Dane County airport needs new location, not new name

Wisconsin State Journal
Letter to the Editor
Dane County airport needs new location, not new name

The State Journal’s editorial last Sunday, “Airport needs a new name to fly higher,” suggested we call the Dane County Regional Airport “Madison International.” For many Madison residents, a new name would just be “lipstick on a pig.”

At nearly 100-years old, our city-bound airport has become an enormous burden.

Let’s start with the PFAS the airport discharged into our groundwater and Yahara chain of lakes, shutting down Well 15 and making local fish poisonous.

Thousands of people now live in neighborhoods considered “incompatible for residential use” due to the ugly and unhealthy noise from commercial flights and those new F-35 fighter jets.

Then we have the airport ghetto, that racist and inhabitable area we continue to expand for low-income and minority families.

And rather than increase urban housing, that gigantic airport gobbles up lots of Madison’s land area. (7% according to Wikipedia)

The airport is a poster child for global warming, because airplanes are an inefficient form of travel and have three times more impact than ground-based emissions.

Lastly, those fees paid by affluent passengers are not progressively shared but can only be spent on expansions such as that shiny new $85 million terminal.

Rather than a new name, let’s find a new location. Perhaps Epic International.

Steven Klafka, Madison