Chicken Little is alive and well

The erudite readers of this backwater blog need not be reminded of the story of Chicken Little. But to give you a sense of the lengths that the anti-airport crowd will go to, here’s yesterday’s press release from “CommunityAIR – working towards a clean, green waterfront.” They’ve recently given themselves a second name — NOJETSTO — to fit into the pithy Twitterverse, but their ultimate goal of closing down your Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport remains the same. As, my friend and mentor, the late John MacNaughton said about my BDC complaints (he was BDC Chairman at the time): “That’s democracy.” Agreed.

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from NOW Magazine writer Enzo DiMatteo. He and his outlet have shown a rabid anti-TPA agenda over the years, so he was a natural megaphone for the “press release” below that was sent to him at 11:03am on April 19th. Mr. DiMatteo couldn’t resist the chance to stir things up (“hey mark… are u in a position to respond to CommunityAIR’s claims herein…? not sure if there is a legal impediment here… as in notice of libel etc… pls advise”), and he was looking for a comment to invariably try to have some fun in his next giveaway paper:

Globe Island Airport story posted and then deleted

For Immediate Release Tuesday, April 19, 2013
Contact: Brian Iler, Chair
416-835-4384 (cell)
416 598 0544 (work direct)

This morning, the Globe and Mail posted a story entitled “Toronto island airport body denies Porter ‘ploy’”. However, not long after, readers looking for the story found a screen that said “Whatever it is you were looking for has been moved or never existed!”.

The story reflects the views of many waterfront residents – that the forthcoming (to start May 1) dumping of material excavated from the pedestrian tunnel into Toronto Harbour is all about extending the runway for Porter’s jets.

In the absence of another credible explanation, in our view, the dumping is, and always has been, for the purpose of extending the runway, notwithstanding the protestations of TPA Chair Mark McQueen. Did he object to the story? Is that why it was deleted?

Recall that the prohibition on jets and runway extensions, and the limitation of the use of the airport as a permanent public airport available for general aviation [private planes], and for limited commercial STOL service [the Q400 flown by Porter and Air Canada is not STOL] operations.

were agreed to by the Toronto Port Authority’s predecessor to ensure that the waterfront was protected from a busy commercial operation. Relying on those restrictions, the Bathurst Quay neighbourhood, and many other waterfront developments were built.

We’d heard rumours that the TPA had hired consultants to consider extending the runway as early as February 2012.
Certainly the TPA’s stated reason for the dumping isn’t credible: it states the reason is to “improve the safe use and operation of the BBTCA as it would create shallower waters to deter marine vessels from penetrating the Obstacle Limitation Surface of the runway.”

The community had asked the TPA for evidence of any problem with boats violating the “keep out” area. It has failed to respond to repeated requests for that information.

On the other hand, the City of Toronto has emphatically objected to the dumping on safety grounds: see our press release on this attached.

The only other reason for the dumping might be to reduce costs of disposing of the excavated material. But this dumping was not contemplated in the original environment screening report for the tunnel, and the contract for its development would have been a fixed price contract that included normal disposal of the material. The dumping was a later development.

Leaving aside the fact that April 19th was a Friday and not a Tuesday as per Mr. Iler’s release, the more telling observation is that the Globe and Mail article in question remains posted. Check for yourself. I didn’t find Karen Howlett’s Globe article defamatory, and told DiMatteo in a short response. Of course, I didn’t hear back. The fact that Community Air was once again casting false aspersions wasn’t news to him, apparently.

However, the Iler press release is exactly the kind of specious Community Air attack that has been going on for years, as I’ve bored you with before (see prior representative posts “Bridging the facts of a bridge” Jan. 18-11 and “Anti-airport lobbyist: ‘I was spectacular’” Dec. 3-10). In another strange development, the CAIR April 19th press release isn’t on their website, unlike every other release that they’ve issued over the years. And they’ve been posting stuff subsequent to their erroneous morning missive. Did they take it down to hide their embarrassment once they realized the error of their ways?

Wouldn’t that be ironic.

You may recall Community Air leader Brian Iler’s attention-seeking tactics from a December 2010 blog post of mine. Here’s an excerpt from this earlier, but similarly inexplicable, episode. The bolded copy below is what was written in the Bulletin, a community newspaper that outsources a huge amount of space to CAIR for their TPA and BBTCA spin:

One of the more compelling outcomes, if you have a sense of humour, is that one media outlet took a very negative tack with the TPA’s public consultation process. Toronto’s The Bulletin newspaper laid waste to the entire event. The opening paragraph of their coverage said it all:

It was a tour de force! Brian Iler and Adam Vaughan were spectacular. [TPA rep] Ken Lundy looked dazed and the representatives from [Environmental Assessment firm] Dillon appeared gobsmacked. All those pretty posters on display and all the people milling saying, “this is a meeting? This is a consultation? This is a show!”

Where’s the humour in that, you ask? The Bulletin’s “news” article was authoured by none other that the head of the anti-airport lobby group, Brian Iler, who described his own performance as “spectacular”.

Perhaps he was channeling his inner Teri Hatcher. [Note: After this was published, Mr. Iler wrote to me to advise that although he forwarded the article to The Bulletin, and although The Bulletin credited Mr. Iler with the byline for the article, he advises that he did not write the specific article in question; ie., someone else called him “spectacular”, and he just sent it to the newspaper in question. The Bulletin updated their article on Dec. 9th [2010] to advise that it was now written by “Bulletin Staff” — got that? Mr. Iler forwards articles to the Bulletin for publication that were written by their own staff; let’s put that down to an odd relationship between a lobby group and a media outlet. Mr. Iler also acknowledged that the lobby group made factual errors in a separate Dec. 1st Bulletin article he wrote about the tunnel EA and the number of flights pending at the airport, blaming the work of Community Air researchers that he advises he didn’t validate himself before including in his piece. The avg. number of flights per hour is about one quarter what Mr. Iler claimed in the piece. That article has not yet been corrected.]

The central issue in any public arena is credibility, and Mr. Iler’s took yet another hit yesterday with his false claim. For those of you who are confused about the BBTCA’s Marine Exclusion Zone, let me share with you a letter I sent yesterday to Toronto Mayor Ford, addressing comments made by NDP Councillor Gord Perks and David Miller’s former Budget Chief, Councillor Shelley Carroll:

The BBTCA Marine Exclusion Zone (“MEZ”) enhancement project has received a great deal of media attention over the course of the past nine days. Airport critics claim that there are “never” incursions into the Harbour MEZ, and that the Toronto Port Authority’s May 2012 MEZ Environmental Assessment was just a “ploy” to support the business aspirations of Porter Airlines, which were announced on April 10, 2013. The MEZ upgrade is just one of many safety improvements that the TPA has recently undertaken at the airport:

• In 2009, the BBTCA added a new, state-of-the-art aircraft firefighting truck on site to enhance its emergency response capabilities;
• Also in the same year, BBTCA requested that Toronto Police Service (“TPS”) provide the TPA with the tools to improve the security presence at the airport;
• In 2011, the TPA upgraded its firefighting vehicle fleet by adding another fire truck with a similar $800,000 state-of-the-art vehicle;
• In 2011, the TPA created the position of Airport Fire Chief, and recruited a highly-experienced professional from the GTAA to fill this role early 2012;
• Also in 2012, the TPA doubled the number of active firefighters on duty throughout the airport’s operating day;
• In 2012, the TPA approved the capital budget for the addition of a Fire Command vehicle, and broadened the training and capability of our airport Fire Fighters; and
• In 2013, the TPA reviewed a proposal from our Fire Chief and Airport Director to acquire additional firefighting apparatus that would support the Toronto Fire Service (“TFS”) response to any on-site structural fire.

As reported in the media, TPS estimate that there have been approximately 40 boat incursions each year into the MEZ over the past five years. The MEZ is designated to mark an area, with boaters in mind, where there are low flying aircraft. Pilots need to be assured that no obstacles will be in their approach path. As marine activity has many variables which affect its reliability and predictability, when combined with increased activity in the harbour, TPA management advised that the situation clearly warranted an upgrade to the safety buffer around the BBTCA property.

A recent emergency in the Toronto Harbour is a poignant reminder as to the importance of the MEZ project, and brings to life the thinking behind our management’s desire to improve the utility of this airport safety feature.

On April 12th at 7:00 a.m., TFS personnel attached to FB William Lyon MacKenzie observed PV Oriole drifting, unmanned, in Toronto Harbour . Apparently, it was one of two large craft that had come loose that morning due to “Gale winds with strong Gusts”. By 7:05 a.m., the Oriole had drifted into the BBTCA’s Marine Exclusion Zone. With the quick assistance of the Toronto Police Service Marine Unit, the vessel was secured by TFS at 7:30 a.m. Thanks to the alertness and skill of our City’s first responders, the situation was brought under control with minor damage to the fire boat, while avoiding a “near miss” with aircraft at the BBTCA.

Had the pending improvements to the Marine Exclusion Zone been in place last week, the Oriole could not have entered the MEZ and bumped up against the airport dockwall. As you will see from the photo on the following page, the Oriole is quite large and may have presented a serious risk to airplanes that were landing or taking off on runway 26. Unlike the airport’s western MEZ, the Harbour MEZ does not have a naturally-occurring sandbar to prevent such unintentional incursions from taking place. Thus the genesis for the May 2012 MEZ project using suitable available fill derived from the pedestrian tunnel construction that began in March 2012.

As you can see, the TPA board and management have taken a number of proactive steps, over several years, to improve the safety framework at the BBTCA, long before the MEZ project was initiated in May 2012.

We trust that this most recent incident further demonstrates that our staff’s efforts to bolster the current Harbour MEZ are prudent, well-founded, with the best interests of airline customers and boaters in mind.

Now, if you were a pilot on final approach at the BBTCA a few days ago, would you want to look out your windshield at this unmanned craft, bumping up against the airport dockwall?

Despite the fact that the TPA Board and management have been upgrading the airport’s safety measures for years, in a variety of ways, the anti-airport folks and their few remaining enablers on City Council would have you believe that it’s all part of a plan to “pave the lake”.

Mr. Iler can pretend that the TPA hasn’t responded to public questions about the need for the MEZ (his claim above that the “community had asked the TPA for evidence of any problem with boats violating the “keep out” area. It has failed to respond to repeated requests for that information”), but there’s a raft of correspondence and technical briefings posted on the TPA website about the topic. And the TPS Marine Unit has been quoted in the newspaper regarding 40 boat incursions per year into the MEZ for the past five years.

As John Oakley told Adam Vaughan last November, “you are welcome to your views, but not your own set of facts”. Amen.

MRM
(disclosure: this post, like all blogs, is an Opinion Piece, and as a personal view should not be taken to represent the views of the TPA board, management or the Federal government)