The Enterprise spoke with Donna Taylor, the Federal Aviation Administration’s airports division manager, Northwest Mountain Region, to find out more about local control of commerical flights and about federal funding of Paine Field.
It sounds as if governmental bodies overseeing airports that receive federal grants are not allowed, by law, to prohibit commercial aviation. Does this mean local communities have no ability to control plane sizes, flight times or paths or otherwise regulate the manner, place and time commercial aviation flights occur?
Theoretically, they can negotiate a restriction but there are strict requirements under (FAA regulations) and they all have to do with noise. Snohomish County can certainly talk to the airlines about voluntary measures but no contract can compel (airlines) to adhere to them unless it’s gone through this rigorous evaluation.”
How much money does the federal government give Snohomish County for Paine Field and how long has this been the case?
Since 1983, we’ve provided Snohomish County over $61 million. If you go back to 1978, it’s about another $1 million or so, for a total of about $62 million.
Are the federal grants targeted to capital expenditures, on-going maintenance? Are they restricted?
We have two types of grants: planning grants, which are used to develop airport documents, noise studies, planning studies and environmental studies, and capital grants. By far, most of our grants go to capital expenditures: building or rehabilitating pavement, buying new fire equipment, snow plows. We do a limited amount of what we would call maintenance, which is some relatively low-cost treatments to extend the life of the runway. We do not pay for the airport’s operating expenses.
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