Update: December 3, 2009

Unnecessary Third Runway at Hillsboro Airport Constitutes Misuse of Public Funds

The Port of Portland and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have failed to establish any need whatsoever for a third runway at Hillsboro Airport (HIO). As a result, plans to invest $17 million in taxpayer monies on this wasteful and totally unnecessary pork barrel extravagance should be immediately halted. The proposed runway is intended to serve primarily general aviation hobbyists and flight training activities. Hillsboro Aviation, a private for-profit flight training company based at HIO, has positioned itself to be a major beneficiary of this arrangement.

Taxpayer dollars should be dedicated to projects that serve the greater good - not for building infrastructure on behalf of the leisure pursuits of an affluent few or for a private company whose flight training activities create relentless noise, erode livability, degrade the environment, pose serious safety risks, lower property values, and compromise the security of the entire region.

Premise of Environmental Assessment  Based on Inaccurate and Misleading Data

To be credible with members of the public, it is essential that the information provided in the Hillsboro Airport Parallel Runway 12L/30R Draft Environmental Assessment be accurately and painstakingly researched. Unfortunately this report does not begin to meet this most basic standard. From the outset, the rationale in favor of a third runway is based on erroneous data that cannot be substantiated with hard evidence. For example, the first paragraph of the Executive Summary opens with the following:

Hillsboro Airport (HIO) is the busiest general aviation (GA) company in the State of Oregon, and relative to total operations, is the second busiest airport in the state behind Portland International Airport (PDX).

In fact, Hillsboro Airport has more operations than PDX however, as explained below; these are almost entirely private flights that provide little public benefit.

Abundance of Capacity - PDX Annual Operational Count at 22 Year Low

According to the PDX June 2009 fiscal year report (See Exhibit 1 in the Supporting Documentation Attachment), HIO logged 256,304 operations during the 2008-2009 fiscal period, nearly 15,000 more than PDX, the primary commercial airport in the region. Thus HIO, which is less than 1/3 the size of PDX in terms of acreage, now logs more annual operations than any other airport in the entire state.

This same report indicates that during fiscal year 2008-09 the Port of Portland's total operational count, including PDX, Hillsboro, and Troutdale, dropped by 8.3%, which equates to over 50,000 operations system wide. At -10.4% with a total of 235,773 annual operations, PDX experienced the steepest decline, more than 27,000 fewer operations than last year, thereby plummeting PDX to a 22-year low. The operational count at PDX peaked in calendar year 1997 at 329,745 annual operations (See Exhibit 2 in the Supporting Documentation Attachment), thus this airport now accommodates 28.5% fewer flights than it did just 12 years ago. An Oregonian article 11/21/09, Done deals likely are winners for travelers playing airfare games, states:

Commercial flights at PDX fell by 19% from October 2007 to October 2009 and the number of passengers declined 14% during the same time period.

During fiscal year 2008-2009, Troutdale Airport realized a 9% drop in operations, from 94,572 to 86,105, for a decrease of 8,000. It is noteworthy that more than 30 years ago, there were over twice as many operations out of Troutdale Airport (173,348 in 1976) than there are now (See Exhibit 4 in the Supporting Documentation Attachment).

The PDX Monthly Traffic Report for July, August, September, and October 2009 (See Exhibit 3 in the Supporting Documentation Attachment) reveals that this pattern of declining usage is continuing into the new fiscal year. PDX has seen a drop during each of these months of 12.8%, 12.8%, 12.3%, and 11.9% respectively compared to 2008. The declines at Hillsboro Airport were even more dramatic, on average 15.1% in each of the 4 months discussed above while Troutdale dropped by a whopping 25 to 26% during each of the summer months and by 28% in October.

Clearly, between PDX and Troutdale there is an excess of capacity at Port of Portland owned and operated facilities. In 2008 there were only 26,892 general aviation operations logged at PDX, down by over 100,000 from 1976 and half as many as in 1985 (See Exhibit 5 in the Supporting Documentation Attachment). This data suggests that Port of Portland predecessors may well have been far more capable, conscientious, and prudent stewards of existing resources and public monies.

Taxpayer Dollars Wasted on Unnecessary Port of Portland Aviation Projects

It is curious that despite this 12 year downward trend, during which takeoffs and landings at PDX decreased by more than 94,000 operations, the Port continues to lavish scarce taxpayer funds on this facility. Amy Hsuan, in a 7/25/09 Oregonian article Uncertainty at PDX, reported that PDX is currently pursuing a number of top-dollar expansion projects including "a $148 million parking garage, $135.4 million baggage screening system, $63.5 million runway extension and a $31.7 million widening of Airport Way."  The total cost of these projects alone comes to $378.6 million - enough to build a school in flood ravaged Vernonia 10 times over. The Port is also paying Delta Airlines $3.5 million to retain direct flights to Asia and Europe - routes Delta intended to cancel prior to being offered this subsidy from the Port of Portland.

In addition, the Oregon Legislature allocated $6.3 million in state lottery revenues for a runway expansion at PDX - money that could have been devoted to offsetting rising tuition, crowded classrooms, teacher shortages and a host of other problems confronting Oregon's schools. Instead, teachers may be forced to take unpaid furlough days while students continue to struggle with deteriorating educational opportunities.

To promote and justify their spurious projects, the Port has cleverly resorted to feeding the public information on passenger counts rather than actual operations. Due to larger aircraft and more crowded flights, passenger count does not equate to an increase in operations or the need for more and extended runways. That being said, the passenger count at PDX is also on the decline.

Hillsboro Airport Designated as Reliever, Not Primary, Facility

The draft EA goes on to explain:

HIO is a designated reliever airport for PDX. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) encourages the development of such high capacity GA airports in major metropolitan areas. These specialized reliever airports provide pilots with safe, efficient, and attractive alternatives to using congested commercial airports

But wait just a minute! It appears that the Port and the FAA are engaged in an attempt to intentionally obfuscate the facts. Remember the annual operational count at PDX has now tumbled to 1986-87 levels and is continuing to spiral downward. If there is congestion at this facility, it points to alarmingly poor management and administration, particularly since PDX has the capacity for more than twice as many annual operations as it is currently facilitating. The question then is, Why is a reliever GA airport outpacing a primary commercial airport in terms of annual takeoffs and landings?

HIO caters to the less than 1/5 of 1% of the population who have obtained a private pilots license; those wealthy enough to purchase private jets, fixed wing aircraft, and/or helicopters; those with the financial wherewithal to charter private flights and air taxis; and those who can afford to rent, at $100 or more per hour plus fuel, aircraft for recreational purposes and flight training. Few Main St. Americans, many of whom are struggling to keep food on the table, can afford to fly in and out of Hillsboro Airport. Please note that the price of a new Cessna 350 or 400 exceeds, one to 2 times over, the average amount Oregonians spend to purchase a home - those that can even afford to buy a home, that is.

According to Phil Boyer, the President of the Airport Owners and Pilots Association, 95% of the 600,000 registered pilots in this country are men. This small group, which represents 1/5 of 1% of the total US population, is receiving billions of dollars in federal handouts.  Meanwhile the other roughly 99.8% of the population (minus the corporate executives and their friends who can afford private flights) that relies on the commercial airlines is being hit with additional fees to check luggage, purchase leg room, and buy food items.

Flight Training

Steve Nagy, HIO General Aviation Manager, testified at an 11/18/09 City of Hillsboro Land Use Hearing on the expansion of the Hillsboro Airport Overlay zone that approximately 100,000 of the quarter of a million operations at HIO last year were for training purposes. The largest financial beneficiary of this arrangement is HIO tenant Hillsboro Aviation's flight training school, which provides training for Portland Community College Aviation Science students. Each of the PCC student pilots is required to accrue 270 flight hours for licensure. This translates into more than 11 days of noise per student. Two hundred students in the program will collectively generate over 6.2 years of noise over the course of their taxpayer subsidized educations. In addition, gas guzzling aviation activity spews a host of pollutants into the environment including lead, benzene, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

A 7/5/09 Oregonian article Kristina Guardino prepares for a flying career reported that Guardino, who is the single mother of a toddler,"says that no one goes into flying for the money, at least not in the beginning. Her costs for flying to get the degree will top $70,000. After graduation, she figures she'll be lucky to make $1,000 a month teaching other students until she builds up enough hours to qualify for better paying jobs."

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, a family of two with an income below $14,000 is living in poverty. What this means is that even after an outlay of $70,000, Guardino expects to work for $12,000 per year in a below poverty level student training position. In the end, Hillsboro Aviation profits by charging students for flight training and then hiring them at poverty level wages as student trainers.

But Guardino's out of pocket investment does not begin to measure the true costs of her pilot's license. Generous taxpayer subsidies, via PCC bond measures, contribute towards her classroom coursework. In addition, FAA and State of Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), Connect Oregon, and Department of Aviation (ODA) taxpayer funds pay for millions of dollars in infrastructure and related costs at HIO. Between 2000 and 2006 alone $15 million was doled out to this airport through the ODA.

Past Port Forecast Projections Historically Over Estimated

The second paragraph of the Executive Summary states:

As the airport sponsor, The Port of Portland (the Port) prepared the 2005 Hillsboro Master Plan, which identified facility improvements to enable the airport to continue serving as an effective GA reliever as activity levels increase.

A review of PDX documentation reveals that Port forecasting is often embarrassingly inaccurate. For instance, the PDX Master Plan Summary Report September 2000 stated that by 2010, 404,000 annual operations were expected at PDX (See Exhibit 6 in the Supporting Documentation Attachment). This prediction overestimated the actual count by 168,227. Yet another indication that PDX currently has more than enough room to accommodate the 100,000 annual flight training operations and general aviation flights earmarked for the proposed HIO third runway. To put this figure in perspective, the Eugene Airport, Mahlon Sweet Field, touted as the second largest commercial airport in the state, logged 78,480 total operations in 2008. Thus, PDX presently has more than enough capacity to locate within its current boundaries, a second commercial airport with the ability to accommodate more than twice as many flights as the Eugene Airport.

It is worth noting that the Port offers financial incentives to make it appear that Hillsboro Airport is beyond capacity. The Port of Portland Landing Report Form lists landing fees at various Port owned and operated airports. The rate per 1000 lbs at PDX is $3.49 while at Hillsboro it is $2.79 (See Exhibit 7 in the Supporting Documentation Attachment). With this kind of policy in place, a pilot interested in saving money is more likely to land at Hillsboro. To remedy this im-balanced situation and to more effectively and responsibly use existing resources, it would make sense to lure flights to PDX by substantially lowering the landing fee.

Environmental and Noise Impacts

It is also troubling that the Environmental Assessment maintains that this facility, which logs close to a quarter of a million annual operations, has no significant environmental impact. This assertion is nothing short of astonishing, especially in light of the fact there are now more annual operations at HIO than at PDX or any other airport in the entire state of Oregon. Due to flight training many of these aircraft don't simply take-off and land but rather circle the area incessantly. The intent of the environmental assessment is obviously to downplay the noise, pollution, safety and security impacts of aviation activity in favor of aviation related business profits.

Closing Remarks

The figures provided here demonstrate that the public is being deliberately deceived and misled by the Port of Portland and the Hillsboro Airport Issues Roundtable, as well as by the various government jurisdictions that have signed on to what can best be described as a colossal boondoggle. In fact, the entire scheme amounts to the same kind of pro-corporate politicking, irresponsible governance, and disregard for the greater good that has justifiably outraged Main Street Americans across this land.

Motorists and individual citizens, are frequently told that changes they make in their personal lives, such as reducing automobile usage, can go a long way towards preserving the environment and minimizing the effects of global warming. The same missive should be extended to the aviation sector. Rather than investing in unwarranted airport expansion projects, we should turn our collective attention and public financing to far more environmentally conscious modes of transportation, such as high speed rail. Making a commitment to inter-city rail on a national and state level would carry the added benefit of generating new jobs, thereby putting people back to work.

A 2/6/09 Oregonian PDX Green column lauded Washington County Commissioner Tom Brian and State Senator Bruce Starr for encouraging people to drive less so as to save on overworked infrastructure. Along this same vein, our elected representatives now have, especially in light of the worsening climate change crisis, a moral and ethical responsibility to assume a leadership role in decreasing unnecessary aviation activity, including flight training over Washington County's urban and rural communities as well as recreational areas, so as to avoid costly airport expansions and to improve the quality of life for residents throughout the jurisdiction. All inessential flight activity should be discouraged in the same way that the regional government, Metro, discourages auto travel by exhorting people to walk, bicycle, car pool, or use public transportation in an effort to reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. Instead of bowing to the unreasonable demands of the aviation business sector, an unambiguous message should be sent forth stating that the enduring well being of the earth and its inhabitants is of far greater importance than establishing a playground, at public expense, for a well-heeled few.