Airport sites in Puget Sound could be put on no-go list due to military conflict

Three greenfield sites under review for a potential new major airport in Washington might be one step closer to being removed from consideration under a proposed bill that would reset a three-year analysis of the state’s commercial aviation future.

House Bill 1791 would supplant the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission, which was tasked by the state in 2019 with recommending a site appropriate for a new airport. The CACC narrowed options in September to three rural sites in Pierce and Thurston counties, setting off a wave of local opposition. The CACC is scheduled to recommend a single location by June.

An amendment to HB 1791 passed Thursday in the House Transportation Committee would require the CACC’s proposed successor — called the Commercial Aviation Work Group —- to produce a list of areas that will be barred from analysis because they conflict with military operations.

The work group must include those locations in its first report to the state, according to language in the substitute House bill. If previously reported conflicts with Joint Base Lewis-McChord are any indication, greenfield sites near Graham, Roy and East Olympia would be named as no-go sites for an airport in the work group’s report.

JBLM representatives have said that a two-runway airport at any of the three greenfield sites currently under CACC consideration — two in Pierce County and one in Thurston County — are at odds with the nearby military installation.

House Bill 1791, as originally filed, precluded consideration of any greenfield site incompatible with military operations — as did the bill that created the CACC more than three years ago — but airport opponents opposed to the newer legislation were dismayed that it did not explicitly, by name, scrub out the three greenfield sites from any further review.

“I recognize their concerns, with so many of our citizens, whether they felt like they may be losing where they live, they’re losing their houses, their homes and having to relocate,” Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, said Thursday. “I can understand that.”

Dent is among the sponsors of the bipartisan bill that, if passed, would immediately ax the CACC and its controversial search for a new airport, which began amid fears that a projected future shortage in regional commercial passenger capacity would hurt travelers and the economy.

The legislation, a response to the outcry over the prospects of siting an airport in the South Puget Sound, calls for a broader review of aviation in the context of the state’s transportation needs. While it would direct the new work group to analyze an expanded list of greenfield sites in several counties for the feasibility of a new airport, the bill does not require that group to settle on any single site and instead mandates that it file a report noting each location’s strengths and weaknesses.

There were other changes to the bill passed Thursday. The work group would need to consider impacts to water quality, greenhouse gas emission goals and the Growth Management Act and reach out to the Department of Defense. Engagement with Indian tribes will also not replace formal government-to-government consultation.