Enviro Review Contested At Turbulent Tweed Talk

“No to Tweed expansion; yes to EIS.” 

“How does destroying the Cove make New Haven a better place?” 

“Stop paving our wetlands.” 

“This is all greed.” 

That panoply of protest signs in the lobby of East Haven High School’s auditorium offered a harbinger for the direction of the public meeting to come regarding the proposed expansion of Tweed New Haven Airport.

That meeting took place on Saturday at East Haven High School at 35 Wheelbarrow Ln., and saw a broad range of East Haven-led pushback — as well as some New Haven official support — for a federally mandated environmental assessment (EA) that Tweed New Haven Airport and a national aviation consultant published in March. 

The document — regarding plans to construct a new four-gate terminal on the East Haven side of the Morris Cove airport property and to extend the airport’s main runway to attract more commercial airfare — found that a larger terminal and a longer runway would reduce noise and air pollution. Critics have accused that EA of ​“greenwashing,” especially given that the airport is next to a wetlands area. (Click here to read a previous Independent article about that.)

Saturday’s meeting took place amid the 60-day public comment period for that draft EA. That public comment period ends May 1. Click here to read the 206-page draft EA in full, and click here to provide feedback on the environmental review.

The meeting also was held as commercial air service out of Tweed has increased dramatically since November 2021, when the new budget airline Avelo made New Haven one of its hubs. Avelo is currently running nonstop flights to more than a dozen destinations, including Orlando, Tampa Bay, Nashville, Savannah, Charleston, Washington D.C., and Raleigh. In early March, Avelo announced that it has served one million customers flying into and out of New Haven’s airport over the past year and a half.

The energetic and sometimes testy meeting on Saturday was moderated by Andrew King and Maura Fitzpatrick, consultants for Avports, a subsidiary of which operates Tweed. Representing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were environmental protection specialists Richard Doucette and Cheryl Quaine. 

The hearing was initially scheduled to run from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., but due to the volume of people who signed up to speak — about 70 — it extended to 4:30 p.m.

The overwhelming message from Saturday’s speakers, from East Haven town officials to engineers to concerned citizens, was to convince the FAA to forgo Tweed’s EA in favor of a full environmental impact statement (EIS), a process that involves a longer and more thorough analysis of a project’s environment impact than an EA requires, and allows for more public involvement and input before a project can move forward. State lawmakers Martin Looney and Al Paolillo, Jr., Democratic mayoral challenger Shafiq Abdussabur, and the environmental advocacy group Save the Sound have also all called for an EIS.

Carfora: "Do The Right Thing"

East Haven Mayor Joseph Carfora, the first speaker of the afternoon, set the tone of the hearing. 

Calling the Tweed expansion ​“the most transformative project in our town’s history,” he opened by describing the EA as ​“legally deficient, in that it lacks essential substance — so much so that the FAA should remedy the deficiency by either requiring a new EA or beginning the much more rigorous environmental impact statement, known as an EIS.” This was met with a loud, sustained round of cheering and applause.

Carfora continued: ​“As currently proposed, this project will negatively impact the quality of the human environment for people in East Haven, in New Haven, in Branford, in Guilford, and in other nearby communities. So I am here to speak for the people in East Haven, and all people in this area who will suffer the effects of this project as proposed.”

He said he would address ​“only a few of the profoundly problematic aspects of the EA,” starting with ​“a fundamental inconsistency which undermines every aspect of the document.” In his reading, the EA begins by arguing that Tweed’s current facilities could not handle ​“current air traffic, much less any expansion.” But the second half of the document ​“carelessly assumes that the existing facilities can not only handle existing air traffic, but could only handle 3.5 times the number of passengers and planes at the airport today — or a whopping 1.2 million in plane passengers, which actually means almost 2.5 million planing and deplaning passengers per the forecast contained in the EA.”

“These assertions in the EA cannot both be true,” he said. ​“Either the existing facilities are inadequate to handle projected traffic increases, and therefore will constrain … future traffic, and critically, environmental impacts, or the existing facilities can handle the projected traffic increases, and the new facilities are not really needed. This fundamental disconnect allows the EA to reach the startling and implausible conclusion that there will be greater environmental impacts from a no-build scenario than if the project were to proceed as proposed. This analysis is clearly unreliable and needs to be corrected to address the relevant issues honestly and consistently.”

Carfora went on to describe East Haven’s concerns about changes that the Tweed expansion would bring, and ways that the proposal itself seems to change. The volume of car traffic in the current proposal, he said, ​“is vastly beyond what we were initially told to expect.” Construction costs ​“have ballooned from $60 million to the current $165 million.” The initial concept for parking was to hold 1,700 cars ​“at peak”; it now plans to accommodate 4,000 cars, in a ​“six-story garage that is elevated only due to its location in a floodplain.” The original size of the new terminal was to be 30,000 to 70,000 square feet; it now stands at about 80,000 square feet. The initial master plan for the airport envisioned about 80,000 passengers using the airport in 2025. In 2022, Tweed already saw over 350,000 deplaning passengers. Current forecasts expect that to double by 2026.

In short, Tweed under the current plan would result in ​“a very different airport than the one that currently exists or even the one contemplated just a few years ago.”

This much busier airport, he continued, is to be built ​“in a sensitive coastal area replete with our most precious natural resources and is surrounded — at least on the East Haven side — by designated environmental justice communities.” The EA’s claim that the expansion would benefit the environment, he said, ​“would appear to have no actual proof.”

He concluded with a refrain that nearly every speaker after him took up: asking the FAA ​“to do the right thing, and simply follow applicable federal laws and regulations, and require the preparation of an EA that meets standards — or immediately move to preparation of an environmental impact statement. An EIS will allow for formal, informed decision making, with meaningful consideration of the impact of the proposed action … and consideration of true alternatives.” 

Carfora received a full 20 seconds of sustained applause.

Joe Zullo, a Republican state representative from East Haven, aligned himself with Carfora on Saturday in asking for a new EA and pushing for an EIS. ​“I am not an environmental expert,” he said. ​“However, I was not born last night, and I know, having lived in this community for my entire life, that this type of development, this type of expansion, will no doubt have a substantial impact on our community.” 

He echoed Carfora’s concerns about traffic. He also said it ​“is a fallacy that the town of East Haven stands to benefit economically.” He explained that he has asked for an explanation as to what benefit might justify the burdens East Haven will take on. ​“I see nothing in the EA that would suggest we have something to gain from this,” he said.

Edward Lennon, East Haven’s chief of police, backed up Carfora’s concerns about traffic, particularly at the intersection of Hemingway, Coe, and Short Beach, where delays due to flooding could be ​“frequent.” He noted the possibility of more accidents and slower responses to police calls, and considered that more policing would be needed. 

Christopher Rosa, assistant chief in the East Haven fire department, echoed Lennon’s concerns about flooding and delayed response times to emergencies due to traffic. In addition, he mentioned that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), ​“which are found in firefighting foam, have been used for years by the airport authority during training exercises and any incidents, and used by crash fire rescue crews in the New Haven fire department. These chemicals are likely still found in the soil surrounding the runways. The disruption of the soil could cause the PFAS to leach out and contaminate groundwater, or run off into tidal wetlands.” The environmental impact ​“needs to be very carefully considered.”

Regarding the flooding of the roads, he said, ​“I am concerned that the loss of the wetlands, the increase of impervious surfaces, and the filling and raising of the elevation of new airport facilities will make this flooding worse.” Civil engineers Robert Gomez and Steven Trikaus shared these concerns. Trinkaus called the EA’s lack of accounting for flooding a ​“fatal flaw.” Regarding the filling of almost 10 acres fo wetlands, he noted that, speaking from 40 years of development experience, under current wetlands regulations, ​“no private developer would be allowed to fill a fraction of that amount.”

MIchael J. Luzzi, East Haven’s town attorney, returned to the inconsistency in the EA Carfora mentioned, calling it a ​“fundamental flaw” that ​“makes a mockery” of the environmental analysis. ​“Logic dictates that aircraft operations and related ground vehicle traffic, and their environmental impacts, would be greater under the build than the no-build scenario. Incredibly, the EA reaches the exact opposite conclusion.” In rerouting traffic from Townsend Avenue in New Haven to Hemingway Avenue in East Haven, ​“it just shifts impacts from New Haven to East Haven.”

Piscitelli: Environmental Stewardship Committee In Place

Later on at Saturday’s meeting, Michael Piscitelli, New Haven’s top economic development administrator, stated that ​“the draft environmental assessment is a significant step toward implementation of the preferred alternative,” meaning moving forward with the plan incorporating suggested changes from the city and comments from residents. 

This was met with boos. 

He noted that Avelo had grown its service out of Tweed to ​“15 destinations, created jobs directly and indirectly through economic activity.” 

He emphasized the need to expand the terminal to continue Tweed’s growth, adding that ​“Tweed has committed, as part of our lease with Tweed, a number of environmental initiatives, including a new saltwater management plan, coastal habitat restoration,” and ​“upgrades to the very important tide gates at Morris Creek.” 

In addition, ​“an environmental stewardship committee has been established all to ensure a very high standard as the project moves forward … going beyond any minimal standards that may be included in the EA.” He did not call for a new EA or an EIS.

Laura Brown, executive director of New Haven’s City Plan Department, acknowledged the ​“significant resident concerns we have heard about the health, environmental, and quality-of-life impacts of the action.” 

In working with Tweed, her office had recommended ​“the removal of all activity in the inland wetlands regulated area” and required data collection on traffic. 

“Given the changes proposed and associated impacts, it is essential that the proposed activities and mitigations are clearly articulated and addressed both at the federal level and in local approvals.” Like Piscitelli, she did not specifically recommend a new EA or an EIS.

Giovanni Zinn, New Haven’s city engineer, focused on the airport and the tide gates. If not for the tide gates, he said, during storms the airport and surrounding neighborhood would often be under a few feet of water. 

The airport, he said, is ​“at the bottom of a bowl,” which means that ​“it stores water first. So more airport storage is less flooding in our neighborhoods.” Thus his office has requested the airport increase its ability to store floodwaters. He also did not call for a new EA or an EIS.

Save The Sound: EA "Defies Common Sense"

In contrast, Roger Reynolds, senior legal counsel at the environmental advocacy nonprofit Save the Sound, returned to the chorus of voices, which remained unbroken for the next hour, of calling for the FAA to ​“follow federal environmental law” and require a full EIS for the Tweed expansion. 

“It should be obvious,” he said, as the airport is adjacent to an environmental justice neighborhood, in a floodplain with ​“significant wetlands” bordering the Long Island Sound. The current EA, he said, ​“unjustifiably dismisses” the environmental effects of the project as well as ​“public health concerns.” He noted that the FAA has required EIS’s for smaller-scale projects.

In addition, ​“the projection of increased flights due to improvements is frankly incredible, defies basic common sense, and is inconsistent with Tweed’s and Avelo’s own statements,” he said. ​“The potential has not been studied at all.” Regarding flooding, Reynolds called for ​“much more detailed hydrological analysis.”

Shirley McCarthy, professor emeritus of diagnostic radiology at the Yale School of Medicine, worried about the effects of air pollution from the expansion on rates of premature death and prenatal complications. Susan Bryson worried about the environmental effects and about noise. Karyl Lee Hall, of the Branford Conservation and Environment Commission, focused on air pollution as well, adding that the EA was ​“bad analysis” and pushing for the FAA to require an EIS. 

“You hear it from the people here. You hear it from the professionals as well. Do the right thing,” she said.

The speakers continued. A former employee of a now-bankrupt budget airline was skeptical of Avelo’s business projections. A New Haven resident who had been part of the project advisory committee for the EA said oversight was lacking and she was ​“criticized for asking questions.”

Amanda Sullivan, a resident of Edgar Street in East Haven, very close to Tweed, was ​“here to give a firsthand account on how the increased air traffic” since Avelo began flying out of the airport ​“has negatively affected my life.” She expected ​“distractions” when she moved into the house, but with the increase in flights, ​“red flags slowly but surely begin to rise.” 

The smell of fumes from fuel has become ​“more frequent and stronger. There are many times I’ve stepped outside, and a gush of air carrying fumes has stung my eyes, my nose, and my throat. It lingers and I have to rush back indoors. On warm summer days I like to open my windows to enjoy the sun and fresh air, but for the past two years I’ve had to close all my windows because the fumes fill my home.” 

She contacted Tweed representatives who suggested she get new windows and central air. ​“But I have new windows,” she said. ​“I don’t want central air. I want fresh air.” She mentioned that she and her husband are considering having children. ​“I can’t help but wonder how this could affect a pregnancy, or little children playing outside. What new levels of toxins would my family be exposed to?”

She worried, too, about how flooding may affect her. ​“How is this a good idea?” she said. ​“What cost will the surrounding communities pay in the name of economic growth? What wildlife will suffer, and what natural resources will be tarnished?” Like nearly everyone before her, she called for an EIS. ​“If Tweed is our neighbor, albeit a corporate neighbor, they are to be held to the same responsibilities and accountability we all take part in.”