[Peetwo]

Airports update: The bad & the good - possibly

Slight change of tack, first with another potentially embarrassing PFOS/PFOA contamination story, this time in Brisvegas... :

Foam leaks spark fish warning

12:00amSEAN PARNELL

Firefighting foam has leaked out of a Qantas hangar at Brisbane Airport, potentially contaminating nearby waterways.

[img=0x0]https://i1.wp.com/pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/eea199fb46693fd5d9004e6a1df49130/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]A controversial firefighting foam leaked out of a Qantas hangar at Brisbane Airport, potentially contaminating nearby waterways before the long weekend.

About 22,000 litres of the foam, believed to have contained perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, was released as a result of a sprinkler system fault within the hangar on Monday night.

While about three-quarters of the foam was contained, the likely seepage into the surrounding environment prompted health authorities to warn recreational fishers of the risk of a contaminated catch.

The warnings extend from the Bulimba Creek to Fisherman Island and north to Shorncliffe. Fortunately, they do not cover areas used by commercial fishers, given the annual Easter seafood boom, however it is another disruption to an industry already reeling from the white spot prawn crisis.

Queensland Environment Minister Steven Miles described the spill as “very substantial” and said it should be a reminder to industries to dispose of foams containing PFOA.

While Queensland is phasing out PFOA use, its ban does not apply to the Qantas hangar because it is on commonwealth land at the airport.

Dr Miles stopped short of blaming Qantas for the spill, but said the department would use “all of its powers” to ensure appropriate penalties were applied if necessary. “This is a chemical that has caused concern worldwide,” the Minister said.

Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said there was “no consistent evidence” that exposure posed a threat to humans but avoiding seafood caught in the area was a necessary precaution.

Concerns that firefighting foam containing PFOA had contaminated the environment around seven Defence bases — and possibly 12 more — recently prompted a massive investigation that included groundwater and resident blood tests.

  
And then the (potentially) good story on the 2nd Sydney airport project.
Via the Oz:

Coalition locks in Badgerys ‘Plan B’

12:00amSIMON BENSON

The Turnbull government has ­finalised funding contingency plans to build Sydney’s $6 billion second airport.

The Turnbull government has ­finalised funding contingency plans to build Sydney’s $6 billion second airport, amid expectations that Sydney Airport Corporation is unlikely to take up the May 8 deadline offer to build and operate Badgerys Creek.

The Weekend Australian understands the government has modelled several funding options, including one based on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, in which the government would become the principal shareholder in a company set up to operate the ­airport.

An off-budget NBN Co-style model is also on the table. Under a government business enterprise model any debt raised to build and operate the airport would be offset by the government retaining equity in the airport, meaning it would not be included under normal budget spending.

It would also give the government the option to sell the airport, which would represent a significant piece of national economic infrastructure, once it is operational and passenger volumes guarantee commercial returns.

Sources have confirmed that the government is preparing for an almost immediate start to construction, with a timetable of next year for major earthmoving works to begin.

It is likely that an announcement on the government’s plans, which would end Sydney Airport’s stranglehold monopoly on commercial air travel in Sydney, would be announced shortly after the May 9 budget.

The industry is widely anticipating that the Sydney Airport Corporation, under its parent company Southern Cross Airport Corporation Holdings, will not take on the project. The deadline for a decision is due on the day ­before the budget.

Sydney Airport Corporation has argued that Badgerys Creek is not commercially viable without significant government assistance.

The government has refused to provide any funding for a ­private-sector operation, arguing that it is offering a “once-in-a-generation” deal for a 99-year lease on a 1700ha greenfield site in western Sydney, with a full airport masterplan that had passed every environmental and regulatory hurdle.

It is also spending $3.6bn on a western Sydney infrastructure plan for “ground transport connectivity” to the airport, including a scoping study for a metro rail line from the CBD to Badgerys Creek.

Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher issued a notice of intention to SAC in January giving it until May 8 to notify the government of its intention.

Mr Fletcher has previously said that the government began planning late last year for the possibility that responsibility for construction would fall to the government.

He said the government ­“certainly had the capacity” to fund the airport.

When Sydney’s main airport, Kingsford Smith, was privatised in 2002 its market capitalisation was about $5bn. It is now three times that amount.

“It’s in the hands of Sydney Airport Corporation,” Mr Fletcher said. “If it chooses to take up the right, it will build and operate; if it doesn’t, then we stand ready to do so.”

Under the 2002 privatisation contract of Kingsford Smith Airport at Mascot, the company was granted first rights for the construction of a second airport in the Sydney basin.

The plan the government drew up sets a strict mandated timetable for the construction of the airport to ensure start of operations by 2026. “Failure to meet” milestone deadlines include significant ­financial penalties.

Airlines are believed to favour the government option over concerns that Southern Cross Airport Corporation Holdings would be handed an expanded monopoly should it decide to build Badgerys Creek, leaving no competition to bring down what are commonly regarded as excessive landing fees.

Sydney Airport said it was still in the process of evaluating the ­notice of intention and would try to meet the May 8 deadline.

It is expected that Sydney Airport Corporation will push the government for expanded runway operations at Kingsford Smith and changes to the curfew, arguing that Badgerys Creek would be a 24/7 airport.

An industry source said that Sydney Airport had expected the government would partly subsidise construction of the new airport but was “blindsided” when this was ruled out. The notice of ­intention issued by the government required that the airport needed to have at least one 3.7km runway, capable of landings for an A380, with a terminal capable of meeting passenger movements of 10 million a year.

Earthmoving works to level a field that currently has a 30m undulation, estimated to cost at least $1.3bn, are required to be underway by next year.

Industry sources said that several institutional investors had been looking at the project. It was not expected that any would take on the contract, despite industry super funds owning or having large stakes in other major airports around the country.

And via Planetalking:

Is it true Sydney Airport can't afford to screw 2nd airport users?

Badgerys Creek airport site may yet escape from monopoly ownership risk

What better timing could there be than an Easter Holiday weekend story or two putting the owners of Sydney Airport in a headlock over the fate of their right to gouge travellers and airlines for another 88 years or so as the monopoly lease holders of existing and future airport facilities in the entire Sydney metropolitan basin?

[b]The Australian[/b] obliges today with a ripper of a story (subscription required) in which the Federal Government calls the bluff of Sydney Airport Group over its insistence that it might not take up its first dibs on building and operating the second Sydney Airport at the Badgerys Creek site.

The [b]Sydney Morning Herald[/b] takes a different, but no less painful approach in a story about claims that the WestConnex road project might not only cost three times as much as officially claimed, but still doesn’t have a plan to connect drivers to the existing airport.

As [i]Plane Talking [/i]has pointed out over the years since Sydney Airport was sold for $5.6 billion in 2002 to a consortium that was then free to totally screw users of the asset for anything short of prices that would collapse demand for airline services to Australia’s largest city, this was the worst privatization of a publicly owned asset in the country’s history.

But the dream that somehow a way might be found to prevent Sydney Airport from exercising its right to extend the screwing to any additional new airport in the metropolitan basin may be about to come true.

Sydney Airport, the company, has baulked at the idea of spending maybe $3 billion to set up the first stage of the Sydney West airport and a May 8 deadline for it to pay up or p*ss off, is bearing down on it. And as [i]The Australian [/i]reports, the Feds have locked in place their Plan B for financing Sydney West, pending no doubt, a future sale to different private owners, or maybe even a Sydney Airport that has undergone some attitude readjustment therapy.

Whatever else might happen, it seems that the Turnbull Government (and most likely any government that might follow) is determined that the Sydney basin will have a second jet airliner airport by 2026.

In economic terms, this would be like giving a patient who will otherwise die of congestive heart failure a new lease on life.

Will Sydney Airport blink? Let us hope not. The countdown is running out of days. The ruinous decision taken by the Howard/Costello government might just be torn down.

MTF...P2