I’m told that the Airport Terminal Advisory Group co-chairs and our consultants have completed or are nearing completion on the official report that will be given to the mayor. Meanwhile, Steve Vockrodt at The Pitch published an article last night that is a must-read before the ATAG report is released. If nothing else, it is a splendid example of what journalism in this town used to be – well researched, in-depth, accurate, fair, balanced and revealing.

Some highlights:

City officials distributed a fact sheet in April 2013 that said KCI couldn’t meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for capturing de-icing runoff.

“The current terminal infrastructure does not allow the airport to meet the EPA’s new standards for capturing deicing fluids, which require capturing about 30 percent of the run-off,” the fact sheet reads. “The new single terminal will capture nearly 100 percent of the runoff and resolve Environmental Protection Agency issues the airport is currently facing.”

But there is no such EPA guideline.

Two EPA officials contacted by The Pitch could not identify any published guidelines that call for the capture of 30 percent of de-icing fluids.

And

ATAG in May delivered a recommendation for a single-terminal airport.

“It’s striking that the do-nothing option did not prevail,” James said during that May 7 press conference that revealed the ATAG endorsement.

That’s because a “do nothing” option — one calling only for basic renovations — wasn’t made available to ATAG members in making the final proposal. It was on the table early in the discussions but seemed to disappear as ATAG deliberations approached an end.

Read the entire article, including more about the controversial TSA testimony HERE.

Kudos to Mr. Vockrodt and The Pitch. The fact that it’s taken over a year for ANYONE in the media to report on these issues is part of the reason we have so much disfunction and disengagement in city affairs.