October - December 2024: A Critical Moment for our Forest
Public comment period now open until Dec 13, 2024 for NEPA review of Port’s “Sustainable” Airport Master Plan
Oct 21, 2024 (update Nov 19): The Port of Seattle’s Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) proposes over 30 industrial development projects in our near-airport neighborhoods. These proposals require review under the National Environmental Protection Act. Today, that review began with the publication of a draft Environmental Assessment (EA). The public has until Dec. 13, 2024 to comment on this Draft EA.
Read the EA Draft HERE.
Send your comments on this draft via the Port’s link HERE.
Read the Defender’s suggested comments HERE.
What is the significance of the EA and the review process?
Well, at its end, the Federal Aviation Administration will either find that the SAMP proposals pose “No Significant Impact” - or that they do have the potential for one or more significant impacts to the human environment. If that potential is found, an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), will be required.
An EIS is much more rigorous than an EA. And it is essential that one is conducted for the SAMP.
Because, as expected, the EA concludes that the 30+ near term industrial projects proposed in the SAMP will have no expected "significant impacts” on our community (see “Cumulative Impacts” section of the EA)
And this is clearly untrue. These 30+ proposed SAMP projects would significantly expand the airport and its cargo handling infrastructure, profoundly impacting human health and the natural environment. Large areas of the forest that cleans and cools our air would be destroyed - replaced by polluting structures like roads, cargo warehouses, and parking lots.
This is a critical moment to call on the FAA to find that the SAMP will indeed impact our “human environment” and that the much more rigorous review conducted under an EIS is needed.
Help stop destruction of 500 trees & construction of 402,380 sq. ft. industrial building in Des Moines neighborhood
Des Moines residents have raised funds, organized, and filed a challenge to a finding by the city of Des Moines that a 402,000+ square foot industrial building and accompanying parking lot set in a densely populated neighborhood on top of existing forestland used as a residential …. is non-significant. The affected area is shown on the map above as “Des Moines Creek West.”
Defenders were present at two back-to-back public meetings held to review this project on Oct 18. More info is in the Defender’s Oct. newsletter HERE. And More updates are to come. Stay tuned!
What are we defending?
Trees protect people from pollution that harms health and shortens lives near SeaTac Airport. Public Health Seattle & King County has documented this connection and recommends increasing green space and trees here to protect residents.
The Port of Seattle knows of these findings. It also knows that trees protect residents from deadly climate change impacts, having committed, for that reason, to restoring forests and reducing sprawl.
Then why do its plans include recommendations to replace an estimated 110 acres of forest (an area of about 100 football fields) with even more heat and pollution-generating industrial development in neighborhoods within two miles of the airport?
Community plans from the 1970s and 80s show that most of this land was set aside for parks and nature preserves in order to buffer residents from airport impacts after airport expansion made thousands of homes and entire neighborhoods uninhabitable. North SeaTac Park had especially protected status and was created, according to the FAA, “to compensate area residents for cumulative airport impacts.” (Photo by Karen Nicol)
A critical public health task for our region - saving the towering old trees of the Highline forest, restoring its canopy to levels healthy for people and wildlife, and ensuring its survival through future droughts and heat - is not yet on this region’s public policy agenda. Let’s put it there.
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