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Lawmakers Should Halt Airport Boondoggle
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Published: April 14, 2008
Florida lawmakers are grappling over the $4 billion shortfall in the state budget. Some of the spending cuts are going to be painful, and include funds for life-saving medical care for the poor, millions from our schools and many other important services and programs.
Yet at the same time, the state is pouring large sums of money into an unneeded $331 million new airport for Bay County, largely to enrich the adjacent land values of one politically connected property owner, the St. Joe Company.
So far the state has sunk $10 million into the project, with at least another $67 million earmarked from state coffers. And given the debt it will incur, taxpayer-funded financial bailouts are likely in this airport's future.
It would be bad enough if this airport, which will destroy 2,000 acres of wetlands, were truly needed, but the fact is, it isn't. The current Bay County airport is not only adequate, but is actually underutilized.
Traffic at the current airport has fallen over the past few years and keeps heading downward, with now only about half the number of flights it hosted in 2001. Market projections show that it will be adequate to meet expected demands for at least the next 20 years. The FAA's own benefit-cost analysis showed only very modest aviation benefits for this project, but substantial real estate benefits for private companies.
The only issue worthy of any consideration, runway length, can be addressed with onsite changes at a fraction of the cost of a new airport. It is notable that 40 percent of the airports in the United States, including Reagan Airport in our nation's capitol, have similar or shorter runways, yet have much greater air traffic and are not building new airports.
In the only real poll taken, the citizens of Bay County said they don't want this airport. The site chosen, in the wetlands of West Bay, is far from population centers, and there is no firm commitment from any airline to bring more, or cheaper, flights into this end-of-line small market.
Voters gave it a thumbs-down in a 2006 nonbinding referendum, 56 percent to 44 percent, even though the ballot language promised it would be "at no cost to taxpayers."
The local citizens could not be fooled, but decision-makers have been hoodwinked into spending vast sums of public money on an environmentally destructive fiasco.
Unfortunately, this boondoggle, which dwarfs the infamous Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" in the scale of its waste, currently has the support of Gov. Charlie Crist and our state and congressional legislators.
What's needed is for citizens to let them know that this kind of throwaway spending at a time like this is not only irresponsible - it's unconscionable, and must be stopped.
Linda L. Young is the director of the Clean Water Network of Florida.
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