Lawsuit 2024
august 2024 lawsuit
Committee for Preserving Community Quality (CPCQ)
5221 Crooked Stick Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Pittsfield, CPCQ Sue to Terminate Ann Arbor Runway Extension Pittsfield Township and the Committee for Preserving Community Quality (CPCQ) sued the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and City of Ann Arbor in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan on Wednesday (August 7) to challenge and block MDOT’s and Ann Arbor’s decision to extend the primary runway at Ann Arbor Municipal Airport (ARB)
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The suit claims MDOT illegally approved the Environmental Assessment (EA), which allowed the project to move forward, and that Ann Arbor illegally used federal grant funds to complete two of its three EAs. The suit asks the court to njoin Ann Arbor and MDOT from moving forward with an “expensive extension . . .that is not needed for safe or efficient operation of the airport,” because it “will cause irreparable harm,” and “no monetary damages or other legal remedy could adequately compensate. . .the public for these harms.” “We have opposed this project from the start,” said Kathe Wunderlich, president of the grassroots CPCQ, which represents 2,000 residents in Pittsfield, Lodi, and Scio Townships, Ann Arbor and Saline, including the Stonebridge Community Association. “The proposal is built on long-refuted claims about safety, while jeopardizing the safety of everyone living around the airport. In a word, it is dangerous!”
Ann Arbor plans to expand the primary runway at ARB almost three football fields closer to Lohr Road, extending the current 3,505 runway to 4,225 feet. CPCQ and Pittsfield contend the
expansion, under the guise of “safety,” could pave the way to a (1) secret Ann Arbor plan to turn the airport into a jetport, with a 10-fold increase in jet traffic to over 3,650 jet operations a year; (2) worsen the health effects from airplane noise, with planes closer and lower to people
living west of the airport, (3) threaten the health of children, from the poisonous leaded gasoline rain emitted from the piston-driven airplanes that fly over homes and dominate the airport fleet; (4) cost Ann Arbor and Saline school districts and local governments almost $4.5 million in lost
annual tax revenue, as property values around the airport potentially decline; and (5) raise the life-threatening accident risks from the Canada geese that populate the area and do not interact well with jet aircraft traffic, which would substantially increase.
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The suit claims both MDOT and Ann Arbor ignored many years of objections -- detailing safety, health, environmental, and economic risks -- from Pittsfield, CPCQ, and area residents, in moving forward with the unsafe and unjustified runway expansion. The suit also claims the EA minimizes serious environmental threats from the expansion, among them life-threatening health risks from aircraft noise and the leaded-gasoline rain emitted from piston-driven aircraft,
which represent upwards of 9 5 percent of the airport’s operations. Further, the suit contends, MDOT and Ann Arbor failed to properly consider the simple solution Willow Run Airport could provide to the weight-capacity issues faced by some Ann Arbor aircraft a few days a year, the principal justification for the runway extension, a claim the city never supported with data despite repeated demands from the Federal Aviation Administration. The runway extension project moved forward last fall after both MDOT and the FAA approved the EA and issued a joint “Finding of No Significant Impact /Record of Decision” (FONSI / ROD). In July, the Ann Arbor Airport Advisory Committee voted unanimously to recommend that the Ann Arbor City Council approve hiring a contractor to prepare preliminary planning and design work on the
runway extension, once federal funds become available.
The suit claims MDOT, as the lead government agency overseeing the project, illegally approved the EA without being properly authorized by the federal government, and that the EA should be declared “null and void and of no legal force or effect.” The suit also claims that Ann Arbor illegally utilized federal funds to complete two of its three EAs – in 2016 and 2022 -- on the project, even though federal law states that the government may not fund a project multiple
times, because, in the FAA’s words, “the costs must not be paid for by the federal government more than once, ”, placing the fiduciary onus on the city to “ensure the money is spent to achieve the grant’s intent” or suffer the consequences – not pass along more bills to federal taxpayers because of substandard consultant work.
The runway expansion project cannot move forward, the suit claims, until MDOT and Ann Arbor provide (1) detailed scientific data to evaluate the extension’s environmental impact on Pittsfield and its residents, especially regarding airplane noise and leaded-gasoline emissions, (2) a detailed examination of the project’s – and its alternatives’ – complete current and future environmental impacts on Pittsfield and its residents, and (3) a thorough examination of all
alternatives, including the use of Willow Run, when fully loaded planes cannot use
the shorter Ann Arbor runway. “Courts exist to balance an unfair playing field,” said CPCQ Chairman Andrew McGill. “Ann Arbor has ignored our health and safety concerns for years,
while banning leaf blowers because of their noise, but has no qualms about its airport’s planes inflicting health risks from aircraft noise and leaded-gasoline rain on its neighbors in Pittsfield, treating us as second-class citizens.”
Relatedly, last fall, Pittsfield and CPCQ filed a petition to review the EA’s approval, and the issuance of the FONSI / ROD by MDOT and the FAA, in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
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Kathe Wunderlich and Andy McGill