Airport looks north to help fund its terminal

Regional Border Coast Airport Authority members voted Thursday to apply for a $7 million grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation to help pay for a new terminal at Del Norte County Airport.

The total cost of the project is expected to be $20-25 million.

The local airport is managed by a joint powers agreement that includes representatives of Crescent City, Del Norte County, the Elk Valley Rancheria and Brookings.

“This is certainly something we want to take advantage of,” said Airport Manager Jim Bernard.

In October, ODOT had a meeting in Brookings and representatives took a tour of the local airport and were “very receptive” and said that the airport qualifies for the grant, Bernard said.

In a similar situation, ODOT gave money to the The Dalles Municipal Airport, which is located across the Columbia River in Washington state, he added.

At least 10 percent of the funds will go to each region of Oregon, and 5 percent will be allocated for rural airports alone, Aboytes said.

There was not a lot of competition last year for the region Brookings is in, Bernard said. Airport projects in Coos Bay and Medford were funded.

Airport board members suggested that letters of support from U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. could help.

If the application is approved, funds could arrive as soon as August 2010, Aboytes said.

Before the terminal’s construction can move forward, the airport may face another hurdle.

The airport board’s coastal development permit from the county is likely to be appealed, Bernard said, because of a concern about cutting down trees to build the new terminal.

A biologist with the California Coastal Commission will be looking at the woods next week to determine if it’s an environmentally sensitive habitat area, he said. Bernard added that the Coastal Commission is willing to work out a compromise.

Also on the horizon for the airport is a new schedule proposal from SkyWest Airlines that would eliminate the one daily flight to Sacramento and change one of the San Francisco flights to an earlier departure time.

For now, the flight schedule is unchanged, Bernard said. In September, he was told SkyWest “couldn’t make (the schedule change) work in a cost-effective manner.”