DUE BY 4 PM TODAY 5/30/24 Request Citizen Protections from Aviation Excess' on Deschutes County 2040

Read through below. Share your thoughts with Harness.Oregon@gmail.com Copy and paste below into email to Deschutes County by 4PM Nichole.Mardell@deschutes.org

Feel free to edit and add your own opinion and thoughts.

Oregon’s land use process is designed to protect farms, forests, waters, natural resources and to represent the people of Oregon and the citizens impacted by changes in their community. We appreciate the opportunity to have our comments considered in Deschutes County’s 2040 planning process.

Redmond Municipal Airport/Roberts Field, a sprawling 2,518-acre commercial airport and Bend Municipal Airport are exactly 10 miles apart, runway to runway. Bend Municipal Airport is a redundancy of excessive aviation activity and road related activity without proper avigation easements for city, state and federal interference, toxins, annoyance and pollution into our lives, homes, farms and investments. This is unjust to the citizens of Central Oregon, who are being negatively impacted while these private for profit aviation related business and activities increasingly harm our human rights and property rights with excessive noise and pollution which adversely affect our farms, rural lands, wildlife, habitats, mental health, physical health and the essence of Central Oregon which is sought out for it’s cleaner, quieter way of life, rich in nature, outdoor adventures and wildlife.

There should be no further advancement of airport activities, amenities, pavement, runways, parking or any agenda which changes code, uses, zoning, interference with wildlife, schools, homes and land use changes.

The Tower Hearings Officer was VERY clear that his approval was of the tower only. The tower approval IS NOT TO BE USED as a blanket approval of Previous and Current Master Plan changes and environmental documentation.

Prior to ANY FURTHER BUILDING, CONSTRUCTION AND CHANGES, including current construction, parking and additions the public and neighbors must have:

1)      Comprehensive Cumulative Impact Analysis

2)      Corrected Budget

3)      Corrected Environmental Assessment

4)      Market value Avigation Easements for ALL negatively impacted properties

a.       Which fully and accurately reflect negative impacts of current Bend Municipal Airport operations, including road and air traffic air pollution AS IT CURRENTLY IS as well as PRIOR TO any further construction, build outs, grant acceptances, increases in activities and additional dollars spent or invested at Bend Municipal Airport

5)      Transparency PUBLICLY POSTED IN PLAIN LANGUAGE OF

a.       Number of Operation

b.       Community Impact

c.       Budgets

d.       Carcinogens, Neurotoxins and other detrimental pollutants

e.       Number and method of wildlife culled

6)      Oregon Statewide Planning Goal 1 inclusion of

a.       Educational Institutions for studies of

                                                               i.      Pollution

                                                             ii.      Adverse Impacts

                                                           iii.      Environmental preservation

                                                           iv.      Farmland preservation

                                                             v.      Wildlife protections

                                                           vi.      Public protections

                                                          vii.      Public engagement with easy to understand analysis, simplified translations and clearly conveyed land use, pollution and potential health and livability impacts

7)      Robust public inclusion, including adding at least one adversely impacted community member with NO aviation benefactor or pilot ties at airport planning tables and roundtables.

8)      Robust public engagement. As it currently sits, planning, documents and public inclusion is obscured, information and documents are contradictory and the public, especially the adversely impacted public appears to be intentionally misled, left out and then retaliated on by aviation benefactors.

We must have a cumulative impact analysis of Bend Municipal Airport with

1)      Noise Studies Inside Airport Overlay’s

2)      Noise Sample Studies During Peak Air and Road traffic hours within 5 Miles of airport. 5 miles due to FAA Standards which do not meaningfully regulate altitude of aircraft within a 5 mile radius of airports

3)      Installation of Permanent Monitoring of TVOC’s, PM 10, PM 2.5, CO2, Black and other known aircraft and road traffic pollutants

4)      Testing, monitoring, abatement, and public notice of the highest airborne neurotoxic lead in the state annually according to EPA’s 2020 National Emissions Inventory. 

5)      Monitoring, Inventory and Publicly Posting of the hundreds of other known toxicants and carcinogens in aviation fuels and produced as byproducts.

6)      Septic burden

7)      Water usage burden

8)      PFAS Contamination

9)      Through the Fence Operations

10)   Monitoring of noise up to five miles from aviation road and air traffic activities

11)   Robust environmental testing for:

a.       Children’s blood lead

b.       Aviation lead within 2 km of airport as well as frequently used flight training areas. In Colorado every home tested under the touch and go pattern had ‘dangerous levels’ of aviation lead. Aviation lead has trackable isotopic fingerprint and the City and County need to be testing the following locations where lead pollution has been discovered.

                                                               i.      Wells

                                                             ii.      Crops

                                                           iii.      Livestock

                                                           iv.      wildlife

                                                             v.      homes

12)   Clear CURRENT public disclosure of fuel sales including:

a.       Type of fuel sold

b.       Amount of fuel sold

c.       City and County fuel sales profit

13)   Cumulative impact study of having approximately 30 airports and airstrips in a 40x70 mile tract in Central Oregon

Aviation noise and lead undeniably leads to hypertension, fatal heart attacks, birth defects, miscarriages, cognitive decline, poor educational attainment and it increases violence and all cause morbidity and mortality. There has been NO testing, abatement or thought, which I can find, of cumulative impact and harm to our people, wildlife, and environments, not even in environmental assessments.

The land use process in Oregon is supposed to be representative of COMMUNITY MEMBERS IMPACTED BY DECISIONS OF THE ELECTED BODIES NOT aviation interests.  Let’s be clear. Pilots represent around .1% of the population. Some in this small minority have moved into Bend Municipal Airport growing operations by thousands of percentage points, destroying health, habitats, and livability. For what? To exploit education dollars and a community which is not large enough to fight back as they destroy our lives for a flooded pilots market, no less while airlines are laying off? The City of Bend and Deschutes County have received unbelievable latitude in demolishing the intent of land use laws and protections while receiving millions of dollars to do so. Hundreds of thousands of hours are spent flying VERY low over our community in these lead and carcinogen polluting piston engine aircraft. According to EPA, Bend Municipal Airport was responsible for being the number one source of airborne lead pollution in the 2020 National Emissions inventory. Lead is a potent neurotoxin and a forever chemical, which doctors and science alike agree there is NO SAFE LEVEL. The health impacts are irreversible and most harmful to vulnerable populations like pregnant women, babies, children, the elderly and marginalized populations who are often exposed from other sources for a more powerful and synergistic cumulative impact. There is an approved unleaded alternative fuel available, yet these aviation businesses somehow justify dusting our community in literal tons of lead and have made no effort to phase out this neurotoxic poison. It’s important to note that, in the millions of dollars lavished on this airport, there has been no tangible protection of nearby lives. There is no monitoring, testing of nearby air or water, no children and neighbor blood lead screening, no noise abatement and no representation of the devastation wrought on our formerly clean and quiet rural community.

Every time I have tried to raise community awareness and post a link to master plans, PAC meetings, environmental assessments, etc… the documents out of airport website or link is changed creating invalid links. I then have to search for new location of documents and by then, aviation benefactors have publicly bashed me (attached) and those that may have been curious moved on. How many times can this happen before it is suspected to be an intentional exclusion of public input?

I have deep concerns about one of our commissioners sitting on a local airport advisory board and appearing to repave roads from Redmond airport to Bend airport, while questionably approving greatly increased operations without any concern, restitution, or acknowledgement of greatly impacting a formerly quiet community which is sought for it’s Prime Farmland and quieter way of life. This current elected body appears to have decided that rural residents and farms are insignificant and disposable, therefore they have adversely changed our lives and investments without inclusion and without market value reimbursement and restitution.

The public and community impacted by this airport are also stakeholders and must be brought to the table in a meaningful way with our wellbeing and investment as a priority. We are the ones who bear the brunt of the pollution and loss, while elected bodies and private aviation businesses reap all the rewards of our losses. Having meetings at an airport where pilots reside, pilots which have relentlessly tormented, tortured and retaliated on complainants is exceedingly difficult. Having none of these meetings, gaslighting, misleading and lies recorded, worse yet. As it is, the process is incomplete, and a perversion of the system designed to protect citizens, public and private lands. The Land Use Process is FOR CITIZENS NOT AVIATION! There should be no further approvals, funding or building at this airport until there is:

1.       Robust non-aviation benefactor public inclusion

2.       Justification for TWO, going on THREE Bend Municipal Airport Master Plans slid through without due process, hearings or representation of the citizens forced to endure their lives, health and farms being blasted apart by aviation noise and pollutants WITHOUT ANY APPROPRIATE public representation or inclusion.

3.       Reexamine the legality of NO adopted master plan from 2008 until 2021 and why the hotly contested 2013 Master Plan was suddenly acceptable and adopted in 2021, yet done so as a bait and switch sandwiched between talking about the wildlife inventory and dark skies, by text only.

4.       Examination and public posting of conflicts of interest, i.e. commissioner on Redmond Airport Advisory Board who votes for expansion EVERY SINGLE TIME, President of Leading Edge being on the board and faculty at the college his company recruit’s students from, Metcalf and Leading Edge. Company owned by foreign government we are in a proxy war with. Are there discounted and/or flights for elect, building and permitting staffing, educational institution leadership who provides students and news agencies? Campaign contributions by aviation benefactors?

5.       A real and solid Number of Operations which remain consistent throughout documents and Master Plan to Master Plan, with changes and reference to previous numbers clearly identified in explanation.

6.       Disclosure of how many of these pilots, especially flight students subjecting our community to unbearable noise and pollution are invested in the health and resiliency of our community. There needs to be clear public notice and disclosure of how many students, employees and aviation businesses are:

6.1.   Local

6.1.1.headquartered in Central Oregon

6.1.2.Employees sourced from Central Oregon

6.1.3.Students sourced from Central Oregon

6.2.   From out of state

6.3.   From out of country

6.4.   From hostile countries

6.5.   Percent of students who actually get certified. There is some controversy as to why and how the incompletion rate of pilot certification is as high as 75-85% and how much that costs communities and students as a whole

7.        

Throughout PAC and MP documents the airport surveys indicated less than 5% of those surveyed felt flight training should have the priority it has been given, yet this seems the direction the elect and management has taken. When both the airport community and the public are not supportive of this direction, why has it been taken?

PROCEDURAL ISSUES

2022  Air Traffic Control Tower Plan dated December 2022 made accessible to public May 2023, up for hearing Monday October 02, hearing was not published until a couple weeks before the hearing. It was not listed as scheduled until this past week. I only had a heads-up weeks ago when talking with a planner about an unrelated matter, then I had to go searching for it after multiple requests to the City, Airport Manager and the County for notifications of Airport Agenda Items. As of September 28, 2023, FIVE days prior to the Tower hearing, page still said "hearing date has not been scheduled yet." I had to download docs to read and find hearing date. I have repeatedly requested the City and County notify me of airport related changes and proposals. I have also requested the County identify the airport on their Community Engagement Center, Prominent Projects and Resources page, citing lack of protecting the citizens exposed to changes, failing to provide a robust public inclusion which represents the community outside of aviation interests with poor and absent public notification and engagement.

Notification of this hearing was mailed out September 07, 2023, providing 26 days for mail, delivery, preparation and review.

Transportation review was not made available until September 18, 2023, 15 days prior to hearing. I have been unable to locate adequate previo us transportation impact analysis.

Documents routinely stated that the addition of a tower will not increase road or air traffic and it was needed for safety.

1. Logically, no increase in road or air traffic is improbable. There are several larger, louder aircraft that are parked at Bend Municipal but are used at Redmond which will be accommodated at Bend Municipal Airport by a tower.

2. Throughout PAC documents a tower was stated as a ‘want’ not a need

3. There have only been a handful of runway incursions reported over the past few years, far less than other locations. This begs obvious questions like:

Is there actually a safety issue?

Has this airport been dishonest in lack of reports?

Or are they being dishonest regarding need?

This obscuring and piecemealing of projects has been a standard way of evading accounting for Bend Municipal Airport’s environmental degradation and routinely skirting full and appropriate environmental analysis and reports regarding air and road impacts. This Needs to Be Remedied.

Tower and planning documents routinely mention the most recently approved Bend Airport Master Plan. That master plan also lacked transparency and robust public inclusion, while avoidance of public knowledge and inclusion has been demonstrated time and again.

The City of Bend and Deschutes County has sworn to protect citizens, reduce emission, work toward an equitable community and protect the environment. This airport and redundancy of airports and health altering emissions flies in the face of oaths. Please protect citizens, children and environment from the ever increasing and unnecessary glut of aviation activity and pollutants.