Money Will Cover Costs Incurred In Legal Challenges

Officials with Tweed New Haven Regional Airport (HVN) in Connecticut are trying to move forward with a renovation project, which includes federally-mandated runway safety zones. But the airport is $235,000 dollars in debt, largely due to legal challenges to the airport's runway expansion by the adjacent town of East Haven.

The Yale Daily News reports the FAA has now stepped in with a $400,000 grant to cover 95 percent of the airport's legal costs associated with the dispute. Some in East Haven have pointed to the grant as evidence the FAA is putting expansion ahead of local concerns.

Tweed New Haven Regional straddles the towns of New Haven and East Haven. The airport is owned by New Haven; the mandated runway safety zones extend onto airport-owned land which lies within the boundaries of East Haven.

The FAA grant doesn't end the dispute. In April, East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon submitted a cease-and-desist order to delay construction.

"I think it's the same message that New Haven and the Airport Authority have been sending the whole time, which is that they’re going to make every effort to plow through East Haven regardless of what our citizens and taxpayers think," she said.

Tweed officials responded with a federal lawsuit. A decision is expected next month.

The premise of the legal challenge to the airport's renovation is environmental. Tweed has been issued a permit from Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection to expand into East Haven.

Meanwhile, airport officials say they're moving forward with plans to spur growth at HVN. Tim Larson, the airport’s executive director, told the New Haven Board of Aldermen Finance Committee last week the airport is "very, very aggressively trying to generate new sources of revenue."

Tweed is an active general aviation field which is also served by 10 US Airways Express flights each day, all going to Philadelphia. Its longest runway, oriented 2/20, is 5,600 feet long.

FMI: www.flytweed.com, www.faa.gov