FAA Has Answered Every Question

For years, uninformed local opponents carped about relocating the airport. They raised question after question. Many of them had little to do with reality. Fortunately, the FAA has answered every question, beyond the shadow of a doubt. You need look no further than Volumes III, IV and V of the FAA’s Final Environmental Impact Study (FEIS).

The FAA’s FEIS is crystal clear: “The FAA’s selects the West Bay Site 8,400-foot Alternative as its preferred alternative.” And with that sentence (backed up by about 70 pounds of paper), the FAA put to rest nearly ten years of sniping by airport relocation opponents.

The FAA’s extraordinarily thorough EIS took five years to complete. It spans five volumes and contains more than 2,000 pages of analysis, including 350 analytic charts, tables and maps. A team of experts, with a combined 690 years of professional experience across twenty different disciplines, conducted the study.

But most importantly, the FAA provided specific, detailed responses to thousands of public comments and questions. The FAA didn’t rely on opinion, prejudice or hearsay. They relied on the facts. According to the FEIS, the FAA selected the West Bay as its preferred alternative “because of its superior ability to meet the purposes and the needs of the project with fewer constraints than presented by any of the other alternatives.”

A lot of people convinced themselves that airport relocation was nothing more than a clandestine real estate development scheme. But the FAA has no interest in real estate development. They are in the business of ensuring that U.S. airports are safe, efficient, and contribute to the overall public interest. From the FEIS: “In the FAA’s judgment, the West Bay Site presents key advantages operationally compared to the Existing Site alternatives.”