Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part one, with part two set to appear in Sunday’s Tribune.
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GRANGEVILLE — Future growth and development of the Idaho County Airport is a cooperative project the City of Grangeville is being invited to participate in. Idaho County Commissioner Ted Lindsley approached the city council last week, “to start a conversation,” on mutually beneficial plans to improve and potentially expand the air facility, and asked the city to consider sale of 20 acres of municipal land to help facilitate that proposal.
No decision was made on the request at the Feb. 7 meeting, and councilors have been invited to attend county airport planning meetings for further information.
“At the current time, our airport is almost landlocked,” Lindsley said, hampered by Day Road to the west, elevation issues to the east, and housing development to the north. The county is currently involved in designing a new airport management plan, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration, which may impact operations because of new regulations for flight plane widths, for example, and include addition of security fencing and room for expansion. The deadline is in June for finalized plan submission.
As part of the airport plan, the county looks to purchase 20 acres from the city, located adjacent to the south, with the tentative plan to relocate Airport Road to the south and open more land adjacent to the airport for related development. These could include ancillary businesses, such as aircraft repair, and warehouses or a distribution center to support air transportation. Already part of the plan, the county is proposing to add a small terminal and/or pilot’s lounge, and Lindsley mentioned Forest Service has in its plans — though no funding is allocated at present — for developing a 27,000-square-foot jump center. As improvements are made in drone and aviation technology, Lindsley said this may open the facility to more air traffic in the future.
“The county has invested millions to ensure that air freight, firefighting support and medical flights can come and go with ease,” he said. The current facility has 22-based aircraft, and in 2021 almost 18,000 aircraft operations were flown out of the airport. The 20-acre purchase, he said, could allow for another 50- to 60-based aircraft, and increase flight operations.
Revenue from the land sale could be used by the city to expand water and sewer infrastructure to the airport for future development, Lindsley said. Overall, airport improvement would be a benefit in economic development for both the county and the city. Seeking the first option on a land sale now gets ahead of potential land development in that area, which once done could end any potential for airport expansion.
“I feel it would be a real travesty if this great asset of the community is not allowed to expand to meet the demands of the flying future,” Lindsley said.
— David Rauzi, Idaho County Free Press, (Grangeville), Wednesday
Largent testifies on EPA program
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Whitman County commissioner was among the experts testifying Tuesday on the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s brownfields program.
A so-called “brownfield” is a potentially contaminated, abandoned property.
The EPA’s program is set to expire next year, which prompted the hearing about its importance and ways to cleanup brownfields and attract potential buyers and developers to make the properties viable sources of property taxes and jobs.
Whitman County Commissioner Michael Largent spoke as a representative of the National Association of Counties.
His comments referenced the cities of Pullman and Palouse, and their need for grant funds.
“For the city of Palouse ... without the grant funding from the EPA for this brownfields remediation, one-sixth of that downtown would be unavailable for economic development,” he said “Without EPA money, the city of Pullman, Washington State University and the Port of Whitman would not be able to develop any particular project there.
Rural Whitman County doesn’t have a large number of brownfields, he said.
But cleanup and re-development of those that exist is important.
“I would say its impact is huge, he said.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, sits on the subcommittee.
She took Largent’s comments as an opportunity to ask if the county could afford assessing contamination and cleaning up brownfields.
“From a county’s perspective and for our small towns it’s a no, he said. “We would not be able to afford it. We struggle with paying our employees a livable wage.
“We don’t do new programs. We can’t pick up new initiatives. Without this money from the EPA it would not have happened.”
— Whitman County Gazette, (Colfax), Thursday
