CAA: GA News, "Fire station on Ohio airport board's 'flight plan'"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thursday, January 16, 2003

Portage Twp. fire station on airport board's 'flight plan'
By JENNIFER FUNK
The Port Clinton (OH) News Herald


PORTAGE TOWNSHIP -- Someday, the future of the Erie-Ottawa Regional Airport
could include a fire station on the premises.

That's just one idea drawn into the airport's 20-year draft master plan,
which airport board members discussed Wednesday during the regular monthly
meeting.

The master plan is more like where airport officials would like the airfield
and its surrounding buildings to be, best case scenario, explained President
Ken Benjamin, though it doesn't guarantee the ideas will come to fruition.

One of the concerns airport board officials have had for a while is having
on-site equipment to handle preliminary emergency rescue operations for a
crash or other accident involving a plane at the airfield. If that happened,
a certain type of foam is needed to extinguish a jet fuel fire, said airport
director Jack Stables.

The foam is kept off-site, and Benjamin and Stables have been meeting with
local fire chiefs to explore the idea of at least storing the foam at the
airport -- but eventually the possibility of having an actual station there
as well.

At Wednesday's meeting, Benjamin asked Wilbur Smith Associates, a
engineering and planning company, to work the idea into the master plan.

Those at Wilbur Smith, along with consultant R.D. Zande and Associates,
spent eight months coming up with the plan, which forecasted the amount of
traffic through the airport as well.

Those forecasts predicted airplanes based at the airfield would rise from
30 -- the current number -- to 70 by the end of the 20 years.

It also predicted airplanes coming through the airport would rise from about
30,000 to just more than 41,000, along with more jet activity.

Because of those forecasts, the two consultant groups recommended extending
the east/west runway to 6,000 feet and allowing for more room around it --
an realm called the runway safety area.

Extending the runway, however, may impact Christy Chapel Road, which borders
the runway area to the west.

If the board decides somewhere in the future to complete the extension,
navigational easements would have to be obtained, or the land would have to
be bought, said Wilbur Smith representative Scott Sanders. If they only
decide, however, to extend it to 5,194 feet, the road will not be impacted.

Officials cautioned, though, that work such as the extension may be more
toward the 20-year mark than earlier.

The plan has a few more reviews before it will be sent to the Federal
Aviation Administration for approval.

"Our long-term goal is to give the people selling Erie and Ottawa counties a
tool to bring jobs into the area," Benjamin said.

   Post your opinion on this story in the CAA General Aviation Forum
http://www.californiaaviation.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?conf=DCConfID2

*****************************************