CAA: GA News, "Residents Plan Court Fight Over Fence Construction at Duluth, Minn., Airport"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Residents Plan Court Fight Over Fence Construction at Duluth, Minn.,
Airport
The Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.


A decision has been made on just where to build a new fence around
Duluth's Sky Harbor Airport.

But not so fast.

Some nearby residents and Park Point Community Club members have hired
an attorney and plan to go to court to keep the controversial fence from
going through the heart of an old-growth forest. They fear trees will be
damaged and the public's access to trails cut off in the forest near the
end of the point.

But that's the route chosen this month by officials from the Federal
Aviation Administration. They picked it over a location along the edge
of the forest that had been pitched by the Minnesota Department of
Natural Resources and that had support from some residents and from the
Duluth Airport Authority.

"They're the ones providing the money for this project,"airport
authority Executive Director Ray Klosowski said of the FAA."It's their
call. With this decision made, we'll press ahead now with the fence
until we have some legal reason to stop."

Klosowski expects $450,000 in federal money for the fence and for other
airport improvements to arrive within several weeks. Construction would
begin soon thereafter, he said.

If the courts don't step in.

"It's not over. It can't be,"said Dave Johnson, a Park Point Community
Club member and one of the neighborhood's most outspoken critics of the
fence.

"I don't want to come across as a bunny-hugger, but it galls me that my
own tax money is being used against me,"Johnson said, referring to his
neighborhood's abundance of rabbits."I agree a fence is important, but
it should go along the most logical route. They've been ramming this
thing down our throats. And now we've been brushed aside. I think it
sucks."

Because the fence would keep out the public, Johnson and other neighbors
said, they see the project as a land grab by the airport.

While planning for the future of their neighborhood as part of the city
of Duluth's comprehensive planning process, Park Point residents decided
it was important to protect the pine forest near Sky Harbor.

"How valuable is our planning process if we can't accomplish one of our
top priorities?"Johnson asked."All of our meetings have been a complete
waste of time. But we're not done yet."

Airport officials want the 6-foot, chain-link fence for safety.
Bicyclists, dog-walkers and others have been known to sometimes wander
onto airport property, oblivious to the dangers to themselves or to
pilots landing and taking off. Two plans, one in 1976 and the other in
1999, called for the perimeter fence at the recreational, one-runway
facility.

The fence's construction would eat up about $170,000 of the $450,000 in
federal money. Other planned work at the airport includes building new
hangars, repairing a rotating beacon, installing new runway lights and
repaving the airport's ramp area.

"There's a perception we're going to put up this fence and then clear
out all the trees around it, just cut them all down,"Klosowski said.
"We're not.

But the fence almost certainly will damage the forest, said Bob
Djupstrom, supervisor of scientific and natural areas in the DNR's
division of ecological services in St. Paul. He met with FAA officials
Monday but was unable to alter their decision.

"We think it's a very unfortunate decision,"Djupstrom said. "I am very
surprised. I find it to be somewhat arbitrary.

"If you put a fence through there you are going to damage the old-growth
forest. Absolutely,"he said."You'll damage root systems and you'll no
doubt do damage to trees during the construction. And then when those
trees die, that'll open up the forest to more wind and then more wind
damage and other damage."

The FAA's decision follows policy, said Gordon Nelson, program manager
for the FAA's airport district office in Minneapolis.

"Our policy is to construct perimeter fences along perimeters,"Nelson
said."Perimeter fences go along the perimeters of airports."

The fence route deviates from the airport's sometimes-disputed boundary.
That happens near the terminal where it's routed to avoid sand dunes and
rare dune grasses.

"It deviates where they want it to deviate, but not where others want it
to,"Djupstrom said.


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