Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Board may seek study of three airport sites rather than just one

FAA might approve wider analysis of possibly replacing Hailey field

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By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

Friedman Memorial Airport, one of the busiest air fields in Idaho, is slowly being enveloped by Hailey as it grows south toward Bellevue. At the same time, the Wood River Valley is wrestling with the dilemma of whether or not the airport can or should be upgraded to meet FAA safety demands, or whether it should be replaced by a new larger facility outside the valley. Photo by Willy Cook

All three potential sites for a new airport recommended by a citizens advisory committee could qualify for intensive economic and environmental analyses rather than just the top contender.

That suggestion by Friedman Memorial Airport Authority member Len Harlig at the board's meeting Thursday night for the three-site study is a possibility the governing board will discuss and decide soon.

Three sites picked by the site committee in order of preference were site No. 9, north of Shoshone in Lincoln County, site No. 13, east of Fairfield in Camas County, and site No. 10, in southern Blaine County.

Instead of referring only site No. 9 to the Federal Aviation Administration for study, Harlig asked whether all three could be analyzed.

Yes, replied airport consultant Chuck Sundby. He said he was aware of another airport study involving 10 sites, adding that a "high degree of flexibility" is involved in FAA studies.

In response to a resident at the meeting, Barbara Acker, who asked whether all three recommended sites could be rejected by the FAA, Sundby said, "There's a potential for all sites to be dismissed as a result of the EIS."

The so-called Environmental Impact Statement, Sundby explained, covers more than just environmental issues. He said all socio-economic aspects of an airport site would be analyzed.

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Included would be the economic impact on air carriers operating from potential sites, on passengers, on airport workers and on the region.

Some of the sharpest criticism of moving the airport has been over the issue of whether airlines might lose business if officials picked a site that was too distant from the existing airport in Hailey.

One source of the criticism, the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber & Visitors Bureau, has suggested that any such site would require subsidies for airlines to compensate them for losses.

Authority attorney Barry Luboviski is now studying how such guaranteed revenues could be raised.