Weigh-in on 'Palmer Airport Master Plan' at Thursday meeting

PALMER — Officials say the long-range plan for the local airport likely won’t include any big surprises, though it might make some noise.

Officials have worked to update thePalmer Airport’s Master Plan since at least last year, and held two public meetings on the subject, one in August 2014, and a second meeting this February. The third and final opportunity for public comment will be from 4 to 7 p.m., Thursday at the Palmer Depot, 610 South Valley Way.

Outreach coordinators have scheduled presentations at 4:30 and 6 p.m., May 14.

For now, the biggest concern might be around the noise impact map, which shows how loud planes will be at various altitudes as they approach the airport, according to project manager Scott Hattenburg.

Noise has been a concern in the area surrounding the airport in the past. At least one lawsuit has arisen from concerns that noise had devalued one nearby home, and the lawsuit was appealed all the way to the state Supreme Court. However, the status of that lawsuit could not be determined Monday due to an outage with Alaska’s court documents website.

“We want to focus really on the noise model and the alternatives that we’re coming up with,” Hattenburg said. “And then there will be an economic analysis done in the next couple weeks. Then we’ll bundle that up into the report.”

Traffic studies at the airport show dramatic expansion likely won’t be necessary to accommodate increased traffic in coming years, Hattenburg said. That’s in part because Palmer airport, while buoyed by the presence of Alaska Department of Forestry planes and new tenants, is still relatively small.

The airport has about 34,000 operations per year, compared with 200,000 operations per year for Merrill Field, the bustling municipal aviation center in Anchorage. While traffic is expected to grow with the Valley, it won’t increase fast enough to require a radical restructuring, Hattenburg said.

The plan also includes elements from a compliance order to solve a few remaining issues from a roughly $900,000 civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2011.

“There’s nothing surprising or unusual about Palmer,” he said.

Improvements at the airport will focus on standardization for markings, lighting, tree removal and other minor adjustments to keep the airport functional and in keeping with standards mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration, Hattenburg said.

“Really, sort of unexciting things to keep the airport in a standard condition,” he said.

Other, larger projects in coming years will involve resurfacing the main runway (the city has applied for a grant to cover the expense), and moving the crosswind taxiway 40 feet north from the crosswind runway to make the runways match up with other FAA standards, Hattenburg said.

“It’ll be several years out, and it will be subject to the availability of FAA funding,” he said.

The improvement won’t necessarily mean better service, but it will bring the airport in line with industry standards, Hattenburg said.

“We’re rapidly nearing a point of completion,” he said.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.