The new Santa Clara County report that finds the blood lead levels in children living around Reid-Hillview Airport are on par with those found in children in Flint, Mich., during that city’s water crisis should be deeply troubling to anyone who cares about children, our community as a whole and the environment.
The report has rightly led to calls to close the airport as soon as possible. Closing Reid-Hillview can be done in a way that will have no impact on the ability of firefighters and disaster workers to respond to area wildfires and other emergencies.
Reid-Hillview Airport encompasses 180 acres of land and runways that are 3,000 feet long. However, firefighters only use the airport to refuel and resupply helicopters. That requires only approximately 10 acres of land and no lengthy runways. The remaining 170 acres of Reid-Hillview could be redeveloped into affordable housing, commercial space and parkland and open space that would benefit the entire community and not just a small minority of private-plane owners.
The SCU Lightning Complex fire burned almost 400,000 acres across six California counties, including eastern Santa Clara County, during last August and September. More than 2,000 firefighters, 300 vehicles and nine aircraft spent almost a month bringing the blaze under control. It is the third largest recorded wildfire in the state’s history.
During the entire SCU Lightning battle, Reid-Hillview was used for only three days to refuel and resupply just two helicopters. Once again, that exact refuel and resupply operation, in fact a much more extensive one involving many more helicopters, could be accomplished on only 10 acres of land.
Reid-Hillview has never been used by any fire department or other disaster response agency as a base for fixed-wing aircraft. The airport is not big enough and the runways are not long enough to accommodate the types of aircraft that Cal Fire, as an example, uses to fight wildfires.
Any future wildfires in Santa Clara County would be fought using aircraft based out of Hollister, where Cal Fire has existing air bases that already house the specialized equipment they use for air attack of wildland blazes.
Prior to the summer of 2020, Reid-Hillview had never been used by Cal Fire or any other fire-fighting agency, nor had it been used during non-fire disasters by other first responders. For example, it was not used during the 2017 Coyote Creek flooding, the 2008 Summit Fire or the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office conducts search-and-rescue operations using its helicopter that is based out of Moffett Field. That is also where the California Air National Guard has numerous helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft as part of the 129th Rescue Wing. Our region has plenty of air assets and runway capacity to handle disasters without Reid-Hillview’s two runways.
A November 2020 report by the County of Santa Clara’s Roads and Airports department found that the only regular users of Reid-Hillview are two volunteer service organizations: Civil Air Patrol and the Reid-Hillview Disaster Airlift Response Team. Both of the organizations could be relocated to Santa Clara County’s other general aviation airports, Palo Alto and San Martin, without any impact on their ability to serve the public in the event of a major disaster.
We now have two recent government reports, the new one from the County of Santa Clara and a February 2020 one from the Environmental Protection Agency, that found elevated lead levels connected to Reid-Hillview Airport. The time has come to shut down the airport and turn those 180 acres into a variety of uses that benefit the entire community.
As long as approximately 10 acres of the Reid-Hillview land are reserved and developed into a helicopter staging and supply area, then the region’s fire fighters and other first responders will continue to be able to protect and serve the residents of Santa Clara County as we have in the past.
Adam Cosner is president of the Santa Clara County Firefighters IAFF Local 1165. William Dale is president of Palo Alto Firefighters IAFF Local 1319. Melton Wong is president of Mountain View Firefighters IAFF Local 1965.