MORRISVILLE — Tom
Anderson drove a state truck slowly down the bumpy runway at Morrisville
Stowe Airport, over pavement drizzled with black crack seal and
punctured by tufts of grass.
“Imagine what it is like
in an airplane,” said Anderson, a commercial pilot for 30 years before
becoming an aviation operations specialist for the Vermont Agency of
Transportation.
The runway at this
state-owned airport hasn’t been resurfaced since 1978, but next spring
the airport will close for three months to allow for a total
reconstruction. The cracked pavement will be torn up, new base materials
will be brought in to a depth of 2-to-3 feet, a new surface laid and
striped, new wiring and lighting installed, trees cut down at both ends
of the runway to expand the safety zones and grass replaced with a
variety unappealing to deer.
It’s a $3.85 million project made possible — strangely — by the mandatory federal funding cuts known as “sequestration.”
Vermont’s small airports,
it turns out, are benefiting from changes in the way the federal
government has distributed discretionary aviation funding in the wake of
this year’s mandated spending cutback, said Guy Rouelle, aeronautics
administrator at the Vermont Agency of Transportation.
“It’s actually very good for Vermont because we had a lot of shovel-ready projects,” Rouelle said.
The Rutland Airport also
is a big beneficiary of the sequestration and will receive two grants
that total $4.55 million. Safety areas at the ends of its major runway
are being expanded and an “engineered mechanical arresting system” —
akin to a truck run-off on a steep road — will be constructed at the
south end. The first section of a parallel taxiway also will be
constructed.
Rutland has commercial flights as well as charter and general aviation. Cape Air flies to Boston from Rutland three times a day.
“This safety expansion
project hopefully will attract more private jet traffic to the area,”
said Christopher Beitzel, airport manager.
Rouelle said most years,
Vermont’s nine state-owned airports receive about $150,000 apiece from
one federal allocation for small airports and $60,000 each from another
federal program. The state can bank the money to build up enough to do
bigger projects, Rouelle said, but it’s hard to set aside enough for the
kind of reconstruction needed at Morrisville and Rutland.
There’s a third pot of
federal funds the state can go after, he said, but noted the challenge
that tiny airport face when competing for dollars with safety projects
at busy hubs like Logan Airport in Boston.
Earlier this year,
however, as the bite of sequestration hit the U.S. Department of
Transportation, officials changed the rules for distributing
discretionary funding. They went looking for projects that were
designed, had permits in hand and contractors chosen so they could get
the money out the door fast. Morrisville met those criteria and won a
grant.
“This project absolutely
needs to happen and the state has done the legwork to make it happen,”
said David Whitcomb, owner of Whitcomb Aviation which is the fixed base
operator at Morrisville Stowe Airport.
Whitcomb supports the
project even though it will idle his business for three months. “I do
have concerns,” he said, but added, “The state is working with me.”
As fixed base operator,
Whitcomb manages the tiny terminal, does plane repairs, plows snow from
the runway and ramps, rents cars to visitors who fly in and sells fuel.
He also operates Stowe Soaring which offers glider rides from May
through October. He was worked at the airport for 27 years.
The terminal is open from
9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but planes can come and go anytime, Whitcomb said.
Pilots can turn the runway lights on and off using their radios, he
said. They can buy fuel after hours by swiping a credit card at the
pump.
Friday morning, the
airport was quiet. Two small planes took off between 9 and 10 a.m. Over
the weekend, Whitcomb expected the ramp would be wing-to-wing with
parked planes.
“We get a fair amount of
corporate and charter business,” Whitcomb said. “We also have our
private owners.” The airport has 18 hangars which can be leased for
plane storage.
Whitcomb expects the
runway reconstruction and tree-cutting will increase use of the airport.
“There are one or two charters that suspended coming in here because of
the trees at night,” he said. He expects they will come back.
Whitcomb said the public fails to appreciate the importance of small airports.
“A lot of people don’t
understand how small airports contribute to the local economy,” Whitcomb
said. “A lot of people see it as a playground for the rich.”
Anderson agreed. “This is really infrastructure that supports the economy.”
After years of
penny-pinching, Anderson applauds the investments the state can now make
because of the quirks of sequestration funding.
“I’ve got a passion for aviation and what is happening in Vermont right now is exciting,” he said.
Source: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
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