"MSP panel delays vote on airport growth predictions"

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Airport panel delays vote on growth predictions
By Dan Wascoe Jr.
The Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune


In response to calls for more community participation in predicting airport
growth, the Metropolitan Airports Commission on Monday delayed its scheduled
vote on the matter to give a new committee on aircraft noise a chance to
comment.

The commission now is expected to vote in August.

The predictions of airport activity through 2007 will help the commission's
staff and consultants draw boundaries for the next stage of the
noise-insulation program around Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The new 12-member Noise Oversight Committee includes representatives from
the aviation industry and from communities near the airport. It has met once
but hasn't made recommendations or comments to the commission.

Minneapolis officials and South Metro Airport Action Council representatives
have urged greater community participation in the commission's
decisionmaking process. Coral Houle, who heads the commission's planning and
environment committee, agreed: "I want to avoid the process becoming the
issue," she said.

She was responding to commission members Dan Boivin of Minneapolis, and Paul
Rehamp of Marshall, who said that the new panel's main function is to offer
advice on noise-related issues and that it should have a chance to comment
on the proposed predictions of airport activity.

But Commissioner Robert Mars, of Duluth, opposed the delay, saying it could
lead to adding more houses to the commission's noise-insulation program. He
said the commission should rely instead on its paid consultants from HNTB
Companies of Alexandria, Va.

Two weeks ago Houle's committee approved HNTB's recommended forecasts of
passengers, aircraft loads, aircraft types, cargo trends and flights by
smaller planes. The consultants based their estimates on interviews with
airline officials and reviews of government figures.

Once the commission updates its noise plan, the Federal Aviation
Administration must review it. The commission's most pressing issue is how
it will address reducing noise in homes exposed to an average of 60 to 64
decibels. The current program provides insulation in an area averaging 65
decibels.

The commission also heard an update about the source of pollution in
groundwater that is flowing from an area near Lake Elmo airport to Bayport.
While the source of the chemicals still is a mystery, staff members said
that new test wells by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency have found
higher concentrations west of the airport and that groundwater flows are
carrying them beneath the airport toward the St. Croix River.

Nigel Finney, a deputy executive director for the commission, said that
because it appears more likely the airport is not the source of the
contamination, the group might want to consider a legal strategy to withdraw
from a consent agreement under which it has spent more than $170,000 to
install filters for homeowners' drinking water in the area.


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