Sharing the Controls

Sunday •

November 29, 2015

Voters Need Informed Decision on Cassia • C1

Sunday, November 29, 2015 • A1 www.magicvalley.com • $3.00

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS PHOTOS

A sign at the Burley airport greets drivers entering the city from the east Nov. 16. The airport sits among industrial buildings, a golf course, stores, a highway and a river.

Sharing the Controls Without Cooperation, Burley Airport Risks Crash Landing

Burley’s 4 Airport Options

LAURIE WELCH lwelch@magicvalley.com

B

y early 2016, MiniCassia needs to build the consensus that has eluded it for two decades — or risk losing a major economic driver and a critical link to overnight freight, the world’s business networks and emergency medical care.

Burley has worked for 25 years to find a replacement location for its deteriorating J.R. “Jack” Simplot Airport, See more of the Times-News’ constrained best work at by a highway, Magicvalley. t h e S n a k e com/bigstory.

River, railroad tracks and a city that grew up around it.

But each time locations were identified, land-use issues thwarted progress. Cassia and Minidoka county officials complained the proposed sites were on prime agricultural ground.

Officials said too many questions remained about the costs. The idea of the two counties and the region’s cities joining forces to form an airport authority board never got enough fuel to take flight.

But Mini-Cassia has a deadline now, and it’s time to stop arguing.

The Federal Aviation Administration this fall said it will not continue to fund the Burley airport long-term. To justify continued funding, the city must lengthen the airport’s runways to accommodate a wider range of aircraft or find a location to build a new airport.

Do neither, the FAA told

LAURIE WELCH lwelch@magicvalley.com

BURLEY • The city has four main options for the future of its Burley J.R. “Jack” Simplot Airport.

Here’s what they would mean:

Take No Action and Maintain the Current Airport

But Mini-Cassia has a lot to gain by collaborating.

If there is wide community

If the city takes no action it will lose Federal Aviation Administration funding.

The airport’s short runways limit its use except for the smallest planes. Steve Engebrecht, lead civil engineer at the Helena Airports District Office, said the FAA will not continue to fund the airport longterm with those use restrictions.

Without FAA funding, the city would need to come up with more than $2 million for needed repairs.

The asphalt has not had any major improvements for 20 years, Engebrecht said.

Burley just doesn’t have that money, City Administrator Mark Mitton said. The City Council would have to decide whether to keep a deteriorating airport open without FAA funding — or close it.

Even if the city keeps it open for a few years, without extensive repairs it will continue to deteriorate until the runways turn to gravel, said Rick Patton, lead engineer for GDA Engineers, the firm contracted by Burley for its master airport planning.

Please see AIRPORT, A9

Please see OPTIONS, A10

A sign cautions drivers at Burley’s municipal airport. The airport needs more than $2 million in repairs.

More inside Timeline of the Burley Airport Controversy. A9 • What Some of the Stakeholders Say. A9

A gallery on Magicvalley.com displays more of Drew Nash’s photos of the Burley airport.

Burley, and you’ll lose the agency’s funding.

And that, City Administrator Mark Mitton said, would be the end of the airport — for all of Mini-Cassia. Burley doesn’t have the money to keep the airport open alone and would be forced to close it.

The city receives $150,000 a year in FAA funding for airport maintenance and budgets $50,000 of its own.

If an airport loses federal funds, the loss of state funding

If You Do One Thing: Caring and Sharing Christmas Tree Festival with entertainment from noon to 4 p.m. at the Rupert Civic Center, 505 Seventh St. Free admission.

High

soon follows, said Mike Pape, administrator for the Idaho Division of Aeronautics.

“The airport,” he said, “would slowly deteriorate back into a gravel pit.”

What’s the deadline?

In the first couple of months of 2016, the community must decide whether it wants an airport that meets FAA standards, said Steve Engebrecht, lead civil engineer for the FAA Helena Airports District Office.

If Burley’s neighbors don’t

22° 11°Low

support it, Mitton said, that will make the city’s decision easy.

“If we can’t go forward with a new site,” he said, “there will be no reason to prolong the pain of closing it.”

Burley Reveals a Plan

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Sunday, November 29, 2015 • A9

Burley Airport Controversy ‌ 905 — Oregon 1 Short Line Railroad completes its line through Burley near the future airport site.

1914 — U.S. 30, adjacent to the future airport, becomes part of the designated highway system.

1930 — Burley Municipal Airport is dedicated.

1972 — Voters shoot down the idea of building a regional Magic Valley airport in Jerome County north of Interstate 84.

1995 — A flight instructor and Burley businessman are killed after crashing east of the Cassia County

Fairgrounds after takeoff from the Burley airport. This and later crashes raise concerns about the community’s safety.

1995 — City intensifies its exploration of moving the airport due to runway lengths and lack of safety

areas. A committee is formed of representatives from several cities, Minidoka County and Cassia County.

1997 — City completes its first master plan for airport’s future. Land-use issues at the selected replacement sites halt progress.

2002 — The airport is rededicated as Burley J.R. “Jack” Simplot Airport.

2007 — Airport site selection north of Interstate 84 and west of Idaho 27 is announced. The site prompts much public criticism.

2008 — MiniCassia Economic

Development Commission steps in as a mediator, saying local cities and the two counties could take part in an airport authority, a taxing body, to choose a viable site for all of Mini-Cassia. The idea dies on the vine.

2008 — The city of Heyburn annexes property that is part of a planned airport relocation project, thwarting Burley’s second attempt.

2009 — An airplane crashes two blocks from Overland Avenue after takeoff from the Burley airport.

What Some Stakeholders Say on the Airport Issue LAURIE WELCH

Airport Users

lwelch@magicvalley.com‌

‌B URLEY • More than 4,400 flights take off or land at the Burley airport each year, according to cameras that recorded activity at the airport for GDA Engineers.‌ More than 35 local businesses use the airport.

An air cargo UPS flight comes in 500 times a year.

Six agricultural spraying aircraft are based there, though they don’t fly in and out of the airport with chemicals; during the busy season it is not uncommon for operators to fly 40 to 50 times a day. Student pilots use the airport for about 1,000 flights yearly.

Life Flight air ambulance based an Agusta helicopter at the airport in March and projects 1,000 operations annually.

Firefighting use of the Burley airport is based on need, with hundreds of flights in some fire seasons and nearly zero in others.

The military uses the airport about 10 times a year. And the airport handles flights diverted from Twin Falls and Sun Valley.

Other users include Civil Air Patrol, the state of Idaho, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Idaho National Guard.

What do the users have to say about the airport’s future? Even here, there isn’t consensus.

Kevin Gebhart‌

Airport manager, Flight Doctor owner.

Gebhart is the fixedbase operator at the airport, providing aircraft maintenance, fuel and a lobby for pilots and passengers.

“You are the first person to meet people coming into the community, and you are the one to get up at 3 a.m. to fuel the Life Flight helicopter,” Gebhart said.

Decisions about the Burley airport will directly impact his livelihood — and

Airport Continued from A1

support for a new airport, Engebrecht said, the FAA will fund a general aviation airport at 90 percent of the costs for the main structures such as runways, taxiways and property and the costs of property negotiations.

Costs the FAA will not be able to share include a road that serves other businesses or farms, utilities that serve others and the moving of existing hangars. But it can help with funding for roads and utilities that serve only the airport.

State funding would pay 6-7 percent, and the remaining 3-4 percent would have to come from a local match, Mitton said.

Depending on the site chosen, the airport could cost

Mini-Cassia businesses that use the Burley airport include: Love’s Travel Stop and Trucking, Deer Country Store, Pasco Valley Trucking, Dot Farms-Frank Tiegs, Transportation, Les Butte Irrigation, Land Schwab, King’s, Smith’s View Fertilizer, Simplot, Food & Drug, McCain Double L Manufacturing, Foods, Lynch Oil, Pickett Redox, ATC Equipment, Kim Hansen Communication, Kodiak Chevrolet, AgriSource, America, Sprinkler Pacific Ethanol, J&B Shop, Arrowhead Potato, Airlift, Ag Air, Aero Digital Transitions Applications, Ram Air, Aerial Photography, Red Baron Ag and Jet Thain Dairy, Critchfield Stream Aviation.

Flying Service, Mettler Construction, Harris Source: Burley Airport Users Association

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌PHOTOS

Airport manager Kevin Gebhart works on a turboprop crop-duster at the Burley airport Nov. 16.

“I use it a lot for business. If we lose the Burley airport it would really impact our business.”

Jack Hunsaker‌, pilot, Double L Manufacturing co-owner

his customers.

“They depend on us.

When a crop-duster is broken down mid-season, hours make a difference,” Gebhart said. “There is a lot of trust between a pilot and their mechanic. They put their life in your hands when they take off.”

Cassia County farmer and pilot Mike Wheeler uses Flight Doctor routinely.

“Where would my ag planes go for mechanical service if they closed?” he said.

If the city closes the airport, Gebhart said, “it would have such an economic impact on the community that most people don’t even understand.

They don’t know how much it affects their lives.”

Gebhart believes there are many locations suitable for a new airport and hopes someone with poor farmland or water rights will decide it’s time to sell.

At a new airport, the Federal Aviation Administration would fund only an east-west runway. The current airport also has a north-south one, and many pilots have expressed concern over losing the

second runway if the airport is moved.

“It’s really rare anymore to have more than one runway to choose from,” Gebhart said.

an estimated $20 million to $32 million.

Burley leaders recently disclosed they have a plan for funding the local match: a sale of the current airport property to the city’s Burley Development Authority.

According to FAA regulations, proceeds from the airport sale must be returned to the FAA or rolled over into a new airport.

“Even if there are parts of the property that weren’t paid for by the FAA, it’s still considered airport revenue and it can’t go into the city’s budget,” Engebrecht said.

A portion of that money would be used as the community match to the FAA and state funds. Mitton said the city would also buy out the owners of hangars at the current airport at fair market value. Engebrecht said that would be an allowable use of the money.

The Burley Development Authority would likely develop the property as a light business park; because soil conditions are poor the land would not support industrial development, Mitton said.

“I’m optimistic about the decision,” he said. “There are a lot of good people in the community and a lot of forward-thinking people.”

Reporter Laurie Welch has covered the Burley airport controversy since starting work as a Mini-Cassia journalist in 1997. She has reported from many angles – visiting landowners concerned about losing their farms, interviewing officials and attending scores of meetings.

Greg Thain‌

Pilot, farmer, dairy owner.

There will b e g rea te r safety risks for pilots if the airport is moved and there is only one runway, Thain said.

Thain also owns a hangar at the airport. Hangar owners are concerned about recouping their investments.

“I really think moving the airport to a remote location will be an invitation to vandalism and theft,” he said.

Jack Hunsaker‌

Pilot, Double L Manufacturing co-owner.

W i t h another c o m p a n y, Hunsaker co-owns a twin-engine airplane that is used for

business. He also has a twoseater plane that he flies for recreation.

Last month he logged 35 hours in flight.

“I use it a lot for business,” Hunsaker said. “If we lose the Burley airport it would really impact our business.”

Combined, the two companies employ 350 people.

Hunsaker — president of the Burley Airport Users Association, a pilots group that formed to have a more prominent voice in the airport issue — said the group would rather see the airport stay at its current location.

“I think the city positioned itself so there was no choice but to close it down or move it. Unless we come up with a way to extend the runway we don’t have much choice,” said Hunsaker, who said the city wants to commercially develop the property. “I think the city wanted it to be a no-choice kind of thing.”

But he would not be opposed to the formation of an airport authority, and if the airport is moved he would like local pilots to

have a say in the location.

Burley would need to initiate creation of an airport authority, he said. “If people would just look at what the value of the airport is to the area, it could be done.”

Tim Shamblin‌

Pilot, owner of Aero Applications Inc. Airport closure would have a huge economic impact, said Shamblin, president of the Pacific NorthWest Aerial Applicators Alliance.

His business would base somewhere else, but for the larger community the economic harm of airport closure would be parallel to the closure of the Heyburn Simplot plant, Shamblin said.

“A lot of people here don’t realize how many people go through that airport,” he said.

If the airport is moved away from the city, Shamblin fears it wouldn’t get regular maintenance, like the winter snowplowing it receives now. And the existing airport’s short runways “would be nothing compared to trying to land a plane in 30-40 mph crosswinds” at a new airport with just one runway.

Shamblin said extending a runway into the community is a viable option. “It

would probably cost less money, too, than moving it.”

“I think the only way to get this done is to create an airport authority and give everyone a say because Burley doesn’t want the airport now,” Shamblin said.

Jeff Heins‌

Rupert Animal Clinic coowner, Civil Air Patrol pilot.

Heins uses the airport to get supplies for his business.

He also flies search and rescue missions for Civil Air Patrol.

“It’s a real benefit during a search for us to be able to get airborne quickly,” Heins said. If the airport closes he will have to fly out of Pocatello or Twin Falls, both an hour away.

Heins calls an airport authority a viable option, but he’s doubtful local leaders can pull it off.

“Burley has handled this poorly in the past and antagonized people in the county,” Heins said. “It makes a lot of sense, but I don’t know if we can retrace all those steps. A lot of bridges have been burned.”

Heins said the Burley Airport Users Association has identified two potential airport sites but hasn’t publicly disclosed the locations.

Why Does an Airport Matter?‌ The Burley airport indirectly supports 56 jobs with a $1.2 million payroll and provides an economic impact of $3.8 million annually to the community, Pape said.

Some benefits are harder to measure, he said, like the value of business access, emergency medical care or agricultural operations.

“Closing the Burley airport would be a tragedy to the area. The airport is serving 20,000 people,” he said.

More than 35 businesses use Burley’s municipal airport, including an air ambulance service and many agricultural spray planes.

The Life Flight helicopter could be based almost anywhere. But when the

Signs mark the runways at the Burley airport, where asphalt has had no major improvements for 20 years. weather is bad, it can’t fly.

“Then they rely on fixedwing aircraft. It takes extra time to transport a patient by ground even to Twin Falls. At some point it isn’t emergency medicine anymore,” airport manager Kevin Gebhart said.

The airport also plays a part in Mini-Cassia daily commerce as UPS overnight cargo planes deliver products for individuals and businesses.

“People don’t realize how

much this airport is used by local businesses, local pilots and private jets,” said Kae Cameron, executive director for the Mini-Cassia Chamber of Commerce. “Everything that anyone orders UPS overnight comes in at that airport. I see the plane every single morning with a UPS truck backed up to it.”

Cameron said the value of accessibility to quick medical services is immeasurable.

“Access to health care is

critical to our economy and growth,” she said.

People need to let go of past struggles over the issue, Cameron said. “They need to look to the future and what is really best for our community.”

When a city has an airport, it isn’t in the middle of nowhere anymore, Pape said. It’s a five-hour business flight away from anywhere in America.

“Airports,” he said, “are an economic powerhouse.”

A10 • Sunday, November 29, 2015

Burley Airport Controversy July 2011 — Burley restarts talks on a new airport.

August 2011 — Four die after a plane crashes into railroad tracks after takeoff.

November 2011 — An airport advisory committee convenes to select viable sites but steps back from a field of four

potential sites after almost unanimous opposition by landowners.

September 2012 — Burley identifies six potential airport sites.

September 2012 — The Burley Airport Users Association forms so local pilots can have a stronger

Options Continued from A1

The decision, he said, is not so much about this generation of pilots, but about an airport for future generations. “ N ow i s the time for b u s i n e sse s and others to step up and show some s u p p o r t ,” Patton said. Patton “It is crunch time, and it’s time to make the decision.”

So m e B u rl ey p i l o ts advocated leaving the airport where it is but now acknowledge that the funding question will force a different course.

Extend the Existing Runways‌ The current runways need to be extended by 3,000 feet, Engebrecht said.

That distance does not take into account additional safety buffers at the ends of the runways.

To meet the required safety and object-free zones, the runways would have to be extended west past Overland Avenue and south to Cassia Regional Medical Center. Extending just the east-west runway would require moving

(continued) voice in the airport’s fate.

December 2013 — Burley selects a new firm, GDA Engineers, for its master airport planning.

January 2014 — Burley narrows potential sites to two.

This time, two sites are selected farther

out, on poor farmland near the I-84 and I-86 interchange and on a parcel owned mainly by the Bureau of Land Management, adjacent to West Baseline Road and 950 West.

July 2014 — Federal Aviation Administration tells

the community the airport doesn’t meet standards and could lose funding.

August 2014 — FAA outlines airport shortcomings to officials.

March 2015 — Life Flight Network opens a helicopter base at the airport to provide

emergency medical transportation.

October 2015 — A city meeting is held to discuss the FAA’s work to re-identify Burley runway lengths to accommodate buffer zones. The new official lengths are now shorter, further restricting use by

railroad tracks, closing a portion of Hiland Avenue, moving the Cassia County Fairgrounds and affecting businesses and homes.

“There would just be too much impact to the community,” Patton said.

M a n y predict this option wo u l d b e incredibly costly and disruptive, but a few Engebrecht see possibilities in it.

Establish a MiniCassia Airport Authority Board‌ Right now, Burley is the sole sponsor of the airport, which means the city holds all the responsibility to take care of the airport and make decisions about its fate.

If Cassia County, neighboring Minidoka County and nearby cities join forces to form an airport authority board, those decisions would have a wider base.

M i t ton said this option has always been on the Mitton table but has lacked support.

Idaho laws allow adjacent counties and cities to form airport authority

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

Pilot Casey Critchfield lowers the steps of a Cessna 414 Series VII at Burley’s municipal airport Nov. 16. The corporate jet seats six and has a top speed of around 200 mph. boards — as a taxing district or not — to pay for the costs of construction and maintenance. For example, if the airport development agreement says Burley pays 60 percent of the costs, the city would appoint six out of 10 members to the board. The airport authority would help find a suitable location to move the airport and be involved with other decisions.

“Community leaders would have to agree that it is more than a Burley issue,” Patton said.

The airport authority option may gain traction

soon. Idaho Transportation Department officials will present more information about airport authorities to local leaders in early December.

Relocate the Airport‌ Since the late 1990s the FAA has spent more than $1 million on Burley airport studies, and each time the effort has been quashed.

“The issue is that we have been through several site selections paid for by the FAA, state and local funds to find a suitable airport

location,” Engebrecht said.

“Each time we have been met with significant opposition from the community, local government and neighboring governments.”

Suggested sites were farmland whose owners objected to selling, and local government officials opposed the sites on landuse principles.

In the next couple of months, FAA officials and GDA Engineers will present information on the airport’s status to the community.

At those meetings — so far, only Dec. 1 meetings with the Rotary Club and

some planes. The FAA has spent more than $1 million to study the Burley airport in the past 20 years and says this will be the last study it funds. Study engineers look to the public to recommend airport sites.

— Laurie Welch

the Burley City Council have been scheduled — the FAA needs to see a consensus of support from Cassia County, Minidoka County and surrounding cities for the agency to continue funding the airport master plan and research of potential sites, Engebrecht said.

If not, the project will halt and the FAA will not fund another study for a Burley airport, ever. Patton said the current study is a third to half completed, but it has been paused while the FAA gauges support.

Engebrecht said the FAA is willing to fund looking at additional sites suggested by stakeholders, but only with that consensus of support. The two counties don’t have to sponsor the airport, he said, but letters of support would be helpful.

A new airport site must be between 410 and 500 acres, half a mile wide and lying in an general east-west direction.

There can be no more than 75 feet in elevation change in the runway area. There can be no congregations of people such as churches, schools or apartments near the runway ends; terrain cannot rise steeply; and the location must be within a 15-minute drive of Burley.

Even if the community rallies around a decision to move forward, Patton said, having planes on a new runway would still be 10 years out.

Fire marshal: Seeping Water Caused Radioactive Dump Blast KEN RITTER Associated Press‌

‌L AS VEGAS • Rainwater seeping into corroded 1970s-era barrels buried at a radioactive waste dump caused an explosion last month at the long-closed facility about 110 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada’s top fire investigator said.‌ Radioactivity wasn’t detected after the Oct. 18 blast and fire, and no injuries were reported, Nevada Fire Marshal Peter Mulvihill said this week.

Several 55-gallon drums blown beyond the facility fence were returned to the crater and reburied, and the damaged area was filled with dirt and covered with a waterproof chemical membrane almost 1 inch thick, topped with more dirt, he said.

A previous statement from the Nye County sheriff said the site near Beatty had been covered with a heavy waterproof tarp.

“They’re going to look at a long-term solution and get advice how to proceed,” Mulvihill said Tuesday as he outlined findings he submitted for review by state, local, county and federal agencies handling the incident.

Mulvihill said the federal Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Desert Research Institute of the University of Nevada, and the state Division of Environmental Protection are involved, along with the state Health Division. He said a final report could be made public in the coming days.

“The state of Nevada is responsible for this site,”

Mulvihill said. “We’re accepting responsibility for being good stewards over the long haul.”

No escaped radiation was detected by first responders, investigators or repair crews during several visits to the site, he added.

The dump opened in 1962 as the nation’s first federally licensed lowlevel solid radioactive waste repository for waste including contaminated tools, protective clothing, machine parts, medical items and laboratory supplies. It closed in 1992.

Records say the 40-acre property consists of 22 trenches up to 800 feet long and 50 feet deep.

The former site operator, US Ecology Inc., still operates a plant to treat, recycle and dispose of hazardous and nonhazardous waste on an adjacent 40 acres of

state property.

US Ecology spokesman David Crumrine said records showed the material in the trench that exploded was buried between 1969 and 1973.

Mulvihill said state Radiation Control Program officials are combing through 89 boxes of records relating to the site that have been retrieved from state archives.

Two former Nevada governors have expressed doubt that accurate records exist.

Former Republican Gov. Robert List remembered ordering the Beatty lowlevel waste facility shut down in 1979 and launching a probe after a radioactive cargo fire on a truck parked on U.S. Highway 95 at the facility gate.

Three years earlier, employees were dismissed for stealing radioactive

building materials and tools for home use. Operations resumed in the early 1980s after assurances that rules would be enforced.

Former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, a Democrat who was Nevada governor from 1983 to 1989, said that during hearings about the site no one ever said any of the materials buried at Beatty had a potential to catch fire.

Mulvihill said this week that unusually heavy rains that washed out roads and damaged historic structures in nearby Death Valley National Park puddled and drained through cracks in the trench cover mound.

The water exploded when it contacted metallic sodium that had been buried in drums filled with oil.

The material was from a closed U.S. Bureau of Mines facility in Boulder City, east

of Las Vegas, he said.

More than 1 inch of rain was recorded at Beatty during an Oct. 4-5 storm, and more than 1.25 inch fell Oct. 15-19, said Barry Pierce, National Weather Service hydrology program manager in Las Vegas. The rain caused intense flooding in the hard-baked d e se r t wh e re ave ra ge rainfall for October is just 0.28 inches.

“The drums that the stuff was buried in 40 years ago corroded, the oil leaked out and water got in,” Mulvihill said. “That’s what caused the explosion.”

The fire marshal said tests confirmed that a fine white powder collected from around the blast crater was sodium hydroxide dust — one byproduct of the violent chemical reaction that also produces heat and hydrogen gas.

Friday, Dec. 4th • 6:00 pm

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