Projects take off at rural airports: small airports statewide beef up safety, plan expansion efforts.

• Author: West, Gail
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: BUILDING ALASKA

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With aviation a basic mode of transportation for most Alaskans, it stands to reason that the state has six times as many pilots and 16 times as many aircraft per capita compared to the rest of the United States, according to State of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

About 90 percent of the state can only be reached by plane or boat, so rural airports are a lifeline to communities across Alaska.

Of the state's 687 airports, DOT&PF owns 256 rural airports spanning the state from the tip of the Aleutian Islands to the Canadian border. Those 256, of course, do not include the state's two international airports--Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Roger Maggard, airport development manager for DOT&PF, has oversight for funding the department's projects at the rural airports.

"We have a number of projects to bring rural airports up to the state's and FAA's (Federal Aviation Administration) standards," Maggard said. "These projects are funded primarily by the FAA under the Airport Improvement Program with the state providing the match funding--FAA funds 95 percent and the state funds the remaining 5 percent. We've had a substantial reduction in federal funding this year over previous years. Congress limited FAA to a shortened contracting period this year, and reduced funding while they debate the FAA Reauthorization Act," Maggard said.

"We're hoping they release additional funding later in the year. In the meantime, we have several projects that were funded last year and under construction this year."

RUNWAY EXTENSIONS

This year's projects include upgrades to the runway at Nightmute, where the runway will be extended to 3,200 feet under a $12.4 million contract with Knik Construction, a Seattle-based subsidiary of Lynden Inc. Knik will extend the runway, expand the apron, put down gravel surfacing, install a new lighting system and build an equipment-storage building.

Bering Pacific Construction of Anchorage has a $13.3 million contract to do the same type of work on the Nunapitchuk airport. The runway will be 2,420 feet in length compared to the desired 3,300 feet, said Maggard, because of the terrain constraints.

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"Our objective is to get most of the small village airports as close as we can to 3,300 feet," Maggard said, "and to install runway lighting and an equipment storage building. The 3,300-foot runway was adopted as a state standard for community-class airport runways based upon the standard FAA considers...