Improving our skyways.

• Author: Sullivan, Patty
• Position: Airports in Alaska - Includes related articles on airport funding and the Anchorage International Airport

Without airports, Alaska might quickly revert to running dogs, a transportation method from the first half of this century. Alaska is too vast, the conditions too harsh, to live at the present level of comfort without flight. And without flight, there is not much else to get around on.

Imagine a salmon without a stream, and you'll begin to understand an Alaska without airports.

At least 70 percent of Alaska is geographically disconnected from the road system. Without airports there is no state, only a smattering of isolated towns and villages spread across territory twice the size of Texas.

As Paul Bowers, director of statewide aviation with Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, sees it: "Our airports effectively become our road system. That's unlike anywhere else in America, except Hawaii."

About 3,000 landing strips are interspersed throughout the state if you count every gravel stretch and water skipway, but no one has bothered to document them all. The official airfield number rests at 1,112, says Carl Siebe, airports engineer with DOT.

Of the documented airports, some 287 are classified as public use. The state manages 266 of those and every year seeks funding to improve them with either new equipment or construction projects under federal Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants.

So far this year, the state has a spending plan of $83.4 million for 44 airports, according to Roger Maggard, airport development manager with DOT.

This funds new equipment such as a deicing truck in Yakutat, security fencing for Gustavus, a new dozer in Beaver, and a new loader in Tatitlek. Priority construction projects include a new runway for Eek and Noorvik, and a resurface job for Cordova. This year's funding for airport improvement projects increased by about $7 million, partly because some FAA decision-makers from Washington D.C. took a trip to the Alaska Bush, said engineer Siebe.

"When they walk into a village like Eek, they've never seen anything like that before," Siebe said. "All of a sudden, they understand why we need more."

RURAL IMPROVEMENTS

Standard community-class runways in roadless villages stretch 3,000 feet or so.

At 1,400 feet, Eek is one of the shortest runways managed by the state and a safety hazard. Building a new runway in the silty soil of the Kuskokwim River village is a lengthy project. At a cost of $3.6 million, construction begins by piling up the embankment of the new runway and apron.

Oddly for Alaska...