Wellington airport plans get boost from FAA

October 21, 2009

By Cherry Sokoloski

The Wellington

 

Plans for a Wellington-area airport rolled further down the runway this month.

At the Oct. 13 town board meeting, town administrator Larry Lorentzen reported that the proposed airport has been included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems. Wellington has been waiting for this decision from the Federal Aviation Administration for about a year, Lorentzen noted.

Inclusion in the national plan is necessary for the project to be eligible for federal funding. The next step, Lorentzen said, is to undertake a formal site selection process. He will meet with officials from the Colorado Department of Transportation and the FAA to plan this undertaking. The town will attempt to get grant funding from CDOT for the site selection study.

The FAA news was greeted with cheers from some quarters and jeers from others.

Jane Peters of Fort Collins, member of a pilots’ group that favors the airport idea, called the announcement “exciting news for general aviation.” She and other pilots were “displaced,” she said, when the Fort Collins Downtown Airport closed. Nationally, she noted, more airports are closing than opening.

The proposed airport would be used for “general aviation,” as is the Fort Collins-Loveland Airport. This term refers to an airport’s use by smaller, non-commercial planes as well as corporate aircraft.

Peters was part of the group that put together a feasibility study in 2007 for a local airport. She said a Wellington-area facility would be “a great opportunity for Wellington as well as pilots.”

Not everyone is excited that the project is moving forward. Lu MacNaughton, who lives at the corner of County Roads 15 and 72, said she and several other family members would be adversely affected if an airport is built.

Site selection will be a difficult challenge for airport proponents, MacNaughton said, because of FAA requirements and environmental issues.

“They’ll get tripped up,” she said, by considerations such as bird migration patterns and the current floodplain designation. In addition, she noted, the preferred airport site would affect thriving ranches in the area, creating noise and eliminating some sections of county roads.

MacNaughton said she and other opponents have prepared petitions that are already signed and ready to hand to appropriate authorities.

Lorentzen said at the Oct. 13 meeting that a local airport is “important for industrial and economic development.” The feasibility study estimated that the economic impact of construction and operation of an airport facility over five years would be more than $53 million. That figure includes construction work, rent from aviation-related businesses and revenue from visitors who would use the airport.

The report predicts that about 4,000 visitors would use the airport annually.

In addition, the report said, an airport could generate $1.7 million in taxes over the first five years, including $240,000 for Wellington. The report estimated that 19 new jobs would be created.

The estimated cost of land acquisition and construction is $20 million, plus $300,000 for furniture, fixtures and equipment.