New badges on way at Lewiston airport to improve security

The Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport is reissuing all badges that provide for access to restricted areas after discovering about 200 of 500 credentials couldn’t be located.

Existing badges will no longer be valid or be able to open gates at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 15. New ones will be issued at that time to those who have met established requirements, said Airport Board Chairman Gary Peters.

The step was “highly recommended” by the federal Transportation Security Administration and is intended to reduce the likelihood someone without authorization gains access to sensitive areas of the airport, Peters said.

A TSA spokeswoman declined to discuss what, if any, involvement her agency had in the airport’s decision to revoke old badges and issue new ones. However, TSA inspectors routinely conduct tests to make sure airports comply with badging requirements, according to a statement the agency issued in response to the Tribune’s inquiry.

“Airports are required to immediately deactivate any badge when they are notified it is unaccounted for and/or when they are notified that an employee no longer needs access to a restricted area,” according to the statement.

At the Lewiston airport, the issue surfaced not long after interim manager Clarence W. “Bill” McKown Jr. arrived in March. McKown noticed that badge holders weren’t receiving 60 minutes of mandatory training every two years on topics such as the right procedure to enter and exit secure areas in vehicles. He resumed that education and then coordinated an audit.

That review found instances where badges hadn’t been returned when pilots who had hangars at the airport moved or when employees of airport businesses took new jobs.

In some cases, credentials provided to employees of contractors working at the airport hadn’t been returned.

“It was decided the best and most optimal way to (fix the problem) was to conduct a re-badge,” Peters said.

The measure is costing about $20,000 for expenses such as new hardware and software.

As the airport issues new badges, officials are taking a variety of related steps to boost security. They are reviewing all the applications of those getting new badges to be sure their information is current and they meet all requirements.

They also expect to issue a much smaller number of badges, about 300, instead of 500. For example, a pilot who stores her airplane at the Lewiston airport would still get a badge, but her spouse and children might not. They would still be allowed to be in secure areas of the airport, but the pilot would act as their escort.

Businesses with operations in restricted parts of the airport are being encouraged to evaluate if some of their employees could be escorted when they are on the premises instead of having badges.

And the appearances of the badges will be changed much more frequently, something TSA encourages to make them harder to counterfeit.

“The look of the badge has remained the same for (about 10 years),” Peters said. “TSA likes you to mix up the aesthetics.”

Upgrading security is part of a broader effort by the airport to attract a permanent airport manager.

That new executive will be expected to help retain the airport’s existing commercial airline, SkyWest, and its Salt Lake City flights and recruit new carriers. The airport lost Seattle and Boise flights when Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air withdrew about a year ago.

That was just one of the challenges the airport has faced and is trying to remedy. McKown oversaw an effort to fix a lengthy list of deficiencies the Federal Aviation Administration identified earlier this year.

Airport officials have successfully lobbied the facility’s owners, the city of Lewiston and Nez Perce County, for hundreds of thousands of dollars for infrastructure upgrades.

The money will pay for projects such as an expansion of the waiting area for passengers after they have gone through security so it has room to handle travelers on two flights at once.

“We don’t want to be barely getting by,” Peters said. “We want to be the best.”

———

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.