Repairs to close Sun Valley airport

HAILEY, Idaho – The Friedman Memorial Airport Authority has decided to go ahead with runway reconstruction next spring that will close Sun Valley’s airport for a month.

Because of the runway’s deteriorating condition, the authority decided to go ahead with the $5.58 million project, even though grant money from the Federal Aviation Administration will not be available for the planned start date of April 24.

“If (the runway) does what we think it’s going to do in the spring, we might not have a runway,” airport manager Rick Baird told an authority meeting last week.

FAA officials told Baird there was only a 20 percent to 30 percent chance the grant money would be available by April, the Wood River Journal reported.

The FAA wanted the project pushed back to September 2007, but Baird said that is the second-busiest month at the airport. The airport authority did not want to wait until 2008 to make repairs.

The authority wants to rebuild the runway using a process that removes the top several inches of pavement, pulverizes the pavement underneath, then mixes it with cement and paves over it.

Last year, the authority selected a new airport site 14 miles south of the existing airport. An environmental and economic impact study is scheduled to begin next year.