Hamilton Airport Plan review should be completed soon: Ravalli County (6S5), Montana

HAMILTON - The latest work on the new Hamilton Airport plan is taking longer than expected. But recent changes in that review mean the future of the airport should be completely resolved when that process is finished.

For the past year, Ravalli County commissioners have worked to finish the long term plan for the airport, a plan which has been stuck on the runway for nearly a decade.

At the start of this year, it appeared the county might finally be in a position of having the plan ironed out by summer. But as we move into fall, the long review of the Environmental Assessment is still underway. That's because the FAA wanted the county to include the new Airport Layout Plan as part of this review.

"Well the Airport Layout Plan, our current one, has been existing, and our anticipated Airport Layout Plan was presented. But they first said, the EA first said, don't include that, we'll talk about that later. Then they came back and said, well, let's get this all done at once. if you will aid the layout plan before we have the public hearing it will all be under consideration simultaneously and you won't have to do it twice," said J.R. Iman, Ravalli County Commissioner.

The county had already developed the new layout plan, which includes the commissioners' preferred "4B" option for a new 5,200 foot runway, converting the existing runway into a taxiway. So it just needed to be plugged into the current document.

""And so, they have a review period. And then hopefully it just delayed our public hearing until late this fall, or very early next year," said Iman.

It's been two years since the county decided to "re-boot" the airport planning in an effort to get the scheme ironed out once and for all. Iman says it would have been good to have finished the review earlier. But now, he says the current process will bring everything together for one hearing, with the findings presented to the FAA for approval all at once.

"I mean it's been 7-8 years, but the good part is it's only six months more. But we are coming to the final hearing," said Iman.

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