle to develop a better model. The term 'impact fees' have always meant 'one-time payment'. We must get our minds around a completely new model - one based on ongoing compensation. As they said in 1976, "As we do better, you'll do better."
We can continue to blame the Port for a lack of follow-through, but the failure to achieve any long-term mitigation is as much about city governments as the Port. Saying that they have not done right by us is a half-truth. They usually get half the way there and stop. It is up to us to maintain continuity and stop thinking of every issue in an ad hoc manner.
1997 Sea-Tac Airport Impact Study (HOK)
2019 Stantec Study
2016 Flight Corridor Safety Program
2017 Airport Community Ecology Fund
2018 Hillgrove Cemetery Agreement
2020 South King County Fund
2023 South King County Fund/ACE closeout
2024 Land Stewardship Plan
2024 Des Moines Bird Ball Deterrent
2025 South King County/Port Fund
STNI: Legislation 2026
To learn the rest of the story on each of these programs: stni.info/subscribe
