Comments on the Draft EA
by Alliance for a New Moffett Field
7/18/96
Alliance for a New Moffett Field
c/o CEC, 222C View Street, Mountain View, CA 94041
Phone: 415/968-8798; Fax: 415/968-1126
July 18, 1996
Suzanne Petroni
NASA Ames Research Center
Mail Stop 19-1
Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000
Dear Suzanne:
Our organization has carefully reviewed the Draft Environmental Assessment
for Air Cargo operations at Moffett Field, and we find that it is fundamentally
flawed. NASA should either undertake a full Environmental Impact study of
the proposal or put the entire environmental review process on hold until
NASA or some other agency receives statutory authority to host civilian
air cargo operations.
The series of public meetings on the Draft Environmental Assessment, while
somewhat informative, followed the discredited "Decide-Announce-Defend"
model of government-to-public communication. That is, rather then use the
process of community relations to influence its decisions, NASA decided
on its desired outcome and used the meetings to sell its proposal. Under
those circumstances, it should be no surprise that NASA met with so much
distrust from the potentially affected community.
NASA decided not to hold scoping hearings before conducting the Draft Environmental
Assessment. It chose to measure its activity against minimal legal requirements
rather than answer the environmental impacts as felt by members of the neighboring
community. Still, the public meetings on the Draft have raised many such
issues, and those should be studied, not simply brushed off in appended
responses to a Final Environmental Assessment.
The environmental review should not merely document where average noise
levels exceed government standards. It should consider the full range of
flight paths over the local community, and it should discuss the impact
of a variety of noise levels upon human activity-such as normal conversation
and sleep. As has been pointed out repeatedly at the public meetings, average
noise levels and contours do not adequately describe the environmental degradation
resulting from jet aircraft overflight. Furthermore, those of us who live
outside the straight-line landing pattern believe that we suffer from existing
Moffett overflights, even though our homes do not show up within the contours
highlighted by NASA.
NASA compares the air cargo operations' impact against an unrealistic Comprehensive
Use Plan which in turn is based upon comparison with the period of peak
Navy operations at Moffett Field. This is inappropriate for several reasons:
1) The Navy's peak operations were never justified by environmental study
or fully accepted by the community. At best, the base's neighbors endured
high levels of disruption in the name of national security.
2) The Comprehensive Use Plan considered levels of flight operations far
above what was likely. Even those of us who were aware of the Plan's options
saw no reason to challenge its adoption in court, because no new federal
operators of fixed-wing aircraft had shown an interest in basing planes
at Moffett Field.
3) The number and location of noise receptors has changed since the Navy
peak flight period and even since the finalization of the Environmental
Assessment for the Comprehensive Use Plan. The Environmental Impact Statement
should identify all housing built since 1990 in the area potentially impacted
by noise from air cargo operations, and it should address the new noise
impact on those homes. The Draft Environmental Assessment (page 25) says
that nearest housing in Sunnyvale is east of Mathilda, but the housing nearest
the runways (and along the flight path) appears to be the high-density area
of apartments and condos west of Mary and south of Maude. (See the map on
page 26.)
4) Finally, and most simply, the impact of air cargo overflights, as felt
by local residents, should be measured against current levels of activity.
Many residents have moved into the area or at least into their current homes
since the bulk of Navy operations at Moffett were halted.
We appreciate NASA's efforts to route night and early morning flights over
the Bay, but we are still dissatisfied, since there is no guarantee that
the number of such flights over inhabited areas will not increase over the
life of the proposed activity. Changes in operations at other Bay Area airports,
such as the eventual lifting of the curfew at San Jose or the initiation
of more Pacific Rim air travel, could lead to changes in landing patterns
for safety reasons. New information on the impact of night-time overflights
on baylands endangered species and natural habitat could lead to restrictions.
And even changing weather patterns could lead to more landings or even take-offs
over the city of Sunnyvale. But there is nothing in the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) process that assures that NASA will prevent such overflights
if they exceed the already unacceptable two percent prediction. Neither
NASA nor the air cargo companies have proposed any form of enforceable regulatory
language or contract designed to limit overflights to the estimated number.
NASA says it will abide by the selected alternative, but in the absence
of enforceable agreements there is a great deal of wiggle room. The Alternatives,
as specified in the Draft Environmental Assessment, appear to be specific,
but they leave a great deal of flexibility. For example, Alternative 1-and
Alternative 2 by reference-appear to place a ceiling on the amount of total
air operations. How strict are those limits? How would they be enforced?
The other numbers-for early morning landings, for example-are "typical"
or "expected" numbers? Would it trigger a new environmental review
every time a 13th flight asks to land before 7:00 am? How about if a third
flight wishes to depart before 5:30 am? Table 3 lists about 17,000 helicopter
flight operations among the 58,000 total? Are those interchangeable with
fixed-wing flights, which must follow more constrained flight paths?
An Environmental Impact Statement should include additional information
about these contingencies as well as mitigation measures designed to control
them. There should be information about the number of take-offs likely to
take place over Sunnyvale, given historical wind patterns, at night or in
the early morning. The studies used as a basis for the small percentage
of predicted southern approaches at night/early morning should provide more
than 49-year averages, but actual monthly averages for each of those 49
years at the designated times. There is no way for an analyst to determine
current trends without access to the entire data set, and there is no way
to conduct independent verifications without that data. Publishing such
information in a Final Environmental Assessment, as opposed to a Draft Environmental
Impact Statement, will not provide the opportunity for external review.
As we mentioned in our May 23, 1996 letter to Dr. Munechika, we believe
that the 1994 Environmental Assessment did not live up to either the spirit
or the letter of the law in exploring "reasonable" alternatives
(as provided by 40 U.S. Code §1502.14). There are a wide range of possible
options, including actions to protect and restore the wetlands; public uses
such as recreation, entertainment, and museums; housing and hotels; commercial,
light industrial, and office uses; and other forms of non-federal aviation.
We believe that any use on this list is as reasonable as air cargo, because
NASA currently has no statutory authority, even under Civil Reserve Air
Fleet legislation, to open up its airfield for commercial cargo. Once again,
such a wide study-a review that would have likely emerged from genuine scoping
hearings up front-would necessitate the drafting of a full Environmental
Impact Statement.
We have noted, in a staff report from the city of Sunnyvale and statements
by NASA officials, that the myth of San Jose's omnipotence still persists.
According to this myth, if NASA decides or finds that it can no longer operate
the Moffett Airfield, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would take
over the property and make it available to the city of San Jose for unlimited
airport operations. Not only does current law place conditions on airport
operations, but the FAA is not authorized to own commercial airports. Instead,
under the Surplus Property Disposal Act, after Federal agencies-including
the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service-have had the opportunity
to seek land from Moffett, the historic tidelands at Moffett Field would
revert to the jurisdiction of the California State Lands Commission. The
remainder of the property would be reviewed by the U.S. General Services
Administration, with multiple uses under consideration. Given the range
of financially viable alternatives, it is unlikely that a non-federal airport
would be approved over the objections of the communities in whose sphere
of influence the airfield lies. There should be no question that a San Jose
proposal for commercial or general aviation would generate an even greater
level of opposition than the air cargo proposal.
In our May 23 letter, we also noted that NASA has frequently described the
"NASA Complex" as an integrated federal facility. As such, other
Federal agencies with property or activity within the Moffett Field perimeter-and
perhaps on adjacent property-should be brought into the NEPA process as
Cooperating Agencies (as defined in 40 U.S. Code §1501.6). That is,
we feel that it would be impossible to satisfy NEPA without directly involving
the Air Force, the Defense Petroleum Supply Center, and other agencies in
the process. This is especially true since the Air Force would probably
be the sponsor of Civil Reserve Air Fleet operations at Moffett Field. In
fact, it is quite possible that the Air Force will find it necessary to
re-start the National Environmental Policy Act review if legislation is
ever enacted giving it authority to provide "civilian access"
to Moffett's landing strip and related facilities.
We are disturbed that the Draft Environmental Assessment underplays the
risks posed by the transportation and storage of jet fuel at Moffett Field,
particularly because of the facility's long history of fuel spills. Increased
use of fuel above current use will increase the likelihood of fuel releases
from the environment, from trucks, barges, the long single-walled pipeline,
or the huge 565,000-gallon single-walled underground storage tanks.
Furthermore, on page 88 the Draft Environmental Assessment assumes that
there will be no environmental obstacles to dredging in support of barge
operations, despite the ecological sensitivity of the area. Local communities
have a history of opposing Bay dredging, and thus the environmental review
should not ignore fuel trucks (as indicated in the page 88 footnote) should
dredging not be approved as anticipated.
At public meetings on the Draft Environmental Assessment, the spokeswoman
for Lockheed-Martin Missiles and Space Company has repeatedly asserted that
the availability of Moffett Federal Airfield for large commercial shipments
was a key factor in her company's decision to consolidate spacecraft manufacturing
in Sunnyvale. While it has never been clear to us why this assertion is
relevant to the NEPA process, we would like to know what, if any, assurances
NASA or any other federal agencies gave Lockheed.
In the wake of truck-bombings in Saudi Arabia and Oklahoma City, the U.S.
government is tightening up security measures at federal facilities. Commercial
airports already dedicate significant resources to security. Since it will
be open to large numbers of trucks, Moffett Field traffic may well be impacted
by security measures. This possibility should be included in the environmental
review.
We want to underscore our argument for a full Environmental Impact Statement.
The National Environmental Policy Act clearly calls for the completion of
an Environmental Impact Statement, not just an Environmental Assessment,
when the proposed action promises "significantly" to impact the
environment. We think the possibility that cargo aircraft might fly over
residential areas at night in itself represents a potentially significant
adverse environmental impact, but we would like to point out two additional
criteria for "significantly" from NEPA Regulations (40 U.S. Code
§1508.27):
· Paragraph 4 reads, "The degree to which the effects on the quality
of the human environment are likely to be highly controversial." While
there is a great deal of support locally for NASA's historic activities
at the Ames Research Center, the vast majority of people in surrounding
communities do not support air cargo night flights. In fact, in his July
16, 1996 letter to Mayor Robin Parker of Sunnyvale, Ken Munechika, director
of the Federal Airfield, states: "It is clear that this proposal has
generated significant public interest."
· Paragraph 6 reads, "The degree to which the action may establish
a precedent for future actions with significant effects or represents a
decision in principle about a future consideration." This criterion
is important for two reasons: 1) Because NASA used past patterns of Navy
air traffic to justify new proposals in its 1994 Environmental Assessment;
2) Because the proposed air cargo use, as reported to the public, will not
fully make up Moffett Federal Airfield's operating deficit. We are worried,
therefore, that the proposed air cargo use of Moffett will increase after
environmental approval, as NASA attempts to recoup its remaining losses.
Of course, undertaking such a serious study without legislative authorization
for operations may be putting the cart before the aircraft. It would make
more sense, from our point of view, to resolve the legislative issues first.
Put the National Environmental Policy Act process on hold. If NASA prevails
and wins special authorization for operating air cargo at Moffett Field,
then NASA and the Air Force should then and only then move ahead with a
full environmental review.
Sincerely,
Bob Seltzer
President