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Show Sunday, August 28, 2005 DAILY HERALD New Sea-Tac runway carries environmental controls John Gillie THE NEWS TRIBUNE west side of the airport level with the existing runways will Until recent years, Sea-Tac’s west side was a ested wetland crossed by Miller Creek on the north and Des Moines Creek on the south. Most of the neighborhood was located below existing runwaylevels. To expand, the port bought and demolished more than 500 homes andbusinesses and is filling in some of the wetlands wherethe neighborhood near Sea-Tac Airport. In October, as the days grow shorter and the skies get grayer, they removethe protective cloth. Thetwice-yearly shade cloth ritual is a critical part of the $1.2 billion Sea-Tac Airport third runway construction project. Without the shade cloth, the water in Miller Creek, which in August gurgles downhill = LUI KIT WONG/Associated Press at barely morethan bathtub Darren Bernethy checks the decorated concrete panels on Aug. 12, that were installed at Sea-Tac volumes, would become overheated. Native bream and cutthroat trout and coho salmon.could die. If they died,the prgject, its 900 workers and hundreds ofipieces of machinery could come to an halt. The shade clothis one of hundreds of environmental safeguards built into the permits thatallow the port, the airport’s owner,to build the third runway. Those permits and the airport in SeaTac, Wash., as part of the construction of the third runway attheairport. conditions that accompany them took years toreach final form. Those conditions were « the subject of dozens‘of public arings and nearly a decade ofbattles in federal andstate courts. The port wonthefinal goaheadforthethird runwayin mid-2004, and the project is beginning to takeits final form. The job will be done sometime in late 2008. There are two reasons for the high pricetag: the sheer scale of the project and the extraordinary environmental safeguards necessary to build an airport in the watershed of two salmonbearingcreeks. From the expansive windows ofthe airport’s new Central eee: tttea teeileen tee www.heraldextra.com/yellowpages ee the third runway seem spectacular. ht 8,500 feet long and 150 feet wide,it will be shorter than either of the existing parallel runways,and it will be built using standard construction techniques. Though the runwayitself won't be extraordinary, the hugefill necessary to bring the once stood. In some places, that fill is 140 feet . The fill will amount to some 17 million cubic yards taken from seven sites in the Puget Sound area. Moving thatdirt requires a fleet of trucks that will makea total of350,000 trips between the airport and the pits, said John Rothnie, the airfield program manager. That means 40 to 60 trucks arriving at the airport site every hour during the day and as many as 90 an hour at night when the freeways are clearer. The filling continues 20 hoursdaily, six days a week. The trucks must be 1998 mod- els or newer and must be ak ered by diesel engines specially equipped to burn ultra-ow-sulphur diesel. The project has taken extraordinary measures to restore the twocreekstopristine condition, said Robin Kordik, senior environmental program oer6 ager for the port. The port claims that for eaci of the 21 acres of wetlands © thatit is covering with the new runwayfill,it is creating five acres of new wetlandeither on the site or in Auburn near © the Green River. The Auburn site will be a more swamplike wetland conducivetobirdlife’ The port couldn't build such a+ wetland near the runway cause of the danger birds pore to airliners. Kordik said the new creeks’? will be far more productive than the old ones whichin 4! someplaces werejust tire-linell ditches farmers excavated an their lands. The new creek beds prove a relatively narrow channel wherethe creeks run during © the summer whenwateris low. Thedesign also creates a largerflood plain where water can spread during winter and, spring rains. By word of mouse... IF YOU WITNESSED AN AUTOMOBLIE- BICYCLEACCIDENTATTHE : INTERSECTION OF 1600 NORTH AND STATE STREET IN OREM ON AUGUST9, 2005 AT APPROXIMATELY1:30 P.M., i odes HT td RRPCRECSye Dreeefeverrie WE WOULDAPPRECIATE ANY INFORMATION wt i YOU CAN PROVIDE ON THISACCIDENT. eheraldextra.com GRANDSTAND ENTERTAINMENT R AT SMITHSTIX FO TICKET:§ AVAILABLE + E SFAD + SEETHER/ CROS SEPTEMBER It S24 + HOOBASTANK + SEPTEMBER 14 $32 TE, Join Kim & Robbie, Grapevine Radio for Women WhoBelieve in the Beauty of a Balanced Life! Listen Saturdays Noon to 3pm on K-Star 1400am Listen the whole week! 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