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# Airport study takes flight
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/airport-study-takes-flight/
- Published: 2006-07-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T18:51:35.000Z
- Author: Kevin Herrera
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica Airport, #archive-import

*Study to determine if SM airport is a health hazard*

SM AIRPORT — A bill that would have required City Hall to spend an estimated $450,000 to monitor the idling and taxi times of aircraft here has been grounded and may never take off after airport officials announced this week that they will include a key provision of the measure in an air quality study currently underway.

Bob Trimborn, manager of the Santa Monica Municipal Airport, said City Hall will spend $35,000 to have airport staff use stop watches and clipboards to record the time it takes for an aircraft to take off from the main runway.

Known as the Aircraft Operation Data Augmentation project, the added monitoring will enhance an unprecedented air quality study conducted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District through a $400,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

That comes as AB 2501, known in Sacramento as the Santa Monica Airport bill, failed to win the support of the state Senate Transportation and Housing Committee last month, putting the controversial bill on hold until another version can be drafted.

Passage of the bill may be difficult in light of the move by city officials, who opposed AB 2501 because it did not include any funding for City Hall to conduct the monitoring of idle times for all outgoing and incoming aircraft.

Through aggressive lobbying and testimony from Trimborn, City Hall was able to convince many lawmakers to oppose the bill, including the environmentally-conscious Assembly member Fran Pavley, (D-Woodland Hills) whose district includes Santa Monica. Pavley opposed the bill because of the unfunded mandate it presented.

While the bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Ted Lieu, (D-Torrance), vowed to bring the bill back during the next legislative session, his own chief of staff said that could be difficult given City Hall’s intense lobbying efforts.

“The senate committee granted the bill reconsideration, which gives us time to take another look at it to see if we can work out some kind of amendment, but I’m not hopeful that this will happen,” said David Ford, Lieu’s chief of staff.

Nonetheless, Ford and Lieu said they are proud of the work they’ve done — if not for the introduction of AB 2501, City Hall would have never agreed to monitor aircraft idling times, a measurement which they hope can be used by the SCAQMD as it tries to determine the amount of pollution emitted by each aircraft.

The SCAQMD will submit the study to the EPA sometime next year, at which time federal officials may be able to determine the potential health effects caused by airport operations.

“I think the reason they (City Hall) are doing this is because we brought AB 2501,” Lieu said. “I’m pleased that Santa Monica is doing this. We’ll wait and see what happens in the mean-time to see what we’ll need to do when the Legislature reconvenes in August from (summer) recess.I could see us proposing AB 2501 as a supplement to the city’s augmentation.”

Those backing Lieu said they were pleased with City Hall’s decision, however, the battle isn’t over yet.

“The augmentation is really watered down. It’s only for three months, which isn’t the year which we requested, nor does it include the arrival of jet aircraft,” said Martin Rubin, president of Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution, (CRAAP), which has been fighting with City Hall for years to reduce jet operations at the airport. “The AQMD study is inadequate in that it doesn’t distinguish between pollution coming from cars on Bundy (Drive) from aircraft” just a few hundreds yards away.

Trimborn said AB 2501 was not clear as to what the data collected would be used for. He also said the augmentation will include measurements for the fist two weeks of July and all of December, January and February, enough time to provide enough data to help the SCAQMD.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 12, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/071206.pdf?ref=smdp.com)