09/27/2017
Letter from SM Airport Commissioner Joseph Schmitz sent to SM City Council, as well as several community airport activists regarding the air quality study proposed by UCLA Professor Suzanne Paulson.
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Dear All,
I'm responding as a research methods expert to Gleam Davis' reply to Alan Levenson because I am convinced that - except for permanently rendering excess SMO runway pavement unusable - the decision to fund the UCLA jet pollution study headed by Dr. Paulson is the most consequential Airport decision that the City Council will make this year.
Largely by happenstance (4 weeks ago), I became aware of and studied Dr. Paulson's March 2017, 9-page grant proposal.
Councilmember Davis has posed (and implied) quite reasonable questions based on common knowledge re the proposed UCLA pollution study.
1. What’s special about Dr. Paulson’s UCLA study? Why don’t we just find another set of researchers to do it?
The UCLA study’s power (and indispensability) rests on the study’s natural experiment design — which in turn depends on its repeated measurements: 1) before, during, and after SMO runway closure; 2) the project’s use of cutting-edge instrumentation; 3) Dr. Paulson’s expertise; and 4) the design’s ability to link the spectrum of jet pollutants to specific aircraft operations.
· Only this design quantifies Consent Decree impacts on SMO pollution because it compares: 1) pre-shortening jet ops, 2) no jet ops, and 3) post shortening jet ops using optimal sensors.
o The baseline “no jet” pollution provides essential information that can be used to protect residents’ interests going forward. That’s why squandering the 6-month period after the research was proposed harmed this community.
· Only this design features improved sensors (very expensive to researchers but not the City) located in more areas that can measure carbon monoxide & dioxide, nitrogen & sulfur compounds, & VOC emissions – in addition to the black carbon and ultra-fine particulates measured in prior studies.
· It would be ethically questionable: 1) to administratively delay addressing Dr. Paulson’s study for 5 months, and 2) then replace that UCLA design with some consultant’s hasty effort. Such a study would inevitably draw upon Dr. Paulson's intellectual property.
2. How would the City use the study findings?
The legal and political status of SMO remains far from settled. The FAA has a long history of not keeping its agreements with the City. Deep-pocketed aviation interests continue to lobby Congress, FAA, and Administration decision-makers. SMAA has stepped-up local funding and outreach for its propaganda.
· Only this design documents the extent of positive City Council Consent Decree (implied) reductions of jet pollutant impacts on residents.
o Funding this study demonstrates the measure of City Council’s transparency and accountability in its commitment to obtain local control of Airport land and impacts.
· Only this study provides fact-based knowledge and provides an SMO-specific jet pollution model that can’t otherwise be obtained.
o Given an US Environmental Protection Agency actually committed to its mission, Dr. Paulson’s study may provide one basis for limiting national and local GA aviation jet pollutants before 2029.
· Only this study gives City decision-makers incontrovertible jet pollution evidence to make informed future SMO decisions in the face of ongoing legal Consent Decree challenges and the inevitable pressures that aviation interests will continue to mount at national and local levels.
· Until a future 2028 City Council formally directs SMO closure, SMO remains a viable airport that continues to divert hugely valuable public resources to private gains. This study should be available to residents, City staff, and City Council. That can't happen unless this City Council acts now.
3. Doesn’t Dr. Paulson have an irreconcilable conflict of interest? (Here I respond as a frequent research grant reviewer for the US and EU governments and a research methods expert multiple research teams with grants totaling several $millions from US and EU agencies.)
No; neither during her tenure as an Airport Commissioner when she proposed the study or now that she has resigned from the Airport Commission.
· Dr. Paulson does/will not draw any salary from the research. Thus, she donates her project supervision and scientific expertise toward the City’s acquisition of vital applied knowledge.
· The research is not conducted by a private citizen, nor will it benefit any private entity. This proposal is (rightly) a contract between our City and our State university for public, peer-reviewed research that has immense practical implications for Santa Monica and its residents.
· Santa Monica can't possibly obtain similar useful SMO jet aircraft pollution knowledge. The City can’t afford to buy this research – We have to would pay a prohibitive “expert” consultant premium like that for the airfield design contract.
· UCLA has: 1) huge sunk costs in their ongoing university program – world-class researchers, expert post-doctoral researchers, and expensive equipment that would be, in effect, freely-loaned to the City. See http://people.atmos.ucla.edu/paulson/
· Santa Monica thus obtains comprehensive knowledge at a tiny fraction of the UCLA sunk-costs and the total research project expenses.
· The benefit to Santa Monica lies in its absolute timeliness coupled with our special need for this policy-relevant knowledge.
· UCLA’ benefits are: 1) reputational, and 2) the advances for its scientific mission.
o The UCLA team benefits from their later academic publication and dissemination of scientific results. These extensive, time-consuming efforts are not supported by City funds, but the City benefits from the data-collection and analysis – and a final report which the City obtains as a grant deliverable.
Cordially,
Joe Schmitz, PhD
Recent epidemiological studies have shown a strong relationship between particulate pollution and health outcomes, including mortality. Determining the ‘causative agent’ in particles responsible for damaging health is the subject of increasing study, but many questions remain.
