Dates for work on center runway

No decision has been made by the Port Commission as to potential "rehabilitation" of the center runway at Sea-Tac Airport, according to Elizabeth Leavitt, the Airport's director of aviation planning & environmental programs.   Tentative plans by staff call for replacement of "specific runway panels", a project that would be completed by year 2012.  This work would be followed by a more complete rehabilitation in about the year 2016.  Ms Leavitt notes if "large scale failure of the concrete" is observed, the rehabilitation might be needed sooner.

Presumably, a "complete rehabilitation" would require a complete shut-down of the center runway, accompanied by full-time, all-weather use of the third runway, with attendant noise impacts.   It is not yet clear whether the Airport will consider that additional noise in its environmental review of the center-runway project.  Noise was not considered in the environmental assessment of the just-completed first-runway reconstruction.