WA lawmakers punt hunt for major airport site far into the future

SEATTLE — Rural residents in the three locations in Pierce and Thurston counties identified as possible sites for a new airport larger than Sea-Tac Airport can rest easy: No airport is coming their way.

Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday signed into law a bill winding down a state commission that produced the shortlist of potential locations. A plan to recommend a single site by next month is also now dead.

After a ferocious backlash from the communities at the three shortlisted sites and at another near Enumclaw in King County studied separately, all four locations are now off the table. Each was a so-called “greenfield” site without an existing airport.

Warren Hendrickson, chair of the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission, created in 2019 to select a new airport site, said “not a single city, county, or port, no government agency nor any sovereign Indian nation has supported any of the three greenfield sites.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/wa-lawmakers-punt-hunt-for-major-airport-site-far-into-the-future/