Hearing Postponed While Environmental Concerns Are Addressed

A plan to extend the main runway at the Warren County, NY airport has been put on hold while the FAA mulls an environmental assessment of the plan.

A hearing had been planned for January 8, but that hearing has now been indefinitely postponed, according to a report appearing in the Post Star newspaper. The county said in a notice of cancellation that it needed to "further review and modify the DEA (draft environmental assessment) and the proposed alternatives based on new information provided by NYS DEC.”

The main issue is the placement of an antenna near a "marl fen", a rare type of mineral-rich wetland that is also the headwater for Bond Creek. Jeff Tennyson, the county Public Works Superintendent, said that the issue was relatively minor, and that a new location for the antenna will be identified. "The extension is not so much the issue as the ancillary equipment that goes with it," he told the paper.

But others, including Queensbury, NY resident Travis Whitehead ... an engineer who is also opposed to the runway extension ... says that the issue may stop the project entirely. Whitehead told the paper that he thinks that when the FAA was frustrated with county officials not being entirely forthcoming about the environmental issues raised by opponents of the project.

The county has been working on a 1,000-foot extension of the runway for more than 10 years. The project is estimated to cost about $8 million.

FMI: www.warrencountyny.gov/gov/bos.php, www.faa.gov