Pinocchio Chronicles: The FAA Dodging FOIA at Palomar: Part III

FAA/SD County “Gifts” Resulting from FAA Failing to Enforce FAA Grant Assurances

• 1960s – 1970s --- Aircraft bird strike risks from landfill garbage eating birds;
• 1970s – 1990s --- Methane gas air pollution after county first closed landfills;
• 1990s – 2020s --- Increased fire/explosion risk to crashed aircraft from methane;
• 1990s - 2023 --- Palomar Airport Road and ECR eyesore landscaping due to fill;
• 1960s – 2020s --- Runway subsidence. Methane gas in airport buildings;
• 1960s - 2020s --- Landfill-related water quality problems (see RWQCB Order 96-13);
• 2000s – 2020s --- Underground landfill fires. One taking nearly a year to snuff;
• 2000s – 2020s --- Non-compliant Runway Safety Areas (RSAs) at the runway ends;
• 2000s – 2220s --- Transfer of $1.5 mill to County Landfill despite violating grants;
• 2015s - ? --- Renting passenger parking lots to car dealers for storage;
• 2010s – 2020s --- Passenger ghost terminal despite tens of millions of FAA $$$;
• 2018 – 2025 --- No FAA FOIA record showing FAA Palomar grant enforcement.

Few private firms would allow such mismanagement. But the really scary question is: If the SD Board and FAA have been so consistently bad at Palomar, what mistakes has county made in the hundreds of other county projects and the FAA at the other 3500 airports?

What’s the next FAA-SD County folly? Stay tuned for Dodging FOIA at Palomar: Part IV. Suffice it to say county and FAA could teach Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) a thing or two.