Airport gets bumpy ride

Expansion plan meets opposition, state agency delay

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009

Thanks to nearly two hours of testimony arguing both sides of a stormwater discharge permit for the airport in Pomonkey, advocates and critics of the $30 million project will have to wait a bit longer for the final verdict.

During the Oct. 14 public hearing hosted by the Maryland Department of the Environment, local business people, neighbors and acquaintances of airport operator Gil Bauserman faced off against area conservationists in an effort to start construction on a project that's been shovel-ready since June.

Had there been no contest of the permit, dirt would already be turning.

"It's important this airport gets built because it will provide services to the residents of the county," said Terry Page, manager of the Virginia and Maryland district office of the Federal Aviation Administration.

"Even if you don't think so, it's used by everyone: emergency services, police, fire … and for business access."

Drawing from the famous line in the movie "Field of Dreams," Chuck Hoeppner, a Route 210 resident and licensed pilot said, "If you build the airport, corporate and [economic] business will come" to Charles County.

Local environmentalists, however, cautioned that unless the incoming businesses — and preliminary construction — are handled conscientiously and responsibly, the area's invaluable waterways will have their fates sealed.

"All too often it becomes environment versus economy. I'm looking forward to the day when those two things can coincide," said Kevin Grimes, a Nanjemoy resident who argued for a stricter permit. "Everyone will benefit from the strictest [protection] of the Mattawoman Creek. Will it really hurt to wait a bit longer?"

"Anything done in the Mattawoman Creek that may cause harm should be done carefully and very exactly," said Potomac Riverkeeper Executive Director Ed Merrifield. "The issue here is the individual permit: in effect, the ‘general' was crossed out and ‘individual' put in. That simply isn't right."

Controversy surrounding the permit process began in mid-summer, when roughly a dozen area riverkeepers issued a legal challenge to the environmental department's discharge permit requirements in the hopes of making it a stricter process for obtaining a permit.

A permit is required for any construction project in the state that is larger than one acre.

The Maryland Airport expansion project spans nearly 96 acres. In June, airport owners and local business and political leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony on the 1,300-foot expansion of the airport in the western portion of the county. It includes a runway extension, a taxiway, aircraft parking apron and automobile access road.

Though general and individual permits offer the same authorization, the average turnaround for a general permit is two days while individual permits take up to 10 days before MDE issues a determination for the project. That's after a roughly 30-day period in which notices are published in local papers and a record is opened for public comment.

Bad timing on Bauserman's part resulted in an overlap of the lawsuit and the start of the new year, which saw the expiration of the general permit, and so the airport expansion was placed under the individual permit process.

MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said there was a settlement with the riverkeepers and the state is now issuing both permits again.

Having had to postpone plans that he has been counting on for more than 20 years, and faced with additional hurdles, Bauserman pleaded his case that he has been a good neighbor and caretaker of the surrounding environment; the airport has followed all of the Environmental Protection Act requirements and stayed away from hazardous de-icing liquids and dangerous fertilizers.

"We own this land. We're certainly not going to abuse it," Bauserman said.

Christopher Jaeger, a civil engineer with Talbert and Bright, the planning and engineering consultants for the airport, said there is going to be a total of 14 sediment catchers — five sediment basins and nine traps.

"These are the only sources where any stormwater can leave the site," Jaeger said.

The civil engineer said there will also be earth-diversion dikes and large stone roads which construction vehicles will use to minimize damage to the road.

But damage to paved roads is not the chief concern for the area environmentalists who spoke out at the hearing.

"The present permit represents ‘business as usual,'" said Jim Long, president of the Mattawoman Watershed Society. "General permits don't protect the [Chesapeake] Bay."

What does help protect the bay and its tributaries is total maximum daily load amounts.

"It's basically a safety net to make sure impaired water doesn't become more impaired," Merrifield said.

Since the Mattawoman Creek was voted the fourth most endangered river this year by national organization American Rivers, environmentalists argue the importance of applying these load amounts to the permit consideration.

While the watershed does have maximums for nitrogen and phosphorous, there is not one for sediment — a primary concern when stormwater from construction is involved.

"Mattawoman Creek is hanging by a thread," said Bonnie Bick on behalf of the Sierra Club. "[It's] being lost right before our eyes."

Jesse Salter of MDE's compliance program for the Water Management Administration said every two years the state reviews what watersheds are impaired and by what pollutants.

Apperson said the Mattawoman Creek was initially on the list of impaired rivers but was delisted because it met the standards for submerged grasses.

He was not sure when the delisting occurred.

He said when a waterway is placed on the impaired list there is a chance it could lead to maximum daily load applications.

The environmentalists also recommended the planners direct the project mitigation from the Port Tobacco River to Mattawoman Creek.

Merrifield explained that project mitigation is a promise that if something is being done to the environment the change will be made up — preferably in the area of the modification.

The most recent MDE maximum daily loads report for Port Tobacco River dates back to 1999, when loads were issued for nitrogen and phosphorous after the river was deemed impaired in 1996.

Now the director of the state's Water Management Administration will be considering any revisions and issuing a response to comment document that allows an opportunity for a request for a contested case hearing.

Should the expansion be given the go-ahead, it will help relieve traffic from the three metro-Washington, D.C., and Baltimore airports; Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration's airport improvement program will pay for 95 percent of the cost with revenue from airport user fees and fuel taxes, while the remaining 5 percent is paid for by the state's aviation administration and the owners of the airport, Bauserman Services Inc.

Page explained that revenue the airport collects must stay at the airport and that the location is encumbered to be an airport to help protect the federal land.

msomers@somdnews.com