Bill to study airport sites passes Senate; Enumclaw site could be reconsidered

A previous commission’s study ranked Enumclaw high on a list of possibilities. Will a new commission find the same?

By Ray Miller-Still • April 18, 2023 12:50 pm
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Screenshot Sen. Phil Fortunato (R-31), who represents the Enumclaw area, introduced on the Senate Floot a last-minute amendment to HB 1791 that would have required a new airport commission to not examine airport sites recommended by a previous commission, effectively excluding Enumclaw from further scrutiny. The amendment was resoundingly not adopted.
Screenshot Sen. Phil Fortunato (R-31), who represents the Enumclaw area, introduced on the Senate Floot a last-minute amendment to HB 1791 that would have required a new airport commission to not examine airport sites recommended by a previous commission, effectively excluding Enumclaw from further scrutiny. The amendment was resoundingly not adopted.

A bill to establish a new airport study commission was recently passed by the state Senate, paving the way to re-open the debate over a possible Enumclaw site.

House Bill 1791 would create the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Work Group (CACWG), replacing a former airport commission in addressing Washington’s aviation needs over the next 20 years. The House passed the bill March 8; the Senate, April 12.

As of April 16, the bill had not yet been sent to Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk, as there’s an outstanding amendment that needs to be reconciled.

Enumclaw residents may recall when the previous group, the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (CACC), released a study that identified Enumclaw (officially deemed King County Southeast) as a top “greenfield” site contender for a brand-new airport last year. The study, performed by a Washington State Department of Transportation consultant, ranked the potential Plateau site No. 1 on a list of ten.

However, the CACC was legislatively barred from officially recommending the Enumclaw site, or any potential site in counties with more than 2 million people — which is only King County.

That forced the CACC to recommend building a new airport or expanding current airports elsewhere, and opted for Pierce or Thurston County — recommendations that served to be highly unpopular with those areas.

But a recommendation was all the CACC can make, and it is ultimately up to state legislatures, in conjunction with the Federal Aviation Administration, and a potential airport sponsor (the Courier-Herald is unaware that any have been nominated or named) to make a final decision where new aviation facilities should go.

Given this, local opposition — from the grassroots group Save The Plateau to city officials, county council members, and state legislators — has been fierce in critiquing the WSDOT study and pointing out numerous reasons why an airport outside Enumclaw would be disastrous from environmental and infrastructural standpoints, not to mention how a large aviation facility would most likely completely remake the Plateau’s social and economical structures.

While the WSDOT study claimed an Enumclaw airport would be ideal due to its relatively low amount of potential environmental impacts, favorable market factors like proximity to large populations and cargo access, and low to mid-range assessed property values, it also noted the site is far away from interstate highway, bus, light rail, or commuter rail access.

Save The Plateau’s counterarguments were that assessed property values were low because King County has worked hard to preserve agricultural land that surrounds Enumclaw by buying farmland development rights; the cost of creating and improving the infrastructure needed to access an airport would be astronomical; the environmental impacts would be similarly massive and could negatively affect local salmon populations that are already threatened; and the airport would also greatly affect the Muckleshoot Tribe and the Native Americans that live and work right next to where an airport would be built.

Furthermore, even WSDOT officials noted its study was incomplete and didn’t address other factors that could spell doom for a Plateau project; Aviation Senior Planner Rob Hodgman said in an earlier interview that FAA airspace issues alone (with SeaTac airport being so near) would make the Plateau site a non-starter.

But some locals are far from reassured, and are worried the new commission — which has less restraints than its predecessor — will end up officially recommending the Enumclaw site and encourage the powers-that-be to move ahead.

According to the bill, the CACWG “shall not consider… expansion opportunities for a port or county run airport located in a county with a population 2,000,000 or more; or [t]he expansion of an existing airport or the siting of a new airport that would be incompatible with the operations of a military installation” — language that notably doesn’t restrict the commission from considering a new greenfield airport in a county with a two million-plus population (so long as it doesn’t interfere with a military base).

Rep. Jake Fey (D-27) confirmed this is the bill’s intention, and was shaped this way specifically to mitigate the “distress and harm that’s already being felt by” SeaTac and Boeing Field.

LOCALS WANT NO RESTRICTIONS

Save The Plateau has been hard at work encouraging locals to contact state legislators about changing the bill’s language. The group’s goal is to remove all restrictions from the bill so that all expansion options, including at SeaTac and military installations, can be considered.

But finding support has been difficult.

“Unfortunately, the well-publicized CACC exclusion had successfully convinced the Enumclaw Plateau citizens and leaders to believe there was NO Airport Threat, thus Save The Plateau’s attempted defense during legislative session was largely unsupported,” Kym Anton, an organizer with Save The Plateau, wrote in an email interview. “Sadly, every letter to legislators and political leaders went utterly [unanswered].”

Now that HB 1791 is (nearly) on its way to be signed by Gov. Inslee, Anton thinks this is the last chance to get the bill changed with a partial veto of Section 3.3 — the section that would allow a greenfield site in King County, but excludes “[t]he expansion of an existing airport or the siting of a new airport that would be incompatible with the operations of a military installation”.

“Consideration of all existing airports is essential and must not be subject to exclusion by special interests. The language in section 3.3, to legally prohibit consideration of SeaTac and McChord airfield, is in direct conflict with the bill’s stated purpose of a comprehensive and inclusive study of all possible solutions,” reads an email Save The Plateau is sending to locals, asking them to copy and paste to Inslee’s office. “… SeaTac Airport capacity is the root of the problem, therefore logically should be included in the solution. Consideration of all existing airports allows study of optimizing SeaTac for ‘passenger only’ service, and converting McChord airfield to a joint Military and Civilian Cargo facility.”

Anton’s hope is to free up space at SeaTac by relocating air cargo facilities to a new hub to be located at McChord Field, relocate private flights to Bring Field, and make SeaTac passenger flights only, among other expansions and re-location of services around the state to optimize efficiency and capacity.

To reach Save The Plateau and receive more information about how to email Inslee, send a message to savetheplateau@outlook.com.

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