About

The Community Against Santa Monica Airport Traffic (CASMAT – rhymes with hazmat) site is maintained by volunteers from the neighborhoods surrounding Santa Monica Airport (SMO).  The purpose of the site is to inform the community about issues relating to airport activity, and to provide a forum where concerned members of the community can interact and organize in order to make sure their concerns are heard.  There are a variety of on-going debates regarding the airport and it’s future including (but not limited to) the following:1) The large number of flight schools and pattern flying.
2) Pollution both from jet aircraft and the leaded fuel used by the prop planes.
3) Health and safety concerns associated with having such a busy airport surrounded on all sides by residential neighborhoods.
4) The future of the airport including the ‘visioning process’ and what happens in 2015 when the lease expires.
5) Noise and flight path complaints and what happens to them.
6) Making sure your concerns are heard.CASMAT volunteers conduct frequent studies of airport related matters particularly in areas where detailed information is not otherwise available. These studies have not only assisted the public in understanding airport realities, but also the City itself.  CASMAT volunteers actively participate in City and Airport Commission meetings and coordinate closely with neighborhood organizations in order to ensure the community is fully informed and that community concerns are addressed.  If you wish to help, or if you simply want to be kept informed on the issues, please visit the “Get Involved” page and sign up, or simply click on the “Follow by e-mail” or “Follow on FaceBook” buttons.

CASMAT is open to all the communities surrounding SMO, it is not just a Santa Monica organization.  Our goal is to address airport issues in a manner that benefits all the surrounding communities, we are not interested in inter-city sniping, nor in promoting traffic routing over other neighborhoods.  Such activity sets portions of the community against each other, weakening us all by preventing us from speaking with one voice.  With 2015 approaching, and the looming issue of what becomes of SMO when the 1984 agreement expires, only the FAA can benefit from such activities.

CASMAT is now part of the Committee for Local Control of Santa Monica Airport Land (CLCSMAL).  This political committee was formed to defeat the AOPA ballot initiative and make sure the City initiative wins.  Unlike the AOPA measure, the City measure guarantees a real vote on development, and puts precedence on parks and low intensity uses.  AOPA has spent over $1/3 million so far just on the signature gathering phase, we expect at least three times that to be spent on the campaign.  CLCSMAL needs your help for all of our sakes.  You can find a donation form here: link to donation form.

5 thoughts on “About

  1. Tony Peyser

    I’m working on a column about SMO for The Argonaut. Do you happen to know how many of the pilots who regularly use the airport actually live in Santa Monica? Thanks for any 411.

    1. John

      Tony,

      According to the FAA pilot registry, there were 319 registered pilots in Santa Monica in 2012. That number may have declined since then. Of course many of those don’t use SMO on a regular basis. According to the FAA based-aircraft inventory there are 260 aircraft based at SMO. The FAA aircraft registry database for August 2014 (faa.gov) shows just 190 aircraft that are registered to addresses in Santa Monica (though not all based at SMO), of those, a cursory examination suggests between 1/3 and 1/2 are owned by corporations, flight schools, etc.

      So, your original question was how many Santa Monica resident pilots use the airport regularly. My answer is that it is hard to say exactly, but from the figures we can discover, I’d say the number is substantially less than 200 out of a Santa Monica population of some 90,000.

      1. Jason

        This is a pretty dubious analysis. It assumes that someone has to own an aircraft in order to use the airport. Many people rent. Frankly, the question is flawed, too, as it assumes that only Santa Monica residents have a say in the use of the airport and its land. That’s like saying the residents of a town in the middle of nowhere have the only vested interest in the 3 miles of freeway that run through their city limits. SMO is but an on-ramp in the federal airway system. It serves everyone. Imagine if every town with an exit on I-80 between NYC and San Francisco decided that not enough of their residents used the exit to justify the added noise and traffic that the exit brought, and they closed those exits. It would make I-80 a pretty useless piece of national infrastructure. I live in NJ and my tiny little single engine plane and I will probably never make it all the way to SMO, but that doesn’t mean it’s not as important to me as it is to all users of the federal airway system.

        1. John

          I stand by my original estimate. Not sure what is the relevance of your comments on the importance to the federal airway system in this context.

        2. Ben

          Jason, can I freely fly my drone in your backyard? And can you freely fly your jet into Russia? Why or why not? Just asking . . .