(Opinion) — Here we go again. The now-annual expansion campaign by Tweed New-Haven Airport is looming over the East Shore, Morris Cove, and East Haven. Tweed boosters are rushing to Hartford on March 4 to ram through House Bill 7143, which would remove any restriction on airport expansion. This is New Haven democracy at work — introduce legislation at the state level before residents and taxpayers can have any input or are even aware of the proposal.
This year, the tone is even more confrontational and indifferent than in 2018, with Mayor Harp ripping up the 2009 agreement after deciding the city isn’t bound by it. At Tweed board meetings, it has become clear that airport management has nothing but disdain for residents. When expansion was rebuffed last year, “Looney’s legions” were blamed by airport head and then-State Sen.r Larson for “screwing” Tweed. Neighbors are consistently said to be holding the airport “hostage”. One board member suggested ignoring the surrounding community because we’re too “unreasonable”.
There is another interpretation. Tweed and City leaders have already heard the reasonable objections of the surrounding community, loud and clear, but will continue to bully us until we submit to airport expansion. Even if we ignore the long and protracted legal battles that preceded Tweed’s last expansion in 2009, residents have come out in force in 2014, 2015, and 2018 to halt the airport’s advancement.
The same arguments for airport restraint still apply, but with even more urgency. As readers of the New Haven Indy know, our City and State are still in a fiscal crisis, with New Haven borrowing money to shovel debt far into the future. We should be grateful that taxpayer money was never wasted on a doomed expansion last year. It would have come not only at the detriment of local residents and neighbors, but also at the expense of the environment.
Since Tweed’s impact is never taken into account in either Yale or New Haven’s environmental reports, we don’t even have estimates of its contribution to Climate Change. Though a glance at a map reveals an obvious impact on humans and coastal ecosystems from Tweed, claims from neighbors about their health and that of the environment are dismissed as hysteria. So, time and again, we’re asked to limit discussion to the fiscal toll of a runway that abuts our homes and the Morris Creek Nature Preserve. Either we keep quiet about commonsense and personal observation, or we run the risk of dismissal as “NIMBYs”.
Tweed boosters will no doubt weigh in and claim that the cost of expansion will be shouldered by federal grants and that construction will be limited “inside the current fence”. Both claims are disingeuous, and ignore two important facts: Federal grants must be paid back when conditions aren’t met and Tweed’s own documents set the “break even” point for the airport at 240,000 enplanements. That’s a far cry from current (generous) 28 – 30K numbers.
If an exponential increase in air traffic is necessary for success, the drumbeat for expansion will need to be continuous. This is consistent with the airport’s internal plans for 2030. If the airport remains a financial albatross, as the past two decades and industry trends suggest, millions of dollars in Federal grants will have to be repaid.
For this reason, and others, the 2009 Budget Review Panel recommended that the city “make transferring ownership of Tweed… an urgent priority”. It also stated that “the citizens of New Haven receive no quantifiable benefit from Tweed”, “there is no direct financial upside to Tweed”, and “Tweed represents a significant potential financial liability for New Haven.”
Airport Director Larson’s departure and the Connecticut Airport Authority takeover proposal have been spun as a bright new future for Tweed but are, in fact, an admission of failure. Tweed is not viable as an independent airport and the CAA, a pseudo-public entity that operates most of Connecticut’s other airports, must intervene to save it. That’s why Tweed superfans, watching the CAA announcement in January, were calling it “armageddon”.
Now that Mayor Harp has tossed out the “historic” 2009 agreement that could have ended decades of conflict between New Haven and East Haven, there are no credible grounds for mediation. Tweed and the City have dispensed with the smokescreen of goodwill and can’t meet with the community in good faith, for any agreement or “benefits package”.
Last year, East Shore and Morris Cove residents were promised improvements and maintenance we already need, taking into account the current impact of Tweed, and we were repeatedly told we weren’t being blackmailed for support of the airport’s legislation. If these “benefits” weren’t quid pro quo for airport expansion, why has there been nothing but silence about them since? Will the same “benefits” again be held in front of our faces in 2019, in another carrot-and-stick maneuver?
Tweed expansion is not forward thinking, 21st Century innovation. It’s the same, tired trope of 20th Century “urban renewal”, threatening the health of vital wetlands and salt marshes on New Haven and East Haven’s vulnerable coastline. But we don’t have to tell you that. We have told you that already, time and time again.
We’ll do what we always do, bringing new energy to the grassroots coalition that will continue to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). It will no doubt get ugly, as it has in the past, and attacks will continue to be very personal. Our homes will be called into question, with people telling us we’re selfish for living in them and blocking “progress”. At least now we know for certain that there can be no negotiation, that legal agreements will be ripped up on a whim by our politicians.
Please join us and submit testimony against H.B. 7143, write and call your State of Connecticut, City of New Haven, and Town of East Haven politicians, and help us remind them what they’ve already been told: Tweed-New Haven Airport must not be allowed to expand any further. Give a foot of runway and Tweed will take a mile.
Excellent piece. Well written. And the Tweed maniacs will be silent at the local level while telling everybody in Hartford, neighbors of Tweed are uninformed NIMBYS who don't care. Most of Tweeders will undoubtedly come from the suburban elites who don't pay a dime to support Tweed, will not fork over a nickle for traffic improvements or noise studies or environmental impact assessments. They think New Haven taxpayers and the magically state and federal government will just pay. No, we have and we will be forced to swallow their self-absorbed inspired expense to homes and New Haven taxpayers.