Staff Writer
HOULTON — Last week Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins announced more than $1.6 million in grant funding to Maine airports for infrastructure repairs. Of the numerous facilities being allocated funding, Houlton International Airport is among them.
Town Manager Doug Hazlett confirmed that the town had applied for funding in order to redo the main runway at the airport. Hazlett said the Federal Aviation Administration outlined a number of safety concerns and the airport’s runway and apron were highlighted.
“We applied for the grant to redo the main runway, which is something, for safety reasons, and FAA reasons, you really need to do,” said Hazlett. “We already did the apron last year.”
The grant awarded $141,538 to the town to fund a new design of the Runway 5-23 reconstruction. The existing runway faces age-related deterioration and the new design will result in the development of final plans for the runway rehabilitation.
“The runway has not been done in an awful lot of years,” said Hazlett. “It’s got a lot of cracking, a lot of damage to it. They’re also going to upgrade the lighting, so the lighting will be safer. It really just means the safety factor and the future years of use that we’ll get from the airport will be much improved.”
The Houlton International Airport began its service to the community during World War II. Since that time, it has begun to serve several key purposes for the border town.
“Right now private pilots use it; it gets a lot of corporate aircraft coming into it for LP, Smith and Wesson; and Canadian firms fly into Houlton and go across the border,” said Hazlett. “The Border Patrol is based out of there as well and we get a fair amount of refueling flights that are destined for other places.
“So the future ability of the airport to begin bringing business in there that benefit from the airport is really the goal,” he added. “If the runway and the aprons are not up to standard, than that just becomes impossible. There’s no reason why that airport cannot sustain itself without taxpayer money in the years to come and become a real economic engine for the town.”
The complete project totals up to $3.5 million. Approximately 2.5 percent of that cost will come from the airport fund, which Hazlett said has already been saved in the airport’s fund balance. The runway has not been reconstructed since the 1970s.
Also receiving grant money are: the Millinocket Municipal Airport, $431,001 in funding for obstruction removal to comply with FAA regulations and to enhance the safety of operations at the airport; and $40,000 for the state of Maine to be used to upgrade the aviation management system database. These upgrades will comply with FAA policies and will help the state to administer capital funding needs at the obligated airports.
