The Loma Prietan
June/July 1999
Airport Pushes On With Plans For Massive Bay Fill
by Richard Zimmerman
San Francisco International Airport will recommend its preferred plan for runway expansion to the San Francisco Airport Commission on June 1. Airport spokesman Ron Wilson said officials had narrowed the choices to either "F2" or "BX" - both alternatives would fill around 1300 acres.
Still missing from the radar screen is a low-impact alternative. This is in spite of airport officials' public assertions that they want to be "extremely environmentally sensitive and do the right thing."
At an April joint meeting of the Bay and Loma Prieta chapters, Airport Director John Martin said that the simultaneous offset instrument approach (SOIA) technique had been approved by the FAA. SOIA could almost solve SFIA's delay problem without any bay fill, but the airport still wants to fill the bay.
Martin also said that the discarded A3 option, which would fill less than 600 acres, "does give us the most bang for the buck."
Call For Open Process
In a letter signed by 21 environmental and community leaders, including Chapter Director Debbie Ruddock and San Francisco Bay Executive Committee Chair Marjorie Macris, David Lewis of Save San Francisco Bay asked the lead agencies to take several steps to assure broad public participation in the planning process:
- Scoping meetings allow members of the public to comment upon projects before Environmental Impact Statements and Reviews are written. The letter states that the private "stakeholder" meetings hosted by SFIA last year should not be considered as public scoping meetings.
- Clear descriptions would allow evaluation of lower impact alternatives by cncerned parties.
- All impacts, including bay hydrology, must be analyzed in detail.
- Any reasonable alternative to the runway expansion project should be considered and fully evaluated. This would include technical solutions to the airport's delay problem as well as construction techniques that might avoid impacting tidal flows in the south bay. In addition, SFIA should develop a plan that achieves their goals using minimal fill.
- Public Availability of Information
Power Politics
In the state legislature the Airport flexed its political muscle during the budget hearings by asking Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) to kill budget requests from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) totaling almost $400,000.
The additional funding that would have been denied BCDC had been earmarked for airport planning work over the next two fiscal years as well as for updates to the Regional Airport System Plan and Bay Plan.
The Airport objected to any update of the Bay Plan, which takes a two thirds affirmative vote of the BCDC. Permits, on the other hand, require only a simple majority of the 27 members. In addition, the Airport wanted a say in which consultants BCDC would hire to review its permit application, according to the San Jose Mercury-News.
Burton backed off when environmentalists objected and local press publicized the deal. Currently both the Senate and the Assembly versions of the budget contain funds for BCDC albeit with "different language" according to Mary Shallenburger of Burton's office. The differences will be hammered out in conference committee.
Ruddock said that if the legislature constrains BCDC funding, it will force the Commission to rely heavily on airport-supplied information in its evaluation of the runway project. "We need to keep pressure on the legislature to support BCDC," she added.
What you can do:
Call or write.
Senate President Pro Tem John Burton
at (916) 445-1412
Capital Building #205
Sacramento, CA 95814
Byron Sher (916) 364-2080
Capital Building #2082
Sacramento, CA 95814
Ted Lempert 916) 319-2021
Capital Building #2188
Sacramento, CA 95814