By Chris Williams of Penmar Park area

I am NOT a pilot and do not own a plane.  I think there should be some clarification on Laura Silagi’s remarks.  Ms. Silagi has worked for years to remove Santa Monica Airport.

If as stated at the meeting by Dr. Richard Jackson, Chair of the UCLA Environmental Health Sciences, “Land use is a health issue”, then how large would the health issues be to the overall community if Santa Monica got their way and redeveloped Santa Monica Airport into the Century City type development they have desired to build there for decades. That would result in thousands more people accessing and living in this area. What would be the overall health result with thousands more vehicles and people brought into this area? What would be the stress level on our community from the increase in traffic and density?

We are already almost at gridlock.  Now if Santa Monica decided to turn the entire property into a regional park that could be a positive step. But that isn’t going to happen.  Other areas regional parks such as in Orange County are now being planned for massive redevelopments.  As of now there are 4 votes on the Santa Monica City Council that would vote in a heartbeat to fully develop the airport. Others state they will vote to keep the airport to prevent the alternative.

Love it or hate it Santa Monica Airport sits on bedrock. It is projected to be the only functioning airport in the region, not just the city, after the so-called big one earthquake hits. Remember, the majority of our Police and Fire Dept. resources live in other localities outside of Los Angeles and most assuredly outside of the Westside. They will need to be ferried in and out, injured and hospitalized neighbors will need to be evacuated and food and water will need to be delivered to our community.

Santa Monica Airport will be our lifeline in that type of disaster. LAX because of its underlying geology, underground fuel pipelines and storage tanks is projected to fail in the big one. So are other airports in the LA basin by nature of their underlying geology as well.

In listening to the UCLA students who did a limited lead study, they stated they found no, repeat no, elevated lead in any of the areas tested west of the airport. I couldn’t hear them as far as the properties east of the airport, and the elevated lead levels mentioned were found on airport property exactly where one would expect to finds them after use of leaded fuels for piston aircraft in use for the last 80 odd years.

Let us remember SM airport used to be the home of Douglas Aircraft whose planes used to use significantly higher lead content fuels in much larger quantities than today’s small planes.  Jet aircraft do not use leaded fuels but have their own issues with the soot and partially burned fuels they generate while their engines are in a full rich condition idling and on takeoff.

Are there improvements that can be done at Santa Monica Airport, yes, absolutely?  The primary runway 21 points to a direction where the airport traffic follows a straight line that goes over Santa Monica  The traffic should go over Santa Monica particularly the noisy ones,  the jets. They receive the monetary benefits of the airport and they should receive any liabilities associated with it.

In the alternative the FAA a couple of years ago tried a fanning effect of smaller aircraft being fanned out to lighten the amount over any one area.  The jets however should go over Santa Monica exclusively. There should be more noise monitors place in Venice for the planes that throttle up too soon and noisily impact Venice.  At the east end of the airport jets waiting for clearance to depart sit and idle their engines producing a stench like a hundred barbeques lighting up.  That needs to be addressed and there are solutions that can be implemented.   The flight schools can be addressed as well. There are solutions beyond what is currently being expressed.

I came away dismayed the VNC’s Airport Committee failure to look comprehensively at all the impacts of the airport both negative and positive. I found some of the Airport Committee’s presentation misleading, or at the least lacking balance. It felt clearly orchestrated a fete-accompli.

The bottom line for our Penmar Community and indeed our surrounding communities is: We must consider wisely and not rush irrationally into something that may be substantially worse for us while generating our neighbor city billions in new revenues.