Airport Postpones Tree Clearing After Concom Decision Appealed

CHATHAM – A plan to remove and trim vegetation around a vernal pool near the Chatham Airport runway will be delayed until next year after the conservation commission’s approval of the project was appealed.

A group of 18 residents filed the Aug. 7 appeal with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), claiming there were errors in the airport commission’s application to the conservation commission and that alternatives to vegetation removal were not adequately explored. They requested that the agency overturn the local commission’s decision or issue a new order following a review of the project.

The group also questioned the airport commission’s motivation in obtaining a variance from the state and local wetlands regulations, calling its justification “baloney” and “deceitful” and accusing it of prioritizing the safety of pilots over people on the ground and pushing the tree trimming in order to expand the airport.

“No objective review of the applicant’s request is complete without a thorough examination of the airport’s motives behind its request,” the appeal reads.

Chair Huntley Harrison stood by the airport commission’s vegetation management plan, which he said is necessary to ensure the safety of pilots and people on the ground.

“Our motives are very clear,” he said. “We want a safe airport and want to make sure it’s safe for everybody.”

The appeal halted plans to begin the work this fall and winter. Should the DEP uphold the conservation commission’s decision, the work will likely be done next fall and winter, Harrison said. Meanwhile, work to trim or remove trees that have grown up into the airport approach zone outside of the conservation commission’s jurisdiction is scheduled to begin soon, he said.

The conservation commission’s July 30 order covers “selective tree removal” in upland areas adjacent to a vernal pool south of the runway and along the edges of Bearses and Emery ponds and a cranberry bog, an area totaling 1.43 acres. The work was scheduled to take place between 2024 and 2026. Vegetation removal is also planned on another 1.2 acres between 2027 and 2029. Trees in those areas have grown up into the airport’s protected airspace, according to the order, creating a threat to public safety.

“Because it is a matter of public safety, the commission finds that the project is necessary to accommodate an overriding public interest” under the state and local wetlands regulations, the conservation commission’s order reads.

West Chatham resident David Bixby filed the appeal along with 17 other residents. According to the appeal, the underlying assumption that there is a Federal Aviation Administration mandate to remove the obstructions is “a fabrication,” and statements made by the airport commission to that effect are “misleading, perhaps deliberately so.” Viable alternatives were “summarily rejected despite conflicting FAA policy.”

 The alternative to the tree removal, which the appeal says would threaten wetlands and wildlife habitat, is to displace the runway thresholds, according to the appeal, which means shortening the landing zone of the airport’s 3,001-foot runway.

 “If Chatham’s runway thresholds are shifted…there would be no need to remove the trees,” Bixby wrote in the appeal, adding that a public records request found no evidence that the FAA had rejected displaced thresholds, as asserted by the airport commission.

 But the FAA rejected displaced runway thresholds for Chatham, according to Harrison, by its 2021 approval of the airport master plan update’s environmental assessment. Where displacement has been allowed at airports, it is because there are obstructions that cannot be relocated, such as roads or buildings. “If it can be mitigated through clearing vegetation, that’s a viable alternative,” he said. The environmental assessment concluded that vegetation removal was the more viable alternative.

Airport opponents have said shortening the landing area of the runway would limit use of the airport to small aircraft and preclude larger planes, such as turboprops, from landing in Chatham. Harrison and pilots, at public meetings, have said a shorter runway landing zone would make the airport less safe. Because it is a public airport, any type of aircraft that can safely land on the runway is allowed to use Chatham Airport.

 The appeal asserts that the airport commission’s reliance of the FAA’s “Part 77” as requiring vegetation removal is flawed because it is not a safety mandate “and there exists no such requirement for vegetation management within ‘protected airspace.’”

 Harrison said Part 77 requires mitigation of hazards for safe air navigation, including “natural growth,” and that other FAA requirements, including provisions of millions of dollars worth of grants the airport has received, require that navigable airspace be free of obstructions such as trees. In its order, the conservation commission found that Part 77 applied to trees that exceeded the maximum allowable space in protected airspace. The airport commission’s assertion that the vegetation management plan and Part 77 require removal of trees is “baloney,” the appeal asserts.

 The appeal claims that the vegetation removal is part of a plan by the airport commission to allow straight-in instrument approaches, which airport opponents have said will be less safe. “[P]ublicly justifying the need for tree removal in order to get FAA support for the new approaches opens up a whole can of worms the airport would rather avoid at this time,” the appeal reads. Airport supporters say the straight-in instrument approaches are safer and will reduce the time aircraft must circle over wider areas of the town to land. 

 The airport has failed to maintain vegetation within the runway airspace for years, according to the appeal. Harrison said vegetation clearing was done in 2005, but tree growth “got ahead of us.” An obstruction analysis done in 2018 for the master plan update found that trees had encroached on the airspace and needed to be removed.

 The appeal questions the airport commission’s assertion that federal regulations require removal of vegetation within protected airspace. FAA grants do require maintenance of approaches, it reads, but assets that those agreements are contractual, not regulatory, and the FAA cannot demand compliance. Consequences for violating the grant assurances is loss of eligibility for future federal funding.

 The appeal repeatedly returns to displaced runway thresholds as a viable alternative to tree cutting.

 “The crux of this challenge is that the applicant has summarily and superficially rejected a viable alternative to tree removal in protected areas for wetland and/or buffers” in the form of displacement of runway thresholds, according to the appeal.

 The commission’s order, however, addresses runway threshold displacement as a way to avoid vegetation removal, noting that reducing the usable runway area cuts down on the “margin of safety,” especially during hot or wet weather. “The commission finds that displacing thresholds is not a feasible alternative,” the order reads, adding that the findings rely on the airport commission’s statements that displaced thresholds were reviewed and rejected by the FAA. Those filing the appeal reject that argument, saying that the FAA has not rejected displaced thresholds.

 “The commission finds that public safety is a matter of paramount importance to the town of Chatham,” the order reads. “Obstructions existing within protected airspace are a threat to public safety,” justifying the removal of trees in excess of the maximum allowable height within the approach surface.

 In an email, Bixby said the goal of the appeal is “compliance with the state wetlands act.”

 The commission approved the project under both the state wetlands regulations and the town’s local wetlands bylaw. The group of residents did not appeal the decision under the local regulations, which requires filing a lawsuit in Barnstable Superior Court. The deadline for filing such an appeal has passed, according to Natural Resources Director Greg Berman. Bixby said in the email that the 10-day period to appeal to DEP did not allow enough time to file the local appeal.

Signing on to the appeal, along with Bixby, were Joe Bolus, Ruth Norman, Eileen Gibb, Harriet Prout, Barbara Anne Holton, Susan Wilcox, Jane Wilson, Chris Yindra, Ken Russell, Athena Koutso, Carol Gordon, Juris Ukstins, Erika Klein, James Schwartz, Michael Tompsett, Kevin McCarthy, Sharon Bixby and Robert Nelson.

An onsite hearing on the appeal with a DEP staff member was held last Wednesday. Harrison said he expects a decision around the end of the year.