Public Comment Period Extended For Tweed Environmental Assessment

Tweed supporters, critics, and innocent bystanders have 15 extra days to weigh in on the potential environmental impacts of a larger regional airport, now that the federal government has lengthened the public comment period for the airport’s draft Environmental Assessment (EA).

On Thursday morning, Richard Doucette, an environmental protection specialist for the Airport Division of the Federal Aviation Administration’s New England Region, confirmed for the Independent that the feds have extended the public comment period for Tweed’s EA from 45 to 60 days.

That means that the public comment period will close on May 1. Members of the public will also have a chance to learn more and share their thoughts at an April 1 public meeting about the draft EA to be held at East Haven High School.

Tweed New Haven Airport and a national aviation consultant published the federally mandated EA earlier this month. The document, which had been in the works since November 2021, details the potential environmental impacts of Tweed’s plans to construct a new four-gate terminal on the East Haven side of the Morris Cove airport property and to extend the airport’s main runway to attract more commercial airfare.

The airport’s operators celebrated the draft EA as finding that a larger terminal and a longer runway would reduce noise and air pollution caused by an airport that plans to expand its operations no matter what. Airport expansion critics, meanwhile, lambasted it as a classic example of​“greenwashing,” downplaying the environmental harms of increased airplane traffic in and out of a wetlands-adjacent property. Click here to read a previous Independent article about that.

The draft EA public comes as air service out of Tweed has increased dramatically since November 2021, after the new budget airline Avelo made New Haven its​“East Coast” hub. Avelo is currently running nonstop flights to 14 different communities, including Orlando, Tampa Bay, Nashville, Savannah, Charleston, Chicago (delayed to May), Washington D.C., and Raleigh. It also comes soon after Tweed won permission to add 34 more parking spaces to accommodate high traffic at its current New Haven-side terminal.

Click here to read the 206-page draft EA in full. 

Click here to provide feedback on the environmental review. 

And click here to read a March 16 letter from the environmental advocacy nonprofit Save the Sound calling for an even longer public comment period than the 15 extra days allotted by the FAA.