From: Lenny Siegel, Director, Pacific Studies Center
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996
SUNNYVALE'S DRAFT COMMENTS ON THE
AIR CARGO DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
On July 16, the Sunnyvale City Council will review, for forwarding to NASA,
its city staff's comments on the NASA Air Cargo Draft Environmental Assessment.
Since Sunnyvale staff worked with Mountain View's staff, the proposed comments
are largely the same as Mountain View's. The two cities hope to submit one
set of shared comments.
In its report, city staff notes: "Moffett Federal Airfield is not a
military airfield, and federal legislation will be necessary to permit Moffett
to be considered under the CRAF/CAMI [Civil Reserve Air Fleet/Civilian Access
to Military Installations]. The City of Sunnyvale previously contacted the
offices of Congresswoman Eshoo, and Senators Feinstein and Boxer to request
that they not allow any legislation to proceed until the communities have
an opportunity to fully review the issue and determine if the air cargo
proposal is acceptable. They have agreed to do so."
In part, the draft comments attempt to obtain information designed to build
support for air cargo: "To point out to the citizens of the area the
consequences of not approving the CRAF program, the [environmental assessment]
should go into much greater detail about the negative environmental and
socioeconomic impacts to MFA [Moffett Federal Airfield] without the CRAF
income. Such information should include the effect on employment and potential
industrial growth of trying to operate MFA without CRAF planes, alternate
uses, and other issues should this project not be approved. ... The more
the EA describes these impacts the more the residents will be able to see
the true and full picture of the impacts to be considered of approving or
disappoving the CRAF program."
On the other hand, the staff asks that NASA review other alternatives such
as a "Smithsonian West" and housing.
Among the comments already relected in Mountain View's review of the Draft
Environmental Assessment, Sunnyvale repeats that the noise baseline (for
comparison with the air cargo proposal) "should be measured from current
conditions as experienced by the citizens."