Washington state hits the reset button on its search for a new airport site

With the stroke of a pen last week, Governor Jay Inslee hit “reset” on years of work to decide where to build a new major airport in Western Washington.

While pockets of Pierce and Thurston counties are breathing a big sigh of relief over the decision, many state leaders are scratching their heads about what’s next.

The problem is easy to understand: We’re growing too fast for our transportation infrastructure to keep up. The Port of Seattle estimates that even with planned expansion projects, Sea-Tac Airport will reach capacity by 2032. If that happens, many people who want to fly won’t be able to. The number of those frustrated people each year could hit 27 million by 2050.

To solve this looming issue, in 2019, the Washington State Legislature created the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission – CACC.

The commission has spent the last three years looking for a workable site for a new airport. Last fall, it identified three finalists: two sites in rural Pierce County and one south of Olympia. But many locals there expressed frustration with the siting process — and anxiety about what that could mean for some of the region’s last undeveloped areas.

However, after very vocal pushback from citizen organizers and government officials from Pierce and Thurston counties, the state legislature listened. It passed a bill — Engrossed House Bill 1791 — that essentially restarts the entire airport siting process.

Read and listen to Soundside's previous coverage on the greenfield sites by clicking here.

Governor Inslee signed that bill last Monday – with some key vetoes that shift the focus of the future search. A new working group will replace the CACC, and operate with fewer deadlines and, due to the vetoes, fewer guard rails.

"Governor Inslee vetoed effectively the section of the bill that really spelled out their function in detail," said Shea Johnson, a reporter covering the issue for the Tacoma News Tribune. "He did so because it referenced their research of greenfield sites. And because he wants the focus to be only on existing airports, and you can't just remove portions of a section — well, he nipped the section entirely."

The Governor's vetoes have become a particularly contentious for both proponents and opponents of the bill.

Democratic State Senator Karen Keiser, who represents the cities of SeaTac and Burien, crafted the original legislation that created the CACC. Keiser believes there isn’t much more that can be done when searching for a suitable airport site.

"CACC has already analyzed 19 different regional airport sites in Washington, in Western Washington in particular. And that's about all there are. They've all been analyzed as to their acreage, their runway length, their suitability in terms of mileage, and on and on and on."

Keiser said her constituents are shouldering a disproportionate burden of health effects from exposure to air pollution chemicals spread along the airport’s flight paths. There is a class action lawsuit against Sea-Tac working its way through the courts right now over that very issue.

But chief among Keiser’s concerns are the vetoes made by the Governor. She said those cuts have stripped the legislation of any meaningful teeth. The original bill gave a clear outline of what groups needed to be consulted as part of the siting process, and was essentially a roadmap for the workgroup. Now, she said, that roadmap is gone.

"This new work group has absolutely no mandate to recommend any specific locations and no deadlines to make any decisions. I'd say that's pretty much a recipe for inaction and for no decision-making. It's not easy to make tough decisions, and when you give people the option to not do it, they will not do it."

Overall, Keiser said she sees this restart to the process as just kicking the can down the road. Her prediction is that it will take even more legislation to fix the gaps left in the final bill.

"I think what's left of this bill that was passed is really unworkable and it would be best to start over again next session. And that probably will have to happen. It's a bitter laugh to say, but I've seen it before and it's going to have to be done again."

Even some supporters of the bill to restart the airport search were caught off guard by the governor’s vetoes, such as State Representative Tom Dent, a Republican from Moses Lake, who was a co-author on the restart bill.

"I never was called by the governor's office that they were going to do that. I didn't know it until the next day. So it just absolutely took me by surprise."

Dent, who co-sponsored the bill along with Democrat Jake Fey of Port Angeles, said it’s a shame to see that progress go away.

"We committed to the people that we were going to work on bipartisan legislation. I'm very disappointed," Dent told Soundside. "It's just disappointing that here we are, back to square one."

As for locals in Pierce and Thurston counties, some are happy. Local organizer Jake Pool said residents feel the pressure of potentially having a new airport in their backyard has calmed down.

"What the governor put in his veto message is it removes all greenfield sites from consideration. So that we felt was good."

Pool's chief concern now is that the CACC still plans to put forward a recommendation in its final report. That means locals inside the three proposed greenfield sites feel like they’re not out of the woods just yet. Even if that recommendation doesn’t have much teeth, Pool said, it could be used down the road to justify expansion.

"They're already referencing past research ... that's 20 or 30 years old on this topic. So we're worried that they will use it as a, 'Well, there was a site recommendation found. It's just at the time it wasn't able to move forward on it.'"

The CACC will give its final recommendation — whether that’s a specific site or no site at all — on June 15.

Listen to the full Soundside segment by clicking the play button at the top of this story.