Petition seeks monitoring system to track air quality and noise pollution at Terminal 5
By Lindsay Peyton
Concerned citizens in West Seattle are gathering signatures for an online petition seeking to protect air quality and reduce noise at Terminal 5 in the Port of Seattle.
The goal is to create a monitoring system, which will collect information and determine what controls may be required to safeguard area residents, Patricia Davis, who started the petition on Change.org, explained. She added that her main concern is diesel pollution.
“The impact of diesel on our health is profound,” she said. “It’s a brain toxin. You have immediate impacts and then you have long-term impacts. We need to get that air monitoring now, during construction, as soon as possible.”
Davis was involved in an earlier petition that called for the Port of Seattle to create an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on its construction of Terminal 5.
For the current petition, Davis explained that the focus is keeping tabs on both noise and air quality. She said that a third party -- the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency -- would monitor the data collected by the proposed system installed at the terminal.