FAA FOIA Release 2026-04927

Response of the Federal Aviation Administration to Freedom of Information Act request 2026-04927, dated August 5, 2026. The letter identifies itself as an "Air Traffic Organization, Mission Support Services, Western Service Center, partial-denial, partial no-records response" to a request received July 20, 2026, seeking records regarding the RREHD ONE flight procedure at KSTS. It is signed for Christopher A. Wilbanks, Vice President, Mission Support Services. The enclosed invoice letterhead gives the responding office as Air Traffic Organization - Western Service Area, 2200 S 216th St., Des Moines, Washington, and the request number as FAA-2026-04927.

The release runs to 630 pages. The FAA states that the search was conducted by the Operations Support Group (OSG), and lists the responsive records as: 58 email chains and associated attachments; KSTS Air Transportation; KSTS Categorical Exclusion (CATEX) Determination; General Plan Map AT9; Instrument Flight Procedures (IFP) Environmental Pre-screening Filter; IFP Information Gateway Search Results; IFP Information Gateway Search Results 2; IFP Information Gateway Search Results 3; KSTS Document Router OSG Approvals, dated June 30, 2023; KSTS Environmental Narrative; Two Airport Hotspot Diagrams; Alternate Airport Minimums; Land and Hold-short Operations; Takeoff Minimums; KSTS Informational Handout; and KSTS Noise Screening Analysis Report.

The FAA reports that no records were found responsive to the portions of the request seeking obstacle clearance and terrain analysis conducted during the design of the procedure, or any FAA analysis comparing that procedure with the previously published "Charlie 8" departure procedure, "because the FAA did not create, maintain, or control these records." The letter names the procedure as RREHD ONE in its opening paragraph and as RRHED ONE in both sentences of the no-records paragraph; both spellings are reproduced here as they appear.

Material is withheld under two exemptions. Redactions within the released pages are made under Exemption 5, 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(5), covering deliberative material, and under Exemption 6, 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(6), covering personally identifiable information. Redaction markings appear on 202 pages under (b)(5) and on 111 pages under (b)(6). On 103 pages an exemption marking and a page number are the only content, the page having been withheld in full. Separately, and in addition to those pages, the FAA withholds 11 responsive records in their entirety, totaling 320 pages, which it itemizes as 2 emails, 12 email attachments, and the draft KSTS Informational Handout. That itemization is reproduced as written; it enumerates fifteen items against a stated total of eleven records.

Redaction applied to this copy

Two changes have been made to the copy hosted here, both confined to the requester's own identifying details.

On page 1, the requester's home address has been redacted, in the address block, and the requester's name has been redacted alongside it in the address block and in the salutation. On page 4, an Invoice Summary showing a balance due of $0.00 carried the same name and address and no other information; that page has been removed and replaced with a page recording its removal. The PDF's document metadata, which carried the requester's surname in the title field, has been stripped in full.

Pagination is unchanged. The hosted copy is 630 pages, and every page reference below refers to the same page in the release as issued.

Nothing else has been altered. All names of FAA personnel, contractors, and county and industry representatives acting in an official capacity appear as released.

Condition of the document

The release is not uniformly readable, and three conditions affect what can be found in it by searching.

Pages 95 through 317, some 223 pages, are not text. They are the email attachment "STS RWY 32-02 SID.tgs", listed at page 93, printed to PDF as raw bytes; the pages open with the ZIP file signature and the strings "projectData" and "Forms Plugin". No part of the attachment's actual content is legible in this form.

Sixty-three pages carry no text layer, being scanned or pasted images, and are not reachable by text search: pages 7–12, 16, 20–22, 24–26, 29, 30, 32–35, 37, 46, 52–56, 64, 65, 67, 70, 75–78, 80, 432, 469, 557, 562, 563, 565–570, 584–588, 629, and 630. Page 27 has a text layer that renders correctly on screen but extracts as unreadable characters.

At page 560, within the IFP Environmental Pre-screening Filter, the panel headed "Procedure Map" renders a default base map of the central United States, extending from Denver to Chicago and from Texas to Lake Superior. It shows no route geometry and does not include Sonoma County. On the same page, the field "Noise Sensitive Area(s)" reads "None".

Contents

The IFP Environmental Pre-screening Filter at pages 558–561 is the record most likely to be cited. It carries the procedure descriptions for the three proposed SIDs, the stated purpose and need, the annual operations counts by aircraft category and time of day, the "Noise Sensitive Area(s)" field, and the environmental specialist's filter recommendation.

Attachments named but not produced

Certain attachments are named in the release without appearing in it.

At pages 351 and 447, email attachment listings name "STS CHRRO RNAV SID 1.jpg", "STS MMORK RNAV SID 1.jpg", and "STS RREHD RNAV SID 1.jpg". The pages following each listing, 353–357 and 448–452, carry the marking (b) (5).

At page 559, within the IFP Environmental Pre-screening Filter, the "Procedure Graphic" field names six files — "CHRRO ONE RNAV SID 01.jpg" and "CHRRO ONE RNAV SID 02.jpg", and the corresponding pairs for MMORK ONE and RREHD ONE — and the "Attach KML File" field names "CHRRO ONE RNAV SID - GE.kmz", "MMORK ONE RNAV SID - GE.kmz", and "RREHD ONE RNAV SID - GE.kmz". None of these nine files appears in the release.

These statements describe what this release contains. They are not a statement about what records exist.

Distribution

The release is hosted as a single PDF faa-2026-04927-release.pdf, 630 pages.