"Airports Keep Growing Despite 9/11 Slowdown"

Wednesday, October 9, 2002                         

Airports Keep Growing Despite 9/11 Slowdown
Atlanta's Ambitious Runway Project Uses 5.5-Mile-Long Conveyor Belt
By NICOLE HARRIS 
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


ATLANTA -- If Bill Hammack does his job right over the next two years,
hardly anyone will notice.

The job? Supervising the moving of 27.7 million cubic yards of dirt to
Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport from land more than five
miles to the south. Once it finally arrives, the dirt will be used to
form a thick foundation for a new concrete runway intended to relieve
congestion at the world's busiest airport.

A look at Atlanta's dirt deal illustrates why runway projects continue
across the country even as many airlines struggle to survive. In
congested areas like Atlanta, the projects are so complex and
controversial they take years to get off the ground. Even the disastrous
effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks aren't disrupting a five- to
10-year expansion plan when long-term forecasts still project an
increase in air travel.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, 18 major hub airports
have proposed or begun building new runways at a cost of about $10
billion. But many of the projects require lengthy reviews by numerous
city, state and federal regulatory agencies. San Francisco airport
officials, for example, have spent $70 million over the past three years
on research, planning and environmental studies just to see if they can
start work to separate the facility's four runways, a delicate process
given the airport's proximity to San Francisco Bay. In Louisville, Ky.,
the airport agreed to move a community of 540 homes away from the noise
of its runways and to build a new city for the uprooted families. And in
Seattle, airport officials are in their 15th year of planning a
controversial third runway that will require three retaining walls to
keep a 17 million-cubic-yard embankment out of a nearby creek and other
wetlands.

In Atlanta's case, the plan is to move the runway dirt -- enough to fill
the Georgia Dome football stadium six times -- without disturbing the
environment or neighboring communities. A 5.5-mile-long electric
conveyor belt will wind over streams, through woods and across five
roads, including an interstate highway. To keep the dust down, the dirt
will be sprayed with water and enclosed in covered bins. Two control
towers equipped with video monitors will track the dirt's 30-minute trip
to the construction site. Total project cost: $350 million, plus a $10
million bonus for on-time arrival by November 2004.
 
The fifth runway project is part of a 10-year, $5.4 billion expansion of
the airport, which served 75.8 million passengers in 2001. Once
constructed, the runway will save the airline industry $5 million a week
by cutting delays, says Benjamin DeCosta, the airport's general manager.

Like their counterparts elsewhere, Atlanta airport officials have
endured opposition from local communities that didn't want another
runway. They met their biggest challenge, though, when the dirt deal was
mired in a nasty political scandal. C.R. Thornton, a local real-estate
investor who owned the dirt needed for the construction and first
proposed the conveyor-belt delivery method, pleaded guilty to making an
illegal contribution to former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell. Mr. Thornton
eventually sold his interest in the project to John D. Stephens, a local
pipeline contractor who is now a subcontractor in the dirt project.

When the project was put out to bid early last year, a consortium of
three companies known as 5R (for 5th Runway) Constructors LLP was the
sole bidder, having agreed to use the conveyor method of getting the
dirt to the site. After the City Council rejected the contract amid a
public outcry over the contribution scandal, the price and the lack of
other bidders, 5R sued in federal court.

In February, a court-appointed arbitrator awarded the contract to 5R,
noting that the conveyor belt was the cheapest and most effective method
of getting the dirt to the construction site. To oversee the project, 5R
tapped Mr. Hammack, a 55-year-old accountant who got his start crunching
numbers for projects at CW Matthews Contracting Co., one of the three
companies in 5R and one of the airport's oldest contractors.

Construction of the conveyor belt required the approval of more than 20
regulatory agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Georgia Department of
Transportation. "There were some agencies that I never heard of," Mr.
Hammack says.

Built on compacted earth and railroad ties, the conveyor belt will run
day and night and move up to 8,000 tons of dirt an hour. At the end of
the line, the belt shuffles the dirt among four giant discharge bins,
which are equipped with sensors to detect when they're full. From there,
dump trucks will cart the dirt to the runway, which will stretch 9,000
feet, crossing 16 lanes of highway.

Even before putting the dirt on the conveyor belt, workers will have to
transform the mixture of rock and soil at the quarries into a uniform
material. Too much rock could make the material too dry; too much dirt
could make it too wet. The moisture level affects how well the material
"compacts," or sticks together, at the construction site. So 5R erected
"scalping" machinery to sift the rock and soil through large screens.
Separate crushing plants pound large slabs of rock into smaller, more
manageable pieces.

But all the technology and equipment are no match for nature. During
recent testing, a rain storm made the dirt too wet to load onto the
conveyor. "You basically just have to wait until it drains and dries,"
says one worker on the project.

During a test of the unloading system, Mr. Hammack and his team
discovered the dirt was coming off the conveyor belt too fast. Instead
of the planned 20 seconds, the dirt was delivered in four seconds,
sending it over the sides of the dump trucks.

That problem was relatively easy to fix by just slowing down the opening
of gates where the trucks are loaded. The big test will come next month,
when the entire system is set to be up and running, with a total of some
300 workers on two shifts.

If all goes well, travelers should see the results in three years or so.

PAVING THE WAY

Eighteen major hub airports have proposed building new runways at a cost
of about $10 billion. A sampling of some of the most costly projects
proposed or under way:

Airport                               Estimated Cost  
San Francisco International           $3 billion to $5 billion  
Hartsfield Atlanta International      $1.3 billion  
Lambert-St. Louis International       $1.1 billion  
Seattle-Tacoma International          $773 million  
Baltimore/Washington International    $600 million  
Minneapolis-St. Paul International    $563 million  
George Bush Intercontinental (Houston)$260 million  

Source: Federal Aviation Administration

Attached Photo/Graphic:

A 5.5-mile conveyor belt carries dirt to Atlanta's Hartsfield airport
for use in a new runway.

Crossing Woods and Streams.

runway_dirt.jpg

dirt_map.jpg