An environmental assessment of planned commercial airline flights at the Santa Fe Municipal Airport, released Friday, found that the flights would have little impact on the environment or surrounding communities.
The lengthy assessment— completion of which has delayed for months the start of Santa Fe's first commercial flights to and from destinations including Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Salt Lake City— was conducted for the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Transportation Department.
The report considered the "environmental consequences" of numerous factors— including noise, light emissions and the impact on land use and archaeological and historic resources— and offered little criticism.
"I think the document stands for itself," said airport manager Jim Montman. "It's a repeat of everything we've said in the past. Those were the findings we expected all along."
The so-called draft environmental assessment is now subject to public review through April 21.
Officials said recently that one cause for delay in release of the report was concern expressed by Santo Domingo Pueblo about planned flights over pueblo lands south of Santa Fe.
In letters included in the report, Santo Domingo officials said they were "very concerned" about noise, vibration and visual affects from commercial flights headed to Los Angeles but also said the tribe needed more information on the flights. Santo Domingo asked that the FAA evaluate alternative flight paths away from Santo Domingo.
The pueblo "has a longstanding issue with aircraft flying over Santo Domingo Reservation and taking unauthorized photographs "of ceremonies" and "certain natural resource features," the tribe said.
The environmental assessment report says that the airway over Santo Domingo has been in place for 25 years at minimum altitudes of 9,000 feet and has been used consistently by jets and propeller planes.
The flights planned by Delta Airlines and American Eagle would not cause "any significant noise impacts... or changes in the viewshed," the report states.
The report says the FAA has offered to meet with Santo Domingo leaders but that the tribe decided to wait until Friday's report was released before deciding to consult with the FAA. A lawyer for the pueblo had no comment Friday.
The report's overall noise analysis concluded there would be "no significant noise impacts which would exceed the threshold for significance" at or around the airport.
Regarding historic sites such as El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, the report says the state Historic Preservation Office has issued a finding of "no adverse impacts." Four additional flights a day over petroglyph and prehistoric pueblo village sites in La Cienega south and west of the airport "will not noticeably change the natural setting that exists today nor would it alter the characteristic features of the site," the report states.
The report is available on Santa Fe city government's Web site, www.santafenm.gov, and at the airport, the Vista Grande library in Eldorado, the main library downtown, the South Side Library on Jaguar Drive and the branch library on Llano Street, and at the New Mexico State Library at 1209 Camino Carlos Rey.
