The largest international airport in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, Seattle Tacoma International Airport is currently reporting more takeoffs and landings than at any time since early March 2020, when COVID started to batter Seattle. Now, people, especially King County’s Blacks and Latinos, are complaining that the particulates from jet exhaust are having a negative impact on their health. Therefore, activists in Seattle are now trying their best to push back against rising air pollution, and airport officials are laying the groundwork for reducing carbon emissions to deal with climate change.
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When travel of all kinds took a nose dive in 2020 because of the dreadful pandemic, the problem of air pollution wasn’t that serious when compared to the current situation there.
A hub and international gateway for two of America’s biggest airline companies – American Airlines and Delta Airlines – SeaTac is gradually reopening as the number of COVID cases reported every day has been dropping since the vaccination programme began.
So, Sea-Tac Airport is currently reporting more takeoffs and landings than at any time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More takeoffs and landings mean more incessant noise and pollution.
Now, the situation is: The closer you live to the airport, the higher the chance of getting heart disease, stroke and premature births. And according to Kris Johnson from Seattle-King County’s Public Health Department, people living within 10 miles of the Sea-Tac Airport have a higher chance of suffering from those health problems.
Kris Johnson, Public Health Seattle-King County:
People in airport communities face disparities in health outcomes, health risk factors, and resources.
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While there’s been a public concern over air pollution’s impact on people around the world, activists are now hell-bent on pushing back against rising air pollution from SeaTac Airport, as a result of more takeoffs and landings.
And only a third of the county’s white people live in communities located within 10 miles of SeaTac airport, which stands to reason why those communities are home to a majority of King County’s Blacks and Latinos.
Therefore, activists are now saying air pollution contributes a lot to environmental injustice.
Researchers at the University of Washington are also studying the impacts of ultrafine particulates from jet exhaust, and whether the filters or vegetation can effectively protect residents living close by from the small particles, which are so small that not only can they lodge in the lungs, but they can also go into the bloodstream and the brain.
But, little do SeaTac officials know about the particulates emitted by jets. Despite that, they did provide 75,000 US dollars to a recent USW study of the pollutant.
Meantime, the airport environment director, Arlyn Purcell, has pledged to replace 10 percent of its jet fuel with biofuel by 2028, which is aimed at reducing carbon emissions, thereby improving the air quality and effectively tackling climate change.
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