Palomar Airport: The Curious Case of the Missing Records, 230

The Facts

Assume you are new County of San Diego Supervisor Jim Desmond, recently elected for the 5th District in Northern San Diego County. You learn the following facts:

• County in 2013 asked its long-time consultant SCS Engineers to evaluate the effects of a McClellan-Palomar (Palomar) Airport aircraft crashing into the methane gas-emitting landfill area at the Palomar runway east end.

• On October 15, 2013, SCS provided a draft report outlining the many safety and environmental risks of a large aircraft crashing into the landfill.

• From 2013 to 2018, county airport staff ignored the report and never presented it to the Board of Supervisors for review.

• In December 2018, county airport staff said for the first time: The consultant hired to prepare the report was not qualified to write it because the consultant was not an aviation specialist.

The Questions

Would a few questions come to your mind for county staff? Especially since you are yourself a commercial airline pilot. Perhaps these:

• The Palomar East Runway End Safety and Environmental Risk. Is it correct that the landfill area at the east end of the Palomar runway has an extensive system of plastic methane gas piping to collect landfill gas about 4 feet below the sandy surface that aircraft might crash into?

• Aviation Crash Risk. If a 100,000 pound aircraft carrying several thousand gallons of aviation fuel and traveling at 130 knots crashed into the landfill, how likely is it that the methane gas piping would rupture and increase the risk of fire and explosion to passengers on the crashed aircraft?

• SCS Qualifications. Why would county staff even claim that SCS Engineers was not qualified to provide a report? Aren’t SCS Engineers engineers? Don’t all engineers in basic engineering classes learn to calculate the force created by a heavy object traveling at a certain speed?

• SCS Selection. If – as county now claims – SCS was not qualified to provide the requested report, how did it happen that county hired an unqualified consultant?

• SCS Report Payment. Did county pay SCS for the work county now says was unacceptable. If so, how much? Why was this payment made?

• Successor Report. Assuming as county staff now says that the SCS Report can not be relied on, what efforts did county make to hire a successor consultant to provide a qualified report?

• Prior County Loss of FAA Funding. Did county staff several years ago have to withdraw its request for an FAA grant to pay Palomar consultant Kimley-Horn and Associates because county failed to follow FAA consultant selection criteria?

The Missing Records

Last October, we asked the county to provide the records that would help Supervisor Desmond answer the above questions. What did the county produce?

Nothing. Nada. Niente. Other than the actual SCS report the county now disavows.

Can the Board of Supervisors claim proper oversight when it allows the above actions?

Will you be flying at Palomar unless and until the Board of Supervisors actually supervises county airport staff?