Yeager Airport officials hope to receive word from the Federal Aviation Administration within the next few weeks on whether the Charleston airport will get an $8 million emergency infrastructure grant to rebuild the safety overrun area that collapsed in March of 2015. The landslide sent 550,000 cubic yards of fill material and hillside debris tumbling across Keystone Drive and into Elk Two-Mile Creek.
On Wednesday, the airport's governing board voted to authorize its chairman, Ed Hill, to accept the grant and sign the documents associated with it as soon as it is awarded - if it is - without waiting for approval of the full board during its next monthly meeting.
"We want to be able to order the EMAS (engineered materials arresting system) blocks for the safety zone as soon as possible, since there's quite a backlog" in processing deliveries, said Terry Sayre, the Charleston airport's executive director. The grant would pay for a new 352-foot-long EMAS bed at the end of the runway nearest Charleston, as well to design the rebuild of the safety overrun area connecting it to the runway and to complete environmental studies required before work to replace the 250-foot high fill zone can begin.
The last of the collapsed safety overrun debris was cleared away in January, allowing Keystone Drive to reopen after being blocked for 22 months.
Yeager officials have met in Washington, D.C., with FAA personnel and members of the state's congressional delegation to lobby for releasing emergency funds to rebuild the safety zone without having to wait, possibly for years, for lawsuits and insurance settlements to be resolved to garner the funds needed to pay for reconstruction.
In other developments at Wednesday's meeting, the board approved maintaining a round-the-clock police presence at the airport, following an incident in July in which a homeless man entered the passenger terminal's ticketing area at about 2:30 a.m. and boarded a parked regional jet before being taken into custody.
Yeager Airport Police, working 10-hour shifts, are currently on duty at the airport from 4 a.m. until midnight or the last delayed flight of the evening arrives. Starting within two weeks, two-person teams of officers will work 12-hour shifts and have a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week presence at Yeager. The new policy involves hiring one new officer to the 12-officer force.
Finally, in a move designed to reduce the workload and improve safety for the airport's groundskeeping staff, the board voted to buy a $22,500 remote-controlled lawnmower capable of cutting grass and weeds on slopes as steep as 50 degrees.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelhammer@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5169 or follow @rsteelhammer on Twitter.