The collapsed runway extension at Yeager Airport will be stabilized and removed after a Kanawha County judge gave permission for work to begin.
Attorneys packed Kanawha County Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit's courtroom Friday morning for a status conference to update the judge about progress in a lawsuit the Central Airport Authority filed in March against 20 entities involved with the design and construction of its runway extension.
"I understand you were working on an agreement for protocol on testing. No pun intended, but I hope there is some movement on this issue," she said as lawyers laughed.
The hearing focused on attorneys coming to an agreement on what kinds of testing and sampling they would do for Phase I of taking care of problems at the airport.
"The area is still moving and it needs to be stabilized," Timothy Bailey, an attorney representing Yeager Airport, said after the hearing. "As part of the stabilization process, it's going to change the area, so all parties in the litigation wanted to make sure that any testing they wanted to do and all the samples ... we're all in agreement with how it's conducted. So, later on, we could present that to the court and all of us would have enough samples to present our case."
Bailey said experts are scheduled to start working at 12:01 a.m. Monday. Phase I is expected to last 120 days all together.
Tabit ordered that after the material from the hillside is gathered, it would be put in the same spot. She also said attorneys have to disclose how they are going to test the material.
"The situation we're dealing with is emergent as we have seen as recently as this week," she said.
Earlier this week, the landslide at the end of Yeager Airport's main runway slipped again. A portion of the top of the slide fell about 20 feet and was the first significant movement in months.
The original collapse happened March 12 after cracks in the surface of the airport's Engineered Material Arresting System, or EMAS, were discovered earlier that week. The EMAS is on a man-made extension of the hill on which the runway sits. The airport's operations have not been affected by the slide.
Central West Virginia Regional Airport Authority filed the lawsuit in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
They filed the lawsuit against Triad Engineering Inc., Cast & Baker Corporation, Michael Baker International Inc, West Virginia Paving Inc, Senex Explosives Inc, Affordable Asphalt Maintenance Corporation, Engineered Arresting Systems Corporation doing business as Zodiac Arresting Systems America, Royal Ten Cate Inc, Novel GEO Environmental LLC, JMD COmpany Inc, Architects & Engineers Insurance Company, Erie Insurance Group, Great American Insurance Compayn, HDI-Gerling America Insurance Company, Lancer Insurance Company Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Ohio Farmers Insurance Company, Westfield Insurance Company, XL Insurance America, new Hampshire Insurance Company, AIG Aerospace Insurance Serivces, Cincinnati Insurance Company, Travelers Indemnity Company, ACE American Insurance Company.
According to the Charleston Gazette, the airport sued 20 companies involved with the design and construction of its runway extension project, including a blasting company, paving company, companies that made the mesh holding the hillside together and the airport's insurance companies.
The lawsuit alleged the runway extension and hillside were improperly designed, tested and inspected.
Contact writer Andrea Lannom at Andrea.Lannom@dailymailwv.com or 304-348-5148. Follow her at www.twitter.com/AndreaLannom.