Friday, December 30, 2005

Airport site story enters Phase III

Dissension, doubts plagued selection process


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

The controversial search for a site on which to build a new airport was a major news story for all of 2005, a story, moreover, whose end is nowhere in sight.

Until the Federal Aviation Administration gives its nod of approval to a site finally selected and recommended by the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority and to disbursement of federal funds for the bulk of a new airport's probable costs of at least $100 million, the story will continue for years and years.

An early draft of the current story began in the mid-1970s, when Friedman's governing board suggested a new airport would be needed because of factors true even today at the Hailey field, three decades later. They include the arrival of faster and larger airline aircraft, surrounding terrain that posed safety questions about Friedman, seasonal inclement weather that literally closes the airport, and encroachment of new housing areas on the airport.

But any serious search for a site was shelved.

By 1994, however, a study was ordered and a locale known as Moonstone along U.S. Highway 20 en route to the city of Fairfield in Camas County was designated as a feasible site.

But the study and recommendations were soon forgotten: no one expressed any urgency about building a new airport.

However, some two years ago, the FAA came down hard on Friedman. It was out of safety compliance for the larger, faster aircraft operating there and needed to be drastically modified or a new facility constructed.

To stave off the worst FAA sanction -- restricting certain aircraft operations at Friedman -- the Airport Authority obtained what amounted to a suspension of drastic FAA action while it launched a search for a new site. The deal was enabled by some $1 million in FAA funds for the search, as well as a $16 million program to make interim short-range safety improvements.

Beginning in the summer of 2004 and continuing for the next year, a citizens site selection committee of 25 principals (backed by 25 alternates) met to evaluate an initial list of 16 candidate sites in Blaine, Camas and Lincoln counties. It zeroed in on areas that embodied several obvious, essential criteria: isolation from populated areas, no terrain to obstruct long approaches, convenience to the Wood River Valley's resort area.

From the outset, however, search meetings involved dissension among committee members as well as from public observers.

Committee members representing Ketchum and Sun Valley interests initially insisted Friedman should be expanded to comply with FAA safety demands and thus remain the valley's airport.

But airport consultants as well as committee members from the Hailey and Bellevue areas pointed out that expanding the airport would require condemnation of between 40 and 60 homes in the nearby Woodside area, while mountainous terrain on three sides would remain a safety threat.

As the site committee voted to narrow its deliberations to site No. 13 east of Fairfield, site No. 9 in Lincoln County north of Shoshone and site No. 10 in south Blaine County, the credibility of consultants and their data pointing to the need for a site distant from Friedman were questioned as unreliable by northern Wood River Valley committee members.

Critics also insisted Skywest Airlines and Horizon Air, the two air carriers serving Friedman, would need revenue guarantees to operate from a distant site.

As part of a community education program, Friedman Manager Rick Baird conducted a series of "coffee talks" and town hall meetings up and down the valley as well as in Fairfield and in Shoshone to answer questions and explain why a new airport site is needed.

But stiff, organized opposition erupted in the Fairfield area, where residents formed an anti-airport committee and enlisted help of a California attorney to draft a lengthy bill of particulars opposing site No. 13.

In one final public town hall in September attended by several hundred people, the Airport Authority submitted the three finalist sites to public comment before making its own final recommendation -- site No. 10 in Blaine County -- for forwarding to the FAA.

Meanwhile, the airport story of 2005 now becomes a story for 2006: A plan for financing a new airport will be presented to the Airport Authority by the consulting firm Mead & Hunt within the next several months, which in turn will be delivered to the FAA.

Thereafter, the FAA begins a lengthy environmental and economic impact study to either support the selection of site No. 10 or reject it and order a new search.




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