Puget Sound won’t build a new airport anytime soon. For Pierce County, that’s a win | Opinion
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New airport in Pierce County?
Two sites in Pierce County, south of Tacoma, will be analyzed as a site for new passenger, cargo flight operations by 2040 to accommodate Sea-Tac overflow.
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If you stopped for a moment on Monday, you could almost hear — and feel — the sigh of relief coming from rural Pierce County.
With a stroke of his pen, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee officially put an end to months of angst and concern, all of it focused on a contentious question that, for the time being anyway, has been put on ice:
Where to build a new Puget Sound-region airport?
As The News Tribune’s Shea Johnson reported, Inslee signed Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1791 on Monday. Sponsored by Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, and Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, the law — which passed the state House and Senate with bipartisan support this session — sought to end the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission’s search for a new regional airport location, effectively resetting a site selection process underway since 2019.
Inslee vetoed parts of the legislation, including a provision that would have immediately halted the CACC’s work, and instead directed the 15-member body to follow through with a scheduled June report noting that they don’t have a preferred site for the construction of a new airport.
Still, the takeaway for residents of Graham, Roy and rural Pierce County places in between is clear.
It’s a huge victory, any way you slice it, for people who stood up for their communities and the priceless open spaces we should feel an obligation to protect.
Two undeveloped Pierce County sites and one undeveloped Thurston County site had previously been identified as potential airport locations.
The state will now turn its attention to studying the feasibility of increasing capacity at existing airports before entertaining thoughts of building a massive new facility.
Speaking with Seattle Times aerospace reporter Dominic Gates, Michelle Horaney, who has led vocal public relations efforts for the Thurston County-based group Stop the Airport, offered understated praise for what Gates accurately described as a “radical shift away from the previous plan.” In Pierce County, No Airport Here engaged in similar activism.
“We are happy that greenfields are off the table,” Horaney told The Seattle Times. “The focus now is on the expansion of existing airports.”
As it should be.
Of course, none of this is to say that the Puget Sound region’s airport conundrum will magically disappear — which is one of many reasons why skeptics of the new plan have voiced concerns along the way.
Given the expected increased demand for passenger travel and air cargo in the coming years — and the potential economic implications of inaction — lawmakers like state Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, have likened the recently signed legislation to “kicking the can down the road.”
The Puget Sound Regional Council has forecast 27 million more annual passengers by 2050 than can be accommodated at existing airports, and double the demand for cargo. Meanwhile, Warren Hendrickson, the chair of the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission, has said sitting idly by and doing nothing could cost the state as much as $31 billion annually.
That’s why, four years ago, Keiser, whose district includes Sea-Tac, sponsored the bill that gave the CACC its marching order.
Now, Keiser is predicting that the state’s recalibrated effort will struggle with the same challenges — namely, that no community in its right mind wants to be home to a giant new airport, and there is no perfect location to build one.
“At this point, we’re at an impasse,” Keiser said during an April 12 state Senate hearing.
Is Keiser exactly right? Sure. But don’t expect it to dampen celebrations in this neck of the woods — nor should it. We can save the next battle for another day.
For now, at least, local anger and grassroots organizing helped to stiff-arm an effort that could have decimated rural Pierce County forever.
For that, they deserve our immense gratitude for generations to come.
This story was originally published May 17, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
