By Chris Frost
Eagle Times News Editor
NEWPORT, NH — The Board of Selectmen made a cautious step toward a project to widen the runway at the airport during its Monday, Oct. 16, meeting.
Newport has received more than $600,000 congressionally directed spending for the airport which the town hopes to use the money in conjunction with state Airport Improvement Maintenance funds to complete the project in 2024.
Town Manager Paul J. Brown told the board the town had to go through the FAA to get the money.
“We have to pave the airport in compliance with FAA standards, which would mean widening the airport runway by 10 feet,” Brown said. “We would lose a little bit of length in the airport, which is concerning to the users of the airport.”
He said the airport also has drainage problems in the south end that need to be addressed.
“Right now, the ballpark estimate is at $2.5 million, which is on the low side,” Brown said. “It will take a little bit more than that to do it right. The $600,000 or $650,000 isn’t going to go all the way for that.”
He explained how the town won’t be able to use the award as initially thought.
“We’ve had discussions with the FAA, State Aeronautics and our master plan people about the possibility of rescoping the award and changing it to doing an environmental analysis, which we need to do on the runway and do it under FAA regulations,” Brown said.
The environmental assessment costs between $150,000 and $200,000 to complete the job.
“The second discussion was doing some planning for the design of the construction, which we could then turn around and do through an appropriation” he said. “The concern I have, while we’re waiting for an answer back, is if we use the money for design and don’t build it, there may be a clawback where we have to pay back the design money.”
He asked the board to support a scoping change to do the environmental analysis at least.
“Then the planning wouldn’t be in a clawback situation,” he said. “If it would be in a clawback, we would probably let the FAA know that we would be declining up to $500,000 of the appropriation and requesting the $150,000 to $200,000 for the environmental analyses.”
Selectman Jeff Kessler noted that Newport has an obligation to use the airport in a usable manner.
“The way I understand it, we’re getting to the point that something needs to be done sooner than later,” said Kessler. “Back when Pike Industry paved Barton Whitney, Blueberry Ridge and Breakneck roads, the town manager, at the time, asked them for a price to pave the runway, and that’s where that number came from. That’s what got sent to Sen. Shaheen’s office and got it approved.”
He said the FAA got involved, and to get the money, it had to be used in accordance with their guidelines.
“It ties us into some requirements, and I’ve heard conflictive reports about how restrictive it would be,” he said. “One thing was, if we wanted to do something like putting a fence around the airport, we could do that, but it would have to be to FAA specifications.”
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.