Airport in final design process

The project will include a aircraft apron big enough to hold two airplanes, two parking lots and a new access road (in addition to Dale Rupert Road).

Project Manager Jim Aboytes said at a recent airport board meeting that the plan right now is to grade the roads and parking lots first, then build the terminal, which could be done in as soon as two years.

Preliminary plans call for construction to start next January and conclude in the summer of 2012.

The airport authority will also have to secure funding for the new terminal; this will be done primarily with  Airport Improvement Program grants from the Federal Aviation Administration. 

However, the next funding cycle doesn’t begin until January 2011, which means the airport authority may have to apply for a loan to do work in the meantime (to be paid back with the grant money), Aboytes said.

The airport authority is also considering establishing a committee of board members and local people with varying expertise to keep all the projects task moving along.

To get the permit to build a new terminal at Del Norte County, conditions set forth by the California Coastal Commission will have to be met first:

• Scope of the project (with the conditions) as approved by the Coastal Commission must remain the same.

• The Border Coast Regional Airport Authority must submit a set of revised final construction plans detailing the design.

• BCRAA must submit erosion and storm water runoff control plan during construction and over the life of the terminal to the executive director for approval.

• Comply with various additional construction performance standards to ensure there are no impacts to coastal resources.

• Use specific design standards for exterior building materials to minimize light and glare, and other impacts to coastal visual resources — illumination can disrupt reproductive cycles, give predators undo advantage and attract frogs toward the airport where they could be struck by passing traffic.

• The executive director has to  approve a landscape plan using native, locally obtained plants; setting performance and maintenance criteria, and prohibiting the use of exotic/invasive species or the use of bio-accumulating rodenticides.

• The executive director has to approve a compensatory wetlands mitigation and monitoring program for offsetting the wetlands that will have to be filled to build the terminal.

• Use sub-grade conduits within the eastern airport access road cross-section to provide for safe migration of red-legged frogs through the surrounding forest.

• Before selling, transfering, or leasing the project site to private parties to notice potential buyers of these  conditions attached to the permit.