Wasilla to study feasibility of creating floatplane base at airport

WASILLA — Thanks to a U.S. Department of Transportation grant, the city may be taxiing toward having the Valley’s first floatplane base.

The $200,000 award was announced this past week, and the city will use the money to produce an environmental impact study at the Wasilla Airport. The study will examine how creating a floatplane base by using Lucille Creek would affect the creek and the environment downstream, said Archie Giddings, the city’s public works director.

“If you go back and look, when the airport was relocated to where it is (in 1993), a big reason was because it’s near Jacobson Lake and could (possibly) eventually accommodate floatplanes.”

Further examination has shown that using Jacobson Lake as a floatplane base would require another runway and a tower to direct air traffic, something a small airport like Wasilla’s would find difficult to get FAA approval for, Giddings said.

That option “would be a cross runway to the main runway, so you’d need a tower for air traffic control,” he said. “When and if a tower ever would go in is ify just to support a floatplane base.”

As the city began updating its master plan, how to accommodate the desire to create a floatplane base at the airport was looked at again, Giddings said. Because of the facility’s proximity to Lucille Creek, it’s possible to use the creek by partially damming it to create a pond at the airport.

How that would affect the creek is what the $200,000 study is supposed to find out.

“We’re now updating our master plan and looking at the feasibility of making a large pond next to the runway and using Lucille Creek,” he said. “If it runs parallel (to other runways) we don’t need a tower. Our master plan has shown it’s feasible, technically, to put a small dam in and make a pond, and we could have slips and expand our air service.”

While the idea is in its infancy, the potential economic benefits of having a floatplane base at the airport are exciting, Giddings said.

“It’s an economic driver. It helps the airport pay for itself. For instance, there isn’t a place in the Valley, a public facility, where you can land on a floatplane and get fuel. It helps the city have a sustainable airport from the revenue side.”

Not only could the airport see increased revenue from fuel sales, it could also see a jump in tethering fees for people who may decide to house their planes at the airport rather than a private residence because of the proximity of the fuel, Giddings said. It also helps develop the airport overall as a facility that could be attractive for aviation-related industry to relocate to the airport.

“We think there’s a good demand for it,” he said, adding the study “will tell us if this is something the agencies (like Fish and Game and the FAA) are going to permit or not. The airport is a very important asset and it’s still in its infancy. When it gets built out, there’s going to be jobs there and it’s going to be an economic driver.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.