Airport Bill Faces City Opposition

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

May 9 -- A State bill that would force Santa Monica Airport to keep statistics to help gauge the effects of aircraft pollution on the health of nearby residents is receiving a turbulent response from local officials, despite vocal backing by key Los Angeles and California legislators.

Sponsored by 53rd Assembly District member Ted Lieu – who represents the area just south of Santa Monica – the bill would make the city’s airport the only one in the area mandated to publicly record the taxi and idle times of jet operations for one year.

“I think what we are asking is a very modest,” said Lieu, who noted that the raw data collected would be used to eventually determine when, where and how pollution may affect residents in surrounding areas.

Santa Monica staff and airport officials vehemently disagree.

“We’re still reeling,” said Santa Monica Airport Manager Bob Trimborn, who said that he only heard about the legislation after it was introduced in the Assembly, a point disputed by Representative Lieu.

“It singles out Santa Monica and it’s very economically burdensome to the City to do this,” Trimborn said.

Just how burdensome -- and useful -- the bill would be is the heart of a brewing dispute between Santa Monica officials and Los Angeles, State, and Federal officials who favor of the bill.

Residents adjacent to the local airport, who met with Los Angeles City Council member Bill Rosendahl and U.S. Representatives Jane Harman on April 20, have complained for years that the position of planes, coupled with ocean winds, blow vaporized fuel from idling jets into their neighborhoods.

Neighbors believe that the jet exhaust is a serious health risk, although no studies have definitively linked the possible pollution with a decline in the health of area residents.

Martin Rubin, director of Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution, called Santa Monica Airport the “poster child for airport pollution.”

“On many days, the raw kerosene smell drifts into residents’ open windows,” said Rubin, adding that the pollution leaves many with the sensation of a sore throat.

Rubin -- who has been a key source of information for Lieu’s bill -- contends there may be more health concerns.

“That’s why we need this bill,” said Rubin, adding that it the first step in gathering additional information

In spite of the disputed health data surrounding airport pollution, Lieu said he feels he must speak out for those he represents, like Rubin, which is why he sponsored the bill.

“There are a great number of my constituents who have no voice,” said Lieu of residents in his district who live to the east and south of Santa Monica airport, but are not represented locally because they are outside the beachside city.

Santa Monica officials counter that those residents are more than welcome to add their input at the local City Council or Airport Commission meetings, but Lieu said those local bodies “don’t have to pay attention to their concerns.”

“Still,” he said, “they get all the harmful effects of the airport pollution.”

As the bill steadily works its way through the legislature, local officials -- who hope the bill will not take flight -- are speaking out against the measure and are actively working to shoot it down before it is passed into law.

There are several reasons for the opposition, foremost among them is that the bill unfairly targets Santa Monica Airport, Trimborn said.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘Why Santa Monica?’” he said.

Trimborn and several other City officials are sounding off against the Lieu bill, saying it saddles the local airport with unreasonable and expensive tests which would not be required by other airports in Southern California, including the much larger LAX Airport just a few miles south.

At nearly 700,000 jet aircraft operations per year, Trimborn and other City staff say that LAX operations dwarf Santa Monica’s 18,000 jet flights, he said.

“The proposed legislation is completely silent regarding LAX’s impact on these issues,” states the City’s staff report published last week, which was partially authored by Trimborn.

Previous drafts of the bill called for other airports to collect similar data, but it was amended to affect only Santa Monica Airport after facing stiff resistance from airport and airline industry officials, according to both Trimborn and proponents of the bill.

Lieu, however, does not dispute that the legislation -- though worded broadly in the original draft -- was aimed squarely at Santa Monica Airport, which he said is “in a unique position.”

“The goal of this bill was always focused on Santa Monica,” he said.

While he acknowledges that LAX has more traffic, he said there is a larger buffer between one of the nation’s busiest airports and nearby residents.

Santa Monica “is one of the most residentially encroaching airports in the nation,” said Lieu, who has walked precincts adjacent to the local airport. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

At some points, the residences surrounding the airport are separated by a single road, he said.

Airport officials counter that there are several airports in the United States that have high volumes of traffic that are in close proximity to neighborhoods, including the Haywood Airport in Northern California.

Another point of contention is cost.

Trimborn places the amount needed to conduct the operational analysis – the timing of airport engine ignitions and stops – at nearly $500,000.

“We would have to have several guys out there with stop watches every time a plane starts its engines,” he said.

However, Lieu’s camp places the estimate at “well below $150,000.”

“Even if we hired a part-time, or full-time person, to conduct the analysis, we would be far below the costs the city says it would have to spend,” he said.

While both sides squabble over how much this may cost Santa Monica, City officials argue that the entire analysis is unnecessary, since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already funded a $400,000 air quality monitoring study, currently underway with the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

“That is empirical data,” said Trimborn of the SCAQMD monitoring study, which measure pollution standards throughout several airports.

Lieu’s camp – while saying the monitoring study is important – argues that it does not go far enough to address health concerns of residents near the Santa Monica airport.

The raw data collected on idling times would be used later in a “modeling” study, which he says the Environmental Protection Agency currently uses and favors to study the effects of pollution on a specific area.

While Lieu said he understands the bill may cost the city and that it would cause concern among local officials that the local airport is being singled out, he added that he does not understand why local officials are fighting a bill with such strong backing.

“I don’t understand the intensity of the resistance to this bill,” said Lieu, who would not speculate if he thought the city was concerned about how such evidence may affect the current agreement between the City and the Federal Aviation Administration.

That agreement – which keeps the airport in the City for at least the next 15 years – has long been a source of contention for local residents who have seen jet traffic rise substantially in the last decade.

“I have offered to make comprises (with Santa Monica)… which were all turned down,” Lieu said, noting that his office has been in contact with Jeff Mathieu, the City’s main negotiator on the airport issue. “It puts me in a very hard position to work it all out.”

Still, Lieu said, his office is open to face-to-face input from City officials.

“I would love to meet with them,” he said.