EIS-Green Light for Third Runway?

The Supplement is a volume of 920 pages which sets out to consider the facts brought up in the public comments. As such it is actually larger than the draft it complements. The task is so complex that a separate document of 666 pages is necessary to cross reference all the submissions with the consultant’s responses.

The Supplement follows the format and sequence of the draft for ease of relating the original document to the new material. Essentially, the Supplement takes the analysis to a new level by adding more detail. In some cases, additional material is included which was not available a year ago. In most cases, the consultant has had to make a quantitative assessment of issues which were previously analysed qualitatively. In other cases, alternative quantitative analyses were required.

The evaluation of the alternatives in the draft drew the most comment. At least a quarter of the submissions referred to this chapter. By comparison the next most referenced chapters were on noise and the social environment. They only attracted 10% of the comments for each. All other chapters rated less than about 5% of the submission comments.

Several major clarifications emerge from the Supplement. New research with E-scan radar in the USA has established that simultaneous independent operations are possible with a parallel runway separation of 3,400ft (1,037 metres). This determines the dimensions of the new design more precisely.

Importantly, the Supplement provides analysis that traffic management cannot satisfy demand. Consequently, a key issue to come out of the evaluation of the scale of development required at Badgerys Creek Airport if it is to replace the third runway.

To address this issue, the Supplement firstly relates the cost of providing passenger capacity at Badgerys Creek Airport compared to Sydney Airpor t. It then charts the cost per passenger against the additional passenger throughput which shows that adding capacity to an existing facility is more cost effective than any scale of development suggested for Badgerys Creek.

The analysis also looks at the present cost of constructing the various stages of airport at Badgerys Creek including a full replacement airport for Kingsford Smith. The third runway comes out as an equally “cheap” option to a combination of staged development of the second airport along with active traffic management. Crucially, the analysis shows that no major development at Badgerys Creek such as a domestic airport equivalent to Hobart or Darwin is justified.

The final analysis in considering the scale of development at Badgerys Creek was to assess the number of people seriously affected by noise around Sydney Airport for different airport developments at Badgerys Creek. Judged by this criteria, the option of a combination of staged development at Badgerys Creek Airport along with active traffic management at Sydney Airport resulted in 39,200 people being seriously affected by noise. In contrast, the third runway combined with staged development at Badgerys Creek Airport reduced the number of people seriously affected to 26,900. Looked at another way, around 10 million passengers per annum would be forced to use Badgerys Creek Airport before the relief of noise around Sydney Airport was equivalent to building the third runway. This would require a major domestic airport at least the size of that of Adelaide. This analysis reinforces the dramatic improvement reduced use of the east-west runway promises for noise affected properties in Botany/Randwick and Rockdale/Hurstville.

The difficulties suggested with obtaining the fill for the runway have been optimally solved by identifying areas of Port Botany which need to be dredged for port development. In fact, building the third runway in this way has no net impact on the waveclimate of environmentally sensitive Towra Point. It has been confirmed that the runway can best be constructed using straight sided steel sheet pile walls. This was the method used to build the base of the Sydney Opera House. This type of construction can be used to control turbidity and reduces the threat of bird strike by eliminating additional bird habitats.

A new attitudinal survey was conducted to assess claims made in the submissions. It found that 57% of the 1,200 respondents were in favour of the third runway. Of the respondents that will be affected,47% still favoured the project. Surprisingly, a full 27% of people who had flown in the last year were against the runway. Perhaps the memories of the delays experienced in 1989 are easily forgotten. In this regard, the Supplement calculates the operating delays for the various scenarios. As a base case, the total operating time in 1989, including arrival airspace delay, inbound and outbound taxying time and departure queuing delay was 19. 9 minutes. By 2010 this will increase to 118. 9 minutes without a third runway. The third runway holds the total operating time in 201Oto 31. 5 minutes.

New noise data has also been made available in the year since the draft was prepared. In particular, Boeing had completed new technical analysis of the noise footprints of its newer generation jets. The trend over the past few years has been for aircraft to become quieter and the introduction of Stage 3 aircraft noise regulations in the early operational life of the third runway means that a recalculation was necessary. This showed that the number of people seriously affected by noise to the north of the airport would actually be 20,500 rather than the larger figure given in the original forecasts. For comparison, the combination of the third runway and quieter aircraft in the long term 2011 scenario will be roughly equivalent to the impact fo the heavy traffic experienced during the Bicentennial year.

Interestingly, the Supplement confirmed the CAA submission that allowing takeoffs to the north followed by a right turn would grant even greater relief to residents. Whether the politicians reverse their ban on this means of operation of the parallel runway will be a test of political common sense.

The Supplement also investigated the argument that Badgerys Creek Airport was a better geographical location for an airport within the urban sprawl of Sydney. It found that theory and evidence from overseas examples suggest there would be a serious shortfall in demand for the second airport.

In terms of the balance between the costs and benefits of the two airports the Supplement found that the second airport would not be able to divert enough passengers away from Kingsford Smith Airport to match the benefits of the third runway.

Groups opposing the runway have contended that the proposal to reduce operations on the cross runway are a subterfuge and will never be possible because of wind conditions. One major study done for an anti-runway group suggested that the wind analysis used in the draft was incorrect. The Supplement does not question the data supplied in the submission but contests the underlying assumption that a 15 knot crosswind on the parallel runways would require use of the cross runway. The consultants note that even Navajos are rated beyond a 15 knot cross wind.

Overall, Kinhill Engineers have performed a thorough and impartial assessment of the comments made on the draft. Their impartiality is reinforced by the consultant’s announcement that the firm will not be tendering to construct the third runway.

The Department of Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories now has 42 days (from 2 Oct) to assess the combined draft and Supplement. The Minister for Aviation Support, Senator Bob Collins, must then prepare a recommendation to Cabinet on whether the runway should proceed. The response of the anti-runway groups to the Supplement suggests that the decision by Federal Cabinet will be made under intense pressure. One hopes the pressure of congestion at Sydney Airport will exceed that of the residents who choose to misinterpret the factual findings.