Sea-Tac Airport says major expansion will do little harm. Neighbors don’t buy it

Sea-Tac Airport is planning a major expansion, and some neighbors are crying foul.

Airport officials intend to build a new terminal and 19 new gates in the coming decade to handle more flights and relieve crowding. Planning documents maintain that the project would have “no significant impact” on health or the environment.

The cluster of expansion projects, dubbed the “sustainable airport master plan,” would result in just a 2% increase in passenger volumes above what would occur if the projects aren’t built, according to airport officials.

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“The passengers are coming, whether or not we're able to manage it into a passenger experience that folks are going to be happy with,” said airport spokesperson Perry Cooper.

“Those folks are still going to come here over the years because the region continues to grow, and we don't have another major airport that all those passengers can be going to,” Cooper said.

Airport planners predict Sea-Tac would handle 58 million passengers in 2032, versus 57 million without the expansion, up from 46 million passengers in 2022.

A coalition of neighborhood and environmental groups called the Sea-Tac Airport Community Coalition for Justice has been rallying opposition to the plan.

“For the communities in Beacon Hill, Chinatown, and Duwamish, there has not been an accounting for the added harm that's going to be coming their way,” said Maria Batayola, chair of the Beacon Hill Council and the Sea-Tac Airport Community Coalition for Justice.

Nearly two-thirds of the 420,000 residents near the airport (in Burien, Des Moines, Federal Way, Normandy Park, Renton, SeaTac, and Tukwila) or under its main flight paths (in Beacon Hill, Chinatown-International District, and the Duwamish Valley) are people of color, according to Batayola. More than 1 in 4 are immigrants or refugees.

Communities within 10 miles of Sea-Tac Airport are home to a majority of King County’s Black and Latino people, but only a third of the county’s white people.

The community coalition is urging the airport to conduct a full analysis of the plan’s health and environmental impacts and an analysis of its impact on racial equity.

“These are your vulnerable populations,” Batayola said.

A Saturday brunch the community coalition held in December offered a taco bar, banh mi, bao, and Cambodian dishes as well as Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Amharic, Tigrinya, Somali, and French interpretation services.

Airport-expansion opponents say air pollution and noise from low-flying jets bring asthma and other health problems for communities near the airport.

While correlation is not causation, the rates of heart disease, stroke and premature births all get worse the closer you live to Sea-Tac Airport.

“People in airport communities face disparities in health outcomes, health risk factors, and resources,” Kris Johnson with Public Health Seattle-King County told KUOW in 2021.

Beyond the local impacts, jet fuel from the airport is currently responsible for up to a fourth of all climate-harming emissions from King County, according to the county’s 2022 greenhouse gas inventory.

Airport officials are taking public comment on their blueprint for growth through Friday, Dec. 13.