By exploring the possibility of scheduled airline service at Paine Field, Snohomish County is casting aside an agreement it made 27 years ago with residents and property owners. Those of us who bought homes and invested in businesses on the assumption that the county could be relied upon to keep its word are feeling betrayed.

For those who haven't kept up with developments, here's the background:

In the 1970s as property was being developed, the communities surrounding Paine Field, such as Mukilteo, Edmonds, Lynnwood and Everett, sought assurances about the role of the county airport. After much discussion, the county concluded that the airport should be used primarily for general aviation, meaning light aircraft, and for industrial purposes, such as the neighboring Boeing plant. The intention was spelled out in documents referred to as the 1978-79 Mitigated Role Determination (MRD). The county made a deal with the people.

The MRD lists activities that existed at Paine Field in the late 1970s but were to be "strongly discouraged from expanding because of their inconsistency with the airport's primary aviation role, as well as their unavoidable adverse impacts on the surrounding community." The discouraged activities included "supplemental/charter air passenger service, large transport crew training, air cargo aviation and military aviation." Ever since the MRD was adopted, airline service — except for small commuter planes — has been discouraged.

Gregory W. Hauth

Yet, we now have the director of the airport predicting recently that commercial air service at Paine Field "is likely to happen over the next three, five or 10 years." ("Commercial flights not ruled out, not ruled in" The Times of Snohomish County, March 9.)

What happened?

Well, things looked pretty bleak around Snohomish County after 9/11. Boeing's Everett plant was hurt as orders were canceled and the airline industry went into a nosedive. Desperate for a way to boost the economy, the Snohomish County Economic Development Council seized upon the idea of passenger air service at Paine Field. What was the evidence that this would boost the economy? Nothing, apparently, except for anecdotal comments that some businesses might like to be close to an airline terminal. No cost-benefit analysis was ever attempted.

Nevertheless, the county later went ahead with a marketing study to determine who might fly if airline service were available at Paine Field and where they would want to go. Las Vegas was the No. 1 potential destination, followed by other vacation spots. In other words, Paine Field would make it easier to export dollars to Las Vegas casinos, hardly an economic boon for Snohomish County.

No airline has yet come forward to say that it has an interest in starting airline service at Paine Field. But that hasn't stopped airline-service proponents from pushing ahead.

With construction of a third runway at Sea-Tac Airport, it would be wasteful to pour money into all the security and infrastructure improvements that would be required to convert Paine Field into Sea-Tac North. As the Puget Sound Regional Council declared not long ago: "Sea-Tac is expected to meet the region's commercial air passenger capacity needs until the year 2030 and perhaps beyond."

Before the county tries to entice an airline to Paine Field, it should seriously consider the consequences to the communities the government serves. Since no environmental-impact studies have been attempted at Paine Field, we can only look at the voluminous studies undertaken at Sea-Tac during the debate over a third runway.

Those studies found that communities around Sea-Tac have suffered a loss in home value of 10 percent because of proximity to the airport and its flight paths. Lower property values also mean lower revenue for cities and school districts. Airplane noise impacts also have their cost — $200 million in noise-mitigation measures at Highline School District.

Sen. Paull Shin, Reps. Brian Sullivan and Mary Helen Roberts, Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon and the mayors and city councils of Mukilteo and Edmonds all oppose efforts to bring commercial air service to Paine Field.

Other elected officials need to respect the deal the county made with its citizens 27 years ago. It encouraged development of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property and construction of homes for tens of thousands of people by promising to limit airport use.

Nothing has occurred that warrants a change in these plans. We need to stop risking our quality of life, our tax base, our very existence as a thriving community. It is time to say enough.

A deal's a deal.

Gregory W. Hauth, of Mukilteo, is president of Save Our Communities, a nonprofit group opposed to commercial airline service at Paine Field. SOC is hosting a community meeting at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Olympic View Middle School, 2602 Mukilteo Speedway, Mukilteo.