As the effort to clear away 377,000 cubic yards of debris from the March 2015 collapse of Yeager Airport's safety-overrun area nears completion, airport and Kanawha County officials have begun to look at restoring the Charleston airport's runway length and safety zones back to pre-landslide dimensions - and maybe even expanding them.
"We will return the runaway length and overrun area at least back to what it was before the slope failure, and frankly, I'd like to double it," Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said Tuesday during a tour of the final phase of earth-moving activity near the base of the slide zone.
Carper said he favors adding the enhanced operational space by extending Yeager's existing 6,802-foot runway onto land owned by Kanawha County and county-operated Coonskin Park.
"You know those glide path lights that run through one end of the park? That's where it's going to go," Carper said.
The idea of extending Yeager's runway and safety-overrun area by filling a section of Coonskin Park land first surfaced during an airport board meeting in October of last year, when Yeager board member Allen C. Tackett said, "We need to look at every option possible on how to build back that safety area. It may even require looking at extending the other end of the runway."
The L. Robert Kimball engineering firm was tasked with examining that option's feasibility, while Virginia-based Schnabel Engineering examined rebuild options in the vicinity of the landslide. Lacking funding to pursue rebuild options pending the settlement of litigation from the 28-party lawsuit that followed the safety area collapse, the board has not pursued reconstruction plans.
"In my opinion, at the end of the day, the people who put in the infrastructure that failed and the engineers who designed it will end up paying" for whatever rebuild option the airport board pursues, Carper said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, about 130,000 cubic yards of slide debris remains to be removed until Keystone Drive can be reopened and the Charleston Sanitary Board can finally repair slide-damaged sewer lines that have been operating through a costly work-around system involving gas-powered pumps and temporary bypass pipes.
"We should have the last of the debris cleared away by the end of October," said Terry Sayre, Yeager Airport's executive director.
Airport officials reached an agreement soon after the landslide with S&E Clearing and Hydroseeding, of Varney, to begin debris removal before the airport had funds in hand to pay for it.
"I don't know how long it would have taken to get started if we had waited for the state to authorize the work," Sayre said.
The airport's governing board convenes Wednesday for its regular monthly meeting.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelhammer@wvgazettemail.com or 304-348-5169.