Palomar Airport Expansion Issues: Blog #1 (10/22/12)

Palomar Airport Expansion Issues: Blog #1 (10/22/12)

This article begins an 18 month review of Palomar Airport Expansion.  Articles will usually appear weekly on a Monday.  

Palomar Airport is in Carlsbad, California.  Its aircraft flights affect more than 400,000 Carlsbad, Encinitas, Oceanside, San Marcos, and Vista residents.

If you are concerned about Palomar airport safety, traffic, noise, or water and air quality pollution, this blog may help you.   If you have questions, please email me at benderbocan@gmail.com.  Refer to “Palomar Airport.”

The County wants to lengthen the sole Palomar Airport runway from 4900 feet to 6000 feet.  By comparison, the John Wayne Airport runway in Orange County is 5701 feet.    The County has studied runway extension for 9 months and should complete its study shortly.  Lengthening the runway will increase the number and size of aircraft using Palomar Airport.

The County also wishes to increase the number of passengers that annually use Palomar.  In July 2012 California Pacific Airlines [CPA] filed an environmental assessment to initiate new service.  The National Environmental Quality Act requires such  assessments.   Last month, I filed extensive comments on the CPA environmental assessment.   The number of regularly scheduled commercial airline passengers using Palomar could grow from less than 30,000 per year to more than 600,000 per year by 2016 for CPA and other air carriers.

The County of San Diego operates Palomar.  Carlsbad zoning and general plan laws apply to Palomar.  Accordingly, citizens concerned with Palomar Airport development may attend meetings of both the Carlsbad City Council and the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors.

The Palomar Airport runway lies next to a closed airport landfill that emits methane gas.  The next Palomar Airport runway article will address problems the County has had with the landfill.   Problems include underground landfill fires, escaping methane gas, aviation fuel leaks into the landfill, and inaccurate data in landfill monitoring reports prepared by an outside consultant hired by the County.   These inaccuracies resulted in an FBI investigation and was reported in the San Diego newspapers several years ago.  These landfill problems create safety issues for planes using Palomar.