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Crawford Mountain International Airport? Crawford Mountain is located 2 miles north of the Lewis County line, 5 miles east of Tenino and 5 miles west of Rainier.
It is a 1,440-foot peak in a working forest that has recently been logged. It is 6,000 acres of state-owned forestland. Weyerhaeuser owns 3,000 acres to the east as well as 100,000 acres to the southeast. The northern approach is 800 meters from Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The southern approach is over TransAlta Industrial Park. It is 7.8 miles to I-5 at Grand Mound.
Birds do not land on the ground and neither should airplanes. SeaTac is at an elevation of 320 feet. If Crawford Mountain were lowered to 1,000 feet, it would create 5,000 acres of airport and industrial land and yet be hundreds of feet over residential areas.
Not one single home needs to be lost. Not one single pocket gopher needs to be displaced. It would share the airspace burden over three counties (Pierce, Thurston and Lewis), not just one.
Modern airports need thousands of acres. With two 12,000-foot north and south runways, you need 3,400 feet between runways per the Federal Aviation Administration. SeaTac, Payne Field and PDX are beyond capacity. Pierce County has zero industrial land left and are carving up their golf courses.
As a long since retired civil engineer, I have worked on thousands of much needed projects. A slight maritime fog routinely shuts down SeaTac. Sadly, it will take the loss of life in our antiquated regional airports to motivate our leaders to react.
Matt Hamilton
Graham
