Want to play a game? Regardless, you’re in and you can’t quit. Here are the rules. I’ll roll a standard die that has numbers from 1-6. If it comes up as 1, you get $1. If the roll comes up with numbers 2-6, you pay me $100,000. I will let you pay me over the next 10 years when you lose. Of course, if you win, you get what you had.
You might call this unfair and rigged but this is the game that the FAA and Snohomish County are playing right now. They want to impose scheduled air service on the Snohomish County residents surrounding Paine Field and everyone under the flight paths. Residents don’t want this game but we have no choice under federal law. The law, as implemented in the Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990, requires “economic non-discrimination” on behalf of the airlines. It doesn’t matter that Horizon Air and Allegiant want to start with just a few flights. Once the airport changes its Part 139 operating certificate from General Aviation to scheduled air service, the FAA requires the airport to allow any airline, any sized aircraft, any number of flights, at any time of the day or night. No curfews or other restrictions allowed. Airlines can operate up to the full capacity of the airport. In fact, the FAA helps by subsidizing the airlines and by paying for the terminal and other improvements that increase the airport’s capacity.
County residents will lose and will pay. Schools pay for the noise with an impaired learning environment even as they shoulder the costs of noise mitigation. Highline School District needed $200 million for noise mitigation costs when the third runway came to Sea-Tac. Homeowners can anticipate an additional 10-25 percent decline in property values. Total home values in South Snohomish County are about $4 billion, so this impact on personal wealth and property tax collections is significant.
Based on a study of residents near other airports, we should expect a 57 percent increase in asthma, 28 percent higher pneumonia/influenza, 26 percent higher respiratory diseases and 83 percent higher pregnancy complications. Cancer, heart disease and hypertension will increase. Traffic congestion, pollution and a larger carbon footprint would also negatively impact our community. These impacts will occur gradually as the community spirals downward in a slow, unrelenting decline.
The FAA’s environmental assessment (EA) overlooks all of this. Based on only a few initial flights by Horizon and Allegiant, the draft EA fails to consider the full capacity of the airport or future expansion. The draft EA is dishonest and disingenuous. It states that there are “no disproportionate impacts to children” and “There would not be any significant changes to the socioeconomic environment around the Airport.” Even with odds heavily stacked in its favor, the FAA wants to obfuscate.
The community demands that at the least, the FAA follow the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the legislation that requires the environmental assessment. We should assess environmental impacts based on the airport’s full capacity, not on just the first few flights proposed. This is fair since the FAA is the guarantor of full capacity to any airline that wants to use the airport.
What are the benefits of air service at Paine Field? The EA anticipates 17 new low wage jobs will be created while the airlines enjoy government-funded subsidies of their businesses. Is this a fair game?
In the six cities that oppose this issue (Edmonds, Lynnwood, Brier, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo and Woodway), residents are neither hysterical nor fearful. We know the costs will be daunting and painful. We are angry that the FAA and Snohomish County pursue this with no identified economic upside and an epic downside for us. Even worse is Snohomish County’s promise over the past 33 years not to engage in this game. The county promised the community, embodied in the Mediated Role Determination of 1978, to maintain Paine Field as a general aviation airport that supports Boeing and encourages community development. Zoning laws were then passed and development took place right up to the airport’s boundaries, cementing the county’s promise in every foundation laid. Rather than come to their community’s defense against this ill-advised scheme, county Executive Aaron Reardon and most of the County Council are breaking their promise so they can collaborate with the FAA and place the local communities into environmental and socio-economic peril.
We will fight the FAA to the end, make them properly address the environmental impacts, and hold our county elected “leaders” responsible.
Greg Hauth is vice president of Save Our Communities, an organization that wants to preserve the quality of life for Snohomish County residents by opposing scheduled air service at Paine Field.
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