Outcry over South Puget Sound airport triggered new bill. Here’s why some don’t like it

Critics remain unconvinced that an airport-analysis redo from Washington state legislators goes far enough to protect environmentally sensitive lands from becoming the site of the state’s next major commercial-aviation facility.

House Bill 1791 would supplant the state-created Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission, which is anticipated by June to issue a recommendation to the Legislature on where it believes a new two-runway airport could make sense in Pierce or Thurston counties.

In September, the commission named three greenfield sites in those two counties as finalists for a prospective new airport, narrowing a search it started in 2019 at the direction of the Legislature to solve for a projected future shortage in regional commercial passenger capacity.

The bipartisan bill would immediately ax the controversial search. The CACC would be replaced by a working group tasked with exploring broader options for Washington’s commercial-aviation future without the pressure of needing to offer any site recommendation or facing any deadlines.

The bill, which came in response to an outcry over ongoing consideration of the three greenfield sites, was met with opposition by roughly a dozen people who testified to the House Transportation Committee on Thursday.

Opponents want the sites explicitly removed from any possibility they’d be home to a future airport, arguing that the bill doesn’t provide strong enough protections from the prospect that those sites could be revisited.

“I’m opposed to this bill as this proposed legislation is nothing more than a ‘CACC, part two,’” said Melonie Rockwell, a nurse practitioner who lives within the greenfield in Thurston County.

Rockwell urged lawmakers to consider a sustainable solution for the environment’s sake.

“Our planet can’t take another hit like this and we say ‘no’ to paving over greenfields,” Rockwell said.

The bill would direct the working group to investigate a bigger list of greenfield sites in several counties, in addition to existing airports for possible expansion, and to report back with the strengths and weaknesses of each location. It forbids the body, proposed to be called the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Work Group, from considering any area that would be incompatible with military operations.

Such a preclusion would seem to disqualify both of the two greenfield sites in Pierce County, and the one in Thurston County, based on their reported conflicts with Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Bill Adamson, program director for South Sound Military & Communities Partnership, testified in remarks he said were authorized by JBLM that all three greenfield sites would interfere with Army and Air Force operations. He noted that the bill that created the CACC nearly four years ago similarly prevented military interference.

“Despite that specific authorizing language, the CACC continued to propose sites that create a conflict in airspace requirements with JBLM,” said Adamson, who supported the new proposed bill, which he asserted “provides an opportunity to correct oversights made by the CACC.”

HB 1791 uses the phrase “shall not,” as opposed to the 2019 bill’s “may not,” in reference to preventing a clash with military operations. The distinction was deliberate, Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, told The News Tribune in a recent interview.

Besides JBLM, the bill garnered support Thursday from the Nisqually Indian Tribe and Yakima City Councilwoman Patricia Byers, who reiterated the city’s interest in Yakima Air Terminal-McAllister Field being part of a solution.

Fey, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, are among the dozen sponsors of HB 1791. The two offered apologies on Thursday for how the CACC process unfolded, blaming inadequate analyses and public engagement on a lack of resources from the Legislature.

“We thought we had put together something that really worked, but we miscalculated a little bit,” Dent said. “We misunderstood a couple of things, and we didn’t plan on the pandemic, which made a huge difference.”

The proposed replacement bill will thoroughly review infrastructure and environmental concerns and consider an airport within the context of the state’s broader transportation needs, while maintaining a voting membership that has more community members than aviation industry officials, unlike the CACC, according to Fey.

“We put some different safeguards within this bill that will spell out what has to be met, and they weren’t in the other bill,” Dent said. “I’ve had some people contact me on this bill and say, ‘Well, it doesn’t look like you’re protecting me.’ Well, we are protecting you.”

By Feb. 24, the committee will take action on the bill with or without any amendments, according to Fey. If it passes, it would advance to the full House for consideration.