On March 28, 2008 the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection issued
a Statement of Technical Deficiency on the Water Quality Certification
AND
an Informational Request on the Request of Superseding Order of Conditions
(the PMA's appeal)
Here is the pdf

The Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PMA) appealed the Pittsfield Conservation Commission's expected denial of the Airport's Notice of Intent (NOI or permit application). The PMA is seeking a Superseding Order of Conditions from the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which is also expected to be denied - the impacts are just too big. This denial is also expected to be appealed.

The Statement of Technical Deficiency points out the myriad of ways that the PMA did not include enough information on which to base any reasonable decisions about this project. BEAT is disappointed that none of the required alternatives are NOT EXPANDING the runway beyond the current extent of pavement - period. We think this is a completely reasonable alternative given the climate crisis, threat of terrorism, peak oil, and any other buzz words of the day.

Beyond the technical deficiencies -

The Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environment's Certificate (from the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act [MEPA] process) says that the airport commission has not demonstrated an overriding public interest, nor did they do any economic cost/benefit analysis. In fact, the airport commission states in the Notice of Intent on page 2.23 that this project is not based on an economic cost/benefit analysis. By the way precedence in airport expansion cases has already determined that economic development is NOT an overriding public interest.