The Airport Communities Podcast

STNI
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by STNI (Sea-Tac Noise.Info).Based near Sea-Tac Airport, this podcast explores the impacts, policies, and inequalities faced by people living under the flight path everywhere. It's definitely not just about noise.

  1. Jun 29

    Ep #36: Orphans

    After a series of Emergency Episodes on the SAMP DEIS, we're trying a mini-episode on one sliver of the other major study going on at the same time: Part 150. Part 150 is a voluntary noise program airports can do. But any airport that is serious about noise has done at least one since its inception in 1985. It has a ton of rules. But no matter how much airports (like the Port) try to imply that they are regulations (ie. orders they must obey) they are more like reimbursement rules. We cannot stress that enough. Part 150 is a pre-made template that airports can use to provide sound insulation and other noise mitigations--and receive funding. But the law does not prevent the Port from doing lots of things with its own money. So, the DNL65 boundary, the area within which people got Port Packages from 1991-2013, was defined by FAA money. But for various reasons, when it was offered, a number of homes never received Port Packages. And as the flight paths changed, and that reimbursement boundary shrank, it left any number of homes out in the cold. As new owners move in, seeing that their neighbors have sound insulation and they are not eligible, it makes them feel like orphans. As the current Part 150 process reaches its conclusion, and the Port discusses which homes are eligible for updated sound insulation, we think the Port should give these orphans--homes that never received sound insulation--top priority.  Both the questionable practices of the Port and some questionable choices of a few original homeowners should not be allowed to determine the public health of every subsequent occupant.  We all know that DNL65 is a bad standard. This is a chance for the Port to take the $5,000,000 it allocated towards 'updates' and apply it to where it would actually do the most good. Who is truly most worthy of relief: homes inside the DNL65 with sound insulation, or those just a few houses outside that boundary who never received any? We shouldn't have to make such bad choices, but since the Port has used sound level testing as the marker of 'worthiness', it should do the right thing and try to redeem the most glaring of flaws in the original Port Package program, Topics Part 150 For DummiesEp #24 The 400,000lb tube going 200mphEp #4: The Railroad In The Sky!Ep #9: Part 150 For DummiesEp #14 A-WeightedEp #17 The Airport DiscountSAMP EA Chapter #3 - Affected EnvironmentCity of Burien v. FAA 18-717052025 Port of Seattle response to City of Burien on SIRRPP2026 Part 150 Technical Review Committee Meeting #6

    10 min

  2. Jun 15

    Ep #35: Emergency! Try Something Different... (Keep Sleepy Time Sacred)

    On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began. In Ep #34, we said that you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Since the current process is a do-over from 2018, you have lots of great resources. But one thing we hope you will not obsess over are all the comments on 'operations'. Many people argue over annual and daily forecasts. We want you to try something different:  focus on the one aspect of FAA code that we can do something about: Flights between 10pm - 7am. Sleepy Time. Although there are many gaps in the research concerning public health and noise, the one thing everyone agrees on -- including the FAA -- is that night time flights are the worst. That is the basis behind the 'DNL65'. Though a flawed and gamed system, it recognizes that not all flights are created equally. Talking about daily or annual averages blurs that distinction. Regardless of how many flights there may be at 10am or 3pm your health deserves exactly zero flights between 10pm and 7am. Although the airport does not control flights, it coordinates scheduling with the airlines. The airport chooses to build (or not) the projects airlines are willing to pay for in order to accommodate their long term scheduling goals. At bottom, the SAMP is a set of construction permits. Isn't it interesting that we almost never about those specific projects? We only hear about 'gates' as if they were all general purpose. They are not. Each is designed to perform a specific job. Many of them are intended to help airlines schedule to Asia, as is the International Arrivals Facility. Billions of dollars of prime Sleepy Time construction projects. Whether you comment on overall operations, your comments must focus on public health. Noise is public health. Night time flights are the worst. The Port of Seattle is spending billions of dollars to enable projects designed to make night time flights more frequent. Today's "Dos" Why was the International Arrivals Facility excluded from the SAMP in 2015 given its role in additional nighttime flights? Why are you spending billions on other projects designed to increase flights during 10pm - 7am. What are you doing to prevent sleep disruption and why haven't you provided any mitigation opportunities to address it? Topics 2015 Letter Of Understanding Port of Seattle, City of SeaTac IAF/SAMPDNL65 For Dummies2023 - Dr. Kris Johnson presentation to Burien City Council2020 - Community Health and Airport Operations Related Noise and Air Pollution2018 Federal Way Quiet and Healthy Skies Task ForcePresentation2026 - SAMP/SEPA Draft EIS

    3 min

  3. Jun 12

    Ep #34: Emergency! Do This... (Don't Reinvent the Wheel! 3/3)

    In Ep #33, we said that, after public health, the best comment you can make concerns socioeconomics. Public health considers the impacts on individuals,  but socioeconomics considers the impacts on the place you live. We take a beat to reinforce that. Researchers have known for decades that the impacts of pollution and rapid change to any community is generational. It is an awkward discussion because even if you perform a massive 'cleanup', even if people move in and out, the negative impacts for the community seem to persist. It is awkward because these harms create so many perverse incentives.  Residents like the artificial 'affordability'. Developers like to say that they have the solution. And no elected wants to admit that their city is stuck. We refer to this as the airport discount. But airport expansion has a lot to do with why airport communities get stuck. The topic for today is 2018. People like to blame 'COVID' for everything, but every few years activists cycle in and out on airport issues and avoid all the great work done by their predecessors. The 2026 SAMP is almost literally a do-over from 2018. But back then there was more preparation and larger budgets. So there are many good reasons to go back and look at that earlier process. Sadly, airport law is unchanged, research did not make the progress we'd hoped. People essentially took their eyes off the ball. But on the plus side: If you find the SAMP/SEPA DEIS intimidating, just use these more digestible pieces below.If you want to check to see if your ideas track? These will tell you.If you're concerned that some of the Port's current information also may not seem to track (and you should be), checking what they said before is a great idea.And you want a different POV -- not just STNI, but from others who do not work for the Port of Seattle or the FAA? Here they are.Today's "Do" is simple: Rather than slog through thousands of pages of SAMP, put to work what hundreds of other concerned residents and professionals have done to help all of us! 2018 SAMP Comments/Research 2023 - Dr. Kris Johnson presentation to Burien City Council2020 - Community Health and Airport Operations Related Noise and Air Pollution2018 Federal Way Quiet and Healthy Skies Task ForcePresentation2018 - Leigh Fisher Facilities_Implementation and Financial Feasibility2018 SAMP CommentsAlaska Airlines 2018 SAMP Scoping Comments 4gPublic CommentsPublic Comment totals/categoriesOther Topics 2026 - SAMP/SEPA Draft EISAppendix K Socioeconomics, Environmental Justice, and Children's Health2025 - CAI Economic Impact Study1997 - HOK Community Impacts/Mitigation Study1976 - Sea-Tac Communities PlanTo learn how you can make a difference: STNI.info/subscribe

    3 min

  4. Jun 10

    Ep #33: Emergency! Do This... (Socioeconomics 2/3)

    Ep #33 Emergency! Do This... (Part 2/3 Appendix K-Socioeconomics) In Ep #32, we said that the most basic 'do' is public health. As a society, public health is the one thing we all agree should not be traded away. Those are individual impacts. Socioeconomics, Environmental Justice, Children's Health But both NEPA and SEPA address community harms--the collective impacts, especially on children, and particularly in Appendix K. Unfortunately, the FAA rigged the game in several key ways, including confining the study area for impacts on children to the GSA -- or rather the census tracks immediately connected to the runways. How many people live near the runways? Not. Too. Many. They also accepted the Port's Economic Impact Study as its sole exhibit. It is riddled with exaggerations and claims that cannot be true. But even worse is that it takes the Greater Good argument to extremes, including sections about commercial fishing and its partnerships with the Port of Tacoma. What does any of that have to do with communities under the flight path? To add insult to injury, in early 2025, President Trump issued a series of executive orders removing most of what remained from consideration. In our last episode we said that more research was necessary for aviation emissions and noise. We said that those gaps were the Port's get out of jail free card on NEPA, and that the Port had promised to do better in SEPA. But did not. On Socioeconomics, they did not even try to do better. The entire chapter is a straight copy/paste from the NEPA document. Still, your comment must include Appendix K. It may seem harder to quantify community impacts than noise or air or water pollution, in some ways it's much easier. The promise was, "As we do better, you'll do better." That was what they said back in 1975 to respond to the second runway and the non-stop construction ever since. We now have decades of lived experience -- first predicted in the 1997 HOK Study that this was never true. The only research left to do is to put numbers to that decline. What does that mean for us? Most of us do not make the connection, but we depend on our cities in order to flourish as individuals and as a community. So much of what we count on to thrive depends on roads, water, parks, recreation, public safety -- the services municipalities provide. And yet, if the airport has been such a boon for surrounding communities why do our local governments struggle so much with declining service levels and budget deficits? The Port does not control flight paths, but socioeconomics is an area that cannot be constrained by the FAA. Your comments should contrast the ongoing benefits to King County with the constant struggles for your municipality.

    3 min

  5. Jun 8

    Ep #32: Emergency! Do This... (Mind The Gaps 1/3)

    Ep #32 Emergency! Do This... (Part 1/3 Mind The Gaps) - Sea-Tac Noise.Info On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began. In Ep #31, we said that the only winning move was not to play -- at least, not the game Congress has programmed all of us to play for forty years. They know you're desperate. They know you can't win. They make the FAA the bad cop. But in the case of the SAMP, the Port of Seattle is in a unique position: their environmental team prepares the SEPA study. Their environmental director approves the study. Their commission provides a final sign-off. And last but not least, the Port of Seattle has a core mission to be The Greenest Port In America. They can do better in any regard not constrained by the FAA. Public health is one of them. In their SEPA process, they promised to do a 'detailed analysis' of these harms. That effort consisted only of reading the existing work -- something anyone could do. Clever. But completely insincere. The Port cannot control flight paths, but they could always do a lot more. They have depended on the ignorance of the public--which relies on them as the single source of truth--to avoid doing it. Current research does have significant gaps. We should stop denying that it does and stop promoting incomplete work as conclusive. The real question is: why hasn't the Port Of Seattle, "The Greenest Port In America" lifted a finger to help further that work? Using any of those 'gaps' in research literature, decade after decade, as a get out of jail free card, without sincerely working to provide answers, is unconscionable. The public may not understand the research needed to build a solid regulatory standard, but the Port does. Your comments should start with public health because that is the one concern no emitter of harmful substances -- including noise and aviation emissions is allowed to ignore.

    4 min

  6. Jun 4

    Ep #31: Emergency! The only winning move (3/3)

    On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began. Our last 3 minute explainer on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think. In Ep #30, we said that 'NTP' means 'near-term projects'. The Port of Seattle has been telling us, since 2012, that the largest expansion in Sea-Tac history was coming in several phases. This has been no secret except that they have not exactly advertised that the strategy, called segmentation, is used to divide projects up in order to avoid permitting challenges -- like the Third Runway. Maybe we could not hear that message clearly over the non-stop construction. This is our last "don't do that" episode for a while. The next several will be "dos". Both are real doozies. The last "don't" is: Don't talk about flight paths in your SEPA comment. That will be hard because almost every cell in your body just wants the airplanes to go somewhere else. However, whether you live in Burien or Vashon or Mercer Island or Enumclaw or anywhere within our TRACON? Don't do that. The "dos", coming in the next batch of episodes, will also be challenging for the same reasons. We know where everyone wants to go. That's why it's so hard to take a route that seems less 'direct'. But we've spent the last 30 episodes making a very simple case: What everyone has tried is designed not to work. As with the construction, that is no secret. We have no 'magic'. But if everyone has been trying the same losing strategy decade after decade, it's time to try something different.

    3 min

  7. Jun 2

    Ep #30: (NTP?)

    On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began. Our fifth3 minute explainer on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think. In Ep #29, we said that there was plenty of time to prepare your comments. The most immediate task is to get your local governments to start treating this as an ongoing effort rather than waiting the 11th hour all the time. Many people ask us what 'NTP' means. It's 'near-term projects'. An airport can never shut down to perform upgrades. It needs to keep upgrading while the plane (all the planes) are in the air. People see the construction and think it's being done piecemeal just to work around that challenge. But these projects are planned and sequenced as much according to permitting as anything else. If you can break the work into pieces, you can avoid a ton of regulatory  oversight. In fact, the plan the Port calls the sustainable airport master plan took shape in 2012 as the Century Agenda. Since then and at least four billion dollars in construction projects have been completed which are really part of the plan but not required to be permitted together. What they call 'the SAMP' was created in 2015, and then immediately broken into two pieces: Near Term Projects and Long Term Projects (LTP.) The LTP is known, but it is almost never spoken of now, and then only as 'unforeseen'. It's completely foreseen. It is intentionally talked about that way because FAA regulations only require a 5-year window on 'foreseeable projects'. We're now in the NTP phase. Everything you think of as 'the SAMP' is really just the Near-Term Projects phase. But whether or not you remember that SAMP == NTP, you can be certain that the LTP is real and it will begin as soon as the NTP closes. How can we be so sure? Because that is what happened after the Third Runway. That is how all major airports work. The construction never ends. Projects are intentionally broken into segments in order to avoid considering cumulative impacts. If you only have to review impacts within foreseeable 5 year windows, you can never be held accountable.

    3 min

  8. Jun 1

    Ep #29: Emergency! (Be Prepared!)

    https://stni.info/ep-29-emergency-be-prepared On May 22, 2026 the Sustainable Airport Master Plan DEIS was released and a sixty day public comment period began. Our fourth 3 minute explainer on how you can help your community by being patient and providing high quality comments.  It is not click bait to say: It's easier than you think. It's not what you think. In Ep #28, we said to stop obsessing over these documents. It's been over a week since the Port released the SAMP/DEIS. And we're seeing the same trends: people wanting to understand what is in the documents. The Port provided a 60 day comment period -- which is twice as long as the state requirement. On the other hand, their first Open House is a month after publication. But on the other hand, most of the documents were actually completed almost a month before publication. So what? There are no penalties for 'bad public engagement'. Surrounding communities have had decades to prepare for the SAMP -- and more importantly -- come to grips with the endless cycle. If you know Lucy is likely to pull away the football, maybe it is you who should stop playing the same game. Rainy Days In 2007, King County developed a Flood Control District to manage the fact that there are always going to be floods. Even if you don't know when they will occur, you have to have a plan both to try to prevent them and to manage them effectively when they occur. You have to be prepared. This approach was fraught because areas that do not flood would not choose to pay for those that do. Cities tend to be poor at long term cooperative planning. Even though we live next to a great river of commerce -- and its negative impacts -- we wait until it starts raining to act.

    3 min
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by STNI (Sea-Tac Noise.Info).Based near Sea-Tac Airport, this podcast explores the impacts, policies, and inequalities faced by people living under the flight path everywhere. It's definitely not just about noise.

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