Our View: Time To Move On From Airport

Last week, both the Chatham Conservation Commission and the Cape Cod Commission approved the Chatham Airport Commission’s vegetation management plan. It’s about time.

The conservation commission took eight months to review the project, which involves removing trees and other vegetation around a vernal pool and other resource areas adjacent to the airport runway. Trees that have grown up into protected air space will be selectively cut, invasive species will be removed, and low-growing trees and shrubs will be left in place.

It’s a complicated project, and the conservation commission has an obligation to protect the vernal pool and other resources under its jurisdiction. We commend members for their diligence and attention to detail, as well as their reliance on factual documentation regarding the parameters of the work and the mandate that the work be done by both the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division and the Federal Aviation Administration. As we’ve observed over recent years, it’s not always easy to cut through the disinformation and fear-mongering being thrown at the airport by its critics.

Because when it comes right down to it, this is about safety. It is inconceivable to us that airport critics oppose removing trees that are potentially in the path of aircraft taking off and landing. Unless the airport goes away — which isn’t likely to happen — keeping obstacles out of the flight path, whether it be 200 or 400 feet wide, straight-in and circular, visual or instrument guided, is paramount. Certainly the airport commission bears responsibility for failing to maintain trees at a safe height, as it was supposed to do under previous plans, but that’s no reason to oppose doing the right thing now.

Assertions that the tree removal project is a “back-door” effort to expand the airport and allow its use by more and larger aircraft, as espoused by a member of the Cape Cod Commission, are disingenuous. The runway length and flight path are fixed and will not change with the removal of trees. That’s what governs the type of aircraft that can use the airport.

We’re also mystified that those who oppose the tree removal program don’t seem to have a problem with dozens and dozens of trees cleared for development. Perhaps it’s because that’s largely on private land (although the town recently cleared a large area off Training Field Road for a water treatment plant) and out of the public’s sight. Seems to us the environmental consequence is pretty much the same.

Airport critics will continue to hammer away at the fact that many more trees will be trimmed or removed outside of the conservation commission’s jurisdiction. But these, too, threaten safety, and it’s time for airport critics to move on. This work must be done. It will not make Chatham Airport a regional commercial hub. It lacks the infrastructure and is too far out of the way. It will continue to serve local and transient pilots, but will likely never host regularly scheduled commercial services. It has in the past, as noted in our story about the airport’s 75th anniversary in this edition. But that was many years ago, and the economic demand just isn’t there. Our little airport is a community asset, not a disaster looming over the town as some warn.