ACTION NEEDED
NOW
Sign the Consensus HERE
Thank You Consensus Signers!
As of June 25, 1,733 community members have signed the Community Forest Consensus. They include the public officials, organizations, and businesses listed below. See all public signers and read their comments HERE
What are we Defending?
Thousands of people once lived on North SeaTac Park’s 200+ acres. By the 1990s, the Port of Seattle had used eminent domain to remove them, along with their homes, schools and businesses, for airport expansion. Area residents were told that this land would be a park to compensate them for severe cumulative airport impacts.
But now, the Port proposes in its Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) and Real Estate Strategic Plan, (RESP) to commercially develop an estimated 107+ acres of mostly tree-covered land in this community. These proposals include 31 acres inside North SeaTac Park.
This acreage represents a substantial percentage of the remaining iconic NW forest near SeaTac Airport. It is critical green infrastructure - much too valuable to replace with cargo warehouses, parking lots, and receiving and distribution centers. Read more below about how these trees save lives near the airport, making this is a public health and justice cause.
A public health and environmental justice cause
Near SeaTac International Airport - and most deadly the closer you get - airport pollution is linked to babies being born early and underweight, children having learning problems, and people living sicker and dying younger from a wide range of diseases.
To help keep this pollution out of people’s lungs and homes, Public Health Seattle-King County has recommended increasing green space and tree canopy in this community.
The Port’s current development proposals would do the opposite.
The resulting harm to health and community livability would be a special injustice near the airport, where people already face disparities in health, income, wealth, and risk factors, where higher numbers of people are immigrants and children, and where the majority of those in King County who identify as African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, make their homes.
Vision
We envision North SeaTac Park and its surrounding forest restored and protected for the health, well-being and delight of the people and that people in all neighborhoods throughout our region can live within vibrant urban forests where tree-lined corridors connect with parks, forestland, and cool, green spaces to play, relax, and gather. This Consensus, with your support, can bring that vision closer to reality.
A Park for the People
The Port of Seattle “states the Park is the culmination of a long term and very open planning process to compensate the area’s residents for cumulative airport impacts. According to the Aviation Division, the Park is the best compatible use of a severely airport-impacted area".
Federal Aviation Administration Compliance Reviews of Airport Noise Land Use & Financial Operations 2016 p. 11.
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Land Acknowledgment
SeaTac International Airport and the surrounding community for many miles around it are on the ancestral lands and waters of the Salish people of the Duwamish, Green, White, Cedar, and Upper Puyallup rivers, including those who are now members of the Duwamish Tribe and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. These tribes and their members have been stewarding these lands and waters since time immemorial. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the members, past and present, of these tribes.
