Release the airport studies

ENVIRONMENTALISTS HAVE SAID for years that expanding the runways at San Francisco International Airport could be disastrous. Filling in the proposed 1,000 acres of the bay would likely eradicate fish populations, ruin water quality, and permanently clog the natural tidal flow.

A multiagency task force made up of city officials and Federal Aviation Administration representatives is studying the idea, using $23 million in city funds. So when early drafts of the reports came out last year, a coalition of environmentalists demanded that they be released, under the city's Sunshine Ordinance. But as Rachel Brahinsky reports on page 13, the city won't release several key studies – the FAA says they belong to the federal government.

That's unacceptable. Last week the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force called for the studies to be released, and the city should comply with that order – unilaterally, if necessary. (It may infuriate the FAA, but so what?) Then the city should insist that all runway task force meetings are open to the public and that all future reports and documents produced by and for that task force be subject to the sunshine law.

The issue shouldn't end with the airport, either. The supervisors should institute a policy that puts all other government agencies working with San Francisco on formal notice: the Sunshine Ordinance – which opens up more records than any other sunshine law – will apply to all documents the joint project produces or acquires and all meetings in which city officials participate. That would open up permitting proceedings on projects like Mission Bay, the bridges, the power plants, and development at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard – and expand one of the nation's best local open-government laws to cover the dark depths of state and federal policy-making.