Palomar Airport: A 2014 Peak, Blog #60

2014 promises interesting news from Palomar Airport.

• California Pacific Airlines [CPA].  Will CPA be flying test flights by March 2014?  Will the County be granting CPA a 2014 operations permit?  If so, will the County require CPA to prepare a California Environmental Quality Act EIR?

• Risks Presented by Large Aircraft Operating Near the Palomar Airport Closed Landfill at the Runway End.  Did the County recently prepare a “worst case” study to analyze what happens when a large aircraft crashes into the Palomar landfill?  If so, what did the study show?

• County Landfill Risk Studies.  Does the recent County study focus only on landfill risks posed by extending the Palomar runway and ignore the risks already present at Palomar?  If so, why?

• County FAA Runway Extension Grant Application.   Can the County in good faith really use the August 1, 2013 Kimley-Horn Runway Extension Study revenue and cost projections to apply for an FAA grant?

• County Engineered Materials Arresting System [EMAS].  Will the County disclose why the proposed EMAS system at the Palomar runway west end was designed with such massive retaining walls?  Are such walls really designed to enlarge the Palomar Airport land footprint so that Palomar can convert from an FAA-B rated to an FAA-C rated airport to handle even more larger and faster aircraft?

• Palomar’s Palomar Airport Blvd Ugly Unlandscaped Slopes.  Do the proposed Runway Extension Study retaining walls explain why the approximately 1000 feet of Palomar Airport ugly slopes along Palomar Airport road across from the new Lowe’s Center have remained unlandscaped for many years?   Would an attractive ground cover mitigating for airport impacts really present a risk to aircraft using Palomar?

• County 2015-2035 Palomar Airport Master Plan and EIR.   Will the County withhold piecemeal Palomar Airport development until it completes the 2015-2035 Palomar Master Plan and a related CEQA EIR?   Recall that the County did not prepare an EIR for the 1995-2015 Palomar Master Plan and has engaged in piecemeal development ever since.   Nor has the County prepared a Palomar EIR for at least 40 years.  What mitigation measures will the County EIR adopt to minimize Palomar Airport environmental impacts?

• Carlsbad’s Enforcement of Its Conditional Use Permit [CUP] 172  & Comments on Palomar Environmental Documents.  Will the Carlsbad City Council continue to refuse to enforce CUP 172 when the County seeks to extend the Palomar runway?   Should Carlsbad require the County to landscape the 1000 feet of Palomar Blvd slope in partial mitigation for Palomar Airport environmental impacts including air quality emissions?

• Carlsbad Revised General Plan & Related CEQA Documents.  Will Carlsbad – in its revised General Plan and CEQA documents that will be released soon – address Palomar Airport issues in good faith?  As the state-mandated circulation element for general plans requires.