The Airport Communities Podcast

Ep #33 Emergency! Do This... (Part 2/3 Appendix K-Socioeconomics)

In Ep #32, we said that the most basic 'do' is public health. As a society, public health is the one thing we all agree should not be traded away. Those are individual impacts.

Socioeconomics, Environmental Justice, Children's Health

But both NEPA and SEPA address community harms--the collective impacts, especially on children, and particularly in Appendix K. Unfortunately, the FAA rigged the game in several key ways, including confining the study area for impacts on children to the GSA -- or rather the census tracks immediately connected to the runways. How many people live near the runways? Not. Too. Many.

They also accepted the Port's Economic Impact Study as its sole exhibit. It is riddled with exaggerations and claims that cannot be true. But even worse is that it takes the Greater Good argument to extremes, including sections about commercial fishing and its partnerships with the Port of Tacoma. What does any of that have to do with communities under the flight path?

To add insult to injury, in early 2025, President Trump issued a series of executive orders removing most of what remained from consideration.

In our last episode we said that more research was necessary for aviation emissions and noise. We said that those gaps were the Port's get out of jail free card on NEPA, and that the Port had promised to do better in SEPA. But did not.

On Socioeconomics, they did not even try to do better. The entire chapter is a straight copy/paste from the NEPA document.

Still, your comment must include Appendix K. It may seem harder to quantify community impacts than noise or air or water pollution, in some ways it's much easier.

The promise was, "As we do better, you'll do better." That was what they said back in 1975 to respond to the second runway and the non-stop construction ever since.

We now have decades of lived experience -- first predicted in the 1997 HOK Study that this was never true. The only research left to do is to put numbers to that decline.

What does that mean for us? Most of us do not make the connection, but we depend on our cities in order to flourish as individuals and as a community. So much of what we count on to thrive depends on roads, water, parks, recreation, public safety -- the services municipalities provide. And yet, if the airport has been such a boon for surrounding communities why do our local governments struggle so much with declining service levels and budget deficits?

The Port does not control flight paths, but socioeconomics is an area that cannot be constrained by the FAA. Your comments should contrast the ongoing benefits to King County with the constant struggles for your municipality.

Ep #32 Emergency! Do This... (Part 1/3 Mind The Gaps) - Sea-Tac Noise.Info

On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.

In Ep #31, we said that the only winning move was not to play -- at least, not the game Congress has programmed all of us to play for forty years. They know you're desperate. They know you can't win. They make the FAA the bad cop.

But in the case of the SAMP, the Port of Seattle is in a unique position: their environmental team prepares the SEPA study. Their environmental director approves the study. Their commission provides a final sign-off. And last but not least, the Port of Seattle has a core mission to be The Greenest Port In America.

They can do better in any regard not constrained by the FAA. Public health is one of them.

In their SEPA process, they promised to do a 'detailed analysis' of these harms. That effort consisted only of reading the existing work -- something anyone could do. Clever. But completely insincere.

The Port cannot control flight paths, but they could always do a lot more. They have depended on the ignorance of the public--which relies on them as the single source of truth--to avoid doing it.

Current research does have significant gaps. We should stop denying that it does and stop promoting incomplete work as conclusive. The real question is: why hasn't the Port Of Seattle, "The Greenest Port In America" lifted a finger to help further that work?

Using any of those 'gaps' in research literature, decade after decade, as a get out of jail free card, without sincerely working to provide answers, is unconscionable. The public may not understand the research needed to build a solid regulatory standard, but the Port does.

Your comments should start with public health because that is the one concern no emitter of harmful substances -- including noise and aviation emissions is allowed to ignore.

On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.

Our last 3 minute explainer on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think.

In Ep #30, we said that 'NTP' means 'near-term projects'. The Port of Seattle has been telling us, since 2012, that the largest expansion in Sea-Tac history was coming in several phases. This has been no secret except that they have not exactly advertised that the strategy, called segmentation, is used to divide projects up in order to avoid permitting challenges -- like the Third Runway. Maybe we could not hear that message clearly over the non-stop construction.

This is our last "don't do that" episode for a while. The next several will be "dos".

Both are real doozies. The last "don't" is: Don't talk about flight paths in your SEPA comment. That will be hard because almost every cell in your body just wants the airplanes to go somewhere else. However, whether you live in Burien or Vashon or Mercer Island or Enumclaw or anywhere within our TRACON? Don't do that.

The "dos", coming in the next batch of episodes, will also be challenging for the same reasons. We know where everyone wants to go. That's why it's so hard to take a route that seems less 'direct'.

But we've spent the last 30 episodes making a very simple case: What everyone has tried is designed not to work. As with the construction, that is no secret. We have no 'magic'. But if everyone has been trying the same losing strategy decade after decade, it's time to try something different.

On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.

Our fifth3 minute explainer on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think.

In Ep #29, we said that there was plenty of time to prepare your comments. The most immediate task is to get your local governments to start treating this as an ongoing effort rather than waiting the 11th hour all the time.

Many people ask us what 'NTP' means. It's 'near-term projects'.

An airport can never shut down to perform upgrades. It needs to keep upgrading while the plane (all the planes) are in the air. People see the construction and think it's being done piecemeal just to work around that challenge.

But these projects are planned and sequenced as much according to permitting as anything else. If you can break the work into pieces, you can avoid a ton of regulatory  oversight.

In fact, the plan the Port calls the sustainable airport master plan took shape in 2012 as the Century Agenda. Since then and at least four billion dollars in construction projects have been completed which are really part of the plan but not required to be permitted together.

What they call 'the SAMP' was created in 2015, and then immediately broken into two pieces: Near Term Projects and Long Term Projects (LTP.) The LTP is known, but it is almost never spoken of now, and then only as 'unforeseen'. It's completely foreseen. It is intentionally talked about that way because FAA regulations only require a 5-year window on 'foreseeable projects'.

We're now in the NTP phase. Everything you think of as 'the SAMP' is really just the Near-Term Projects phase.

But whether or not you remember that SAMP == NTP, you can be certain that the LTP is real and it will begin as soon as the NTP closes. How can we be so sure? Because that is what happened after the Third Runway. That is how all major airports work. The construction never ends.

Projects are intentionally broken into segments in order to avoid considering cumulative impacts. If you only have to review impacts within foreseeable 5 year windows, you can never be held accountable.

https://stni.info/ep-29-emergency-be-prepared

On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.

Our fourth 3 minute explainer on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think.

In Ep #28, we said to stop obsessing over these documents. It's been over a week since the Port released the SAMP/DEIS. And we're seeing the same trends: people wanting to understand what is in the documents.

The Port provided a 60 day comment period -- which is twice as long as the state requirement. On the other hand, their first Open House is a month after publication. But on the other hand, most of the documents were actually completed almost a month before publication.

So what? There are no penalties for 'bad public engagement'. Surrounding communities have had decades to prepare for the SAMP -- and more importantly -- come to grips with the endless cycle. If you know Lucy is likely to pull away the football, maybe it is you who should stop playing the same game.

Rainy Days

In 2007, King County developed a Flood Control District to manage the fact that there are always going to be floods. Even if you don't know when they will occur, you have to have a plan both to try to prevent them and to manage them effectively when they occur. You have to be prepared. This approach was fraught because areas that do not flood would not choose to pay for those that do.

Cities tend to be poor at long term cooperative planning. Even though we live next to a great river of commerce -- and its negative impacts -- we wait until it starts raining to act.

Ep #28 Emergency! SAMP/SEPA DEIS (3/3)

On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.

Our third 3 minute explainer on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think.

In our last one Ep #27 (2/3), we said that the documents weren't too long, they were too short.

We may have have added fuel to the fire by noting the large amount of shared material with the federal NEPA EA -- and almost identical page counts. That never meant they were copy/pasted. They were using the same sources and same categories. Despite what anyone said, if the NEPA and SEPA documents had been radically different that would have been surprising.

No matter how much time is made available, the public will always want more. They will always complain that the documents are too hard to read. At least in the latter case the Port has complied!

Plain Language

Take a look at a page from the 1996 Third Runway EIS, which is very typical of environmental documents from that era. Every page is very dense by today's standards. Since the 2010's agency documents are intentionally written to be far less intimidating. That is now the law.  A short front end, with as much of the technical analysis as possible (which almost no one reads) pushed to the back.

This begs the question of what an Environmental Impact Statement is meant to accomplish. Back in the day, that density limited the audience to specialists, which seemed discriminatory. If you couldn't afford professionals to interpret them you were out of luck. But on other hand, this meant that the people you had to hire to read them for you had the skills to identify find flaws, push back on the conclusions, and provide truly meaningful suggestions to improve the project.

You want both: readability when possible, but always with the most rigorous available analysis. But if success tilts too much towards "digestible for laypersons", it runs the risk of convincing the public that a reasonable sounding document is genuinely reasonable. It also might provide cover to agencies (including your cities) who want to look concerned about a project, without putting in the effort it takes to understand what to do about it.

Ep #27 Emergency! SAMP/SEPA DEIS (2/3) - Sea-Tac Noise.Info

On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.

Our second in a series of 3 minute explainers on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think.

Background

In our last one Ep #26 (1/3), we noticed that the initial set of documents uploaded by the Port had at least two flaws. Since no one else seemed to notice we immediately questioned how seriously anyone was taking the ticking clock of '60 days!'

We know this stings. But for people familiar with the 2025 NEPA, and the past 14 years of process, sixty days should be plenty of time to read the materials. If you are not, we recommend giving us 3 minutes a day. Or, waiting for trusted sources, like the template we will publish.

The 2025 NEPA process was an Environmental Assessment (EA) -- a much lighter review than an EIS. The FAA is required to choose an EA (to speed permitting) if the airport owner demonstrate that the project(s) likely pose no major mitigation challenges. That 2025 final document was prox. 3,650 pages.

The Port of Seattle heard this critique loud and clear. In fact, it complained loudly over the Trump Executive Orders stripping various categories from consideration. It promised a much more thorough, complete State EIS process. But being much more sotto voce over the fact that with this process they are the approver. They (literally) sign off on their own environmental review.

Erratum: The video says that the SAMP EIS is prox. 3,700 pages. The total page count is closer to 3,650 -- almost identical to the Final NEPA EA. Nevertheless, we regret the error.

It may be coincidental that the two page-counts are almost identical, but we are skeptical. An EIS for any large construction project is typically many hundreds of pages. As one example, the Third Runway EIS was almost twice as long.

https://seatacnoise.info/ep-26-emergency-samp-sepa-deis-1-3/

On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began.

Our first in a series of 3 minute explainers on how you can help your community over the next 60 day comment period.  It's not click bait to say this: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think.

Background

Even before its release, the Three City ILA issued a joint release complaining that their request for 90 days had been denied.

On Friday two things happened:
1. We got to work reading its 3,700 pages and immediately noticed that a few links were broken.

2. We started getting push back about our comment that the cities' complaint over 90 vs. 60 days was beside the point.

It is logical for Cities to advocate for as much time as possible. On the other hand, the SAMP was first announced in 2012. We've had fourteen years to prepare! So, anyone who thinks thirty more days to study will help is missing the point. We believe some are not taking these issues seriously, using an 'extension' as posturing or perhaps desperation.

We haven't heard anyone else complain that they are having trouble downloading. If the document is really so challenging. If time is really so critical, someone besides us should be losing sleep reading it.

There is a better approach. It begins with holding everyone to account. The people who write the documents--and governments who wait until the last minute to prepare.

Topics

In our last episode, The 400,000lb tube going 200mph, we talked about what everyone always wants to talk about: flight paths. Because deep down, people just want the airplanes to go somewhere else. So much so, the subject always goes to extremes: Magical thinking, We're doomed, Don't like it? Move!'

We outlined the differences between 'tower' and 'TRACON' and FAA lingo like SIDs, STARs, RNAV, glide slopes. But beneath the millions of lines of code that defines all the flight procedures for professionals, what you care about at Sea-Tac is The Four Post Plan--eight pages which define why the airplanes follow these paths. The entire premise is simple: The Greater Good Argument. Improving efficiency also reduces the number of people impacted by aviation impacts. Win. win.

This second half looks at what it means to try to change one flight path from two points of view: the court system, or by hiring consultants.

Specifically, we examine the Burien 250 - a procedure known as a CATEX, or 'automation' -- one of the hundreds of routine exceptions to the main procedures that never get discussed unless someone complains.

There are lawyers you can hire, typically people who move back and forth between industry and communities.

Then there are the consultants. The people you did not know you needed to hire -- in order to change a flight paths.

Both approaches are expensive, both are ad hoc, and neither has a good track record because as any professional will tell you: seen one airport, seen one airport. It really does take years to learn the territory.

The stats that people follow, the ones concerning flight paths and noise, are designed to fail. The thresholds needed to compel the FAA to change any flight path are so high they can never be exceeded at airports like Sea-Tac. CATEX, schmatex. That is The Casino. A compelling game designed to keep you playing, but never win.

We need a different kind of Greater Good Argument. We need to start developing a language of mitigation, something we don't know how to do because the only thing people think about today is "making the airplanes go somewhere else." The process shuts down our ability to think of other options. We also say that we need to start asking everyone to pay a little. Not only passengers, but people within the TRACON who want their area given special treatment. Everyone must start ponying up in order to create the proper incentives. Otherwise, there will never be equity for people who cannot move.

Ep #24

In our last episode, Honk If Ya Love California, we talked about the history of modern environmental law in America: the EPA, NEPA, SEPA.  We showed how many complex, interconnected pieces there are, like PSCAA. We took some time to mention how important WA electeds were in that process, and how they created carve outs for aviation.

Today we're talking about what everyone always wants to talk about: flight paths. Because deep down, people just want the airplanes to go somewhere else. We get it. That is why the subject is always subject to extremes: magical thinking, or 'Don't like it? Move!' Neither were ever true.

But the system constraints are also as split-personality as the environmental law in Episode #23. The legislators who helped create so many improvements to air pollution writ large were also key advocates for the aviation industry and very intentionally created the box we now find ourselves in.

That was the Greater Good Argument. Reducing negative impacts overall was the win. Creating economic benefits overall was the win.

The one-line rule of aviation law is this: No 'residential zoning'. The FAA gets stuck in the middle as the bad cop enforcing a system we all voted for,

'Flight paths' is such a big topic, we had to split it into two episodes. Both are much longer than we would prefer. But you asked for it. Splitting such a tightly integrated system into pieces is just part of the Casino. One cannot see how rough it is without scanning everything from ancient aircraft to cutting-edge physics--and everything in between.

In Part I, we discuss those 400,000lb tubes going 200mph and how FAA-speak like NextGen, SIDs, STARs, RNAV, Glide Slopes and Wake Recat figure into your rights. Most of it is depressing. Even worse, there are also several terrible jokes referencing Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Orcas.

In Part II, we'll use that to talk about why so many lawsuits fail, and some better options given the current playing field.

 Topics

• HistoryLink: NEPA
• Ep #4: The Railroad In The Sky!
• Ep #23 Honk If Ya Love California!
• Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 (ANCA)
• Four Post Plan from FAA DECISION and ORDER
• Seattle Community Council Federation v. FAA 961 F.2d 929
• Gate to Gate How the FAA Manages Air Traffic
• FAA Puget Sound Area Airspace Explainer
• Quieter skies ahead: Seattle at forefront of high-tech plan to change airplane traffic
• Sea-Tac airliner tests could yield quieter, more efficient landings
• Final Environmental Assessment for Greener Skies Over Seattle