Business View Magazine | March 2020

219 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 $1.5 million security project - upgrading access control with cameras. And we just finished a solar project – we have solar panels installed on one of our larger parking garages. That was about a $3.8 million project; it decreases our electric bill by about $50,000 a year. It’s actually the largest solar array in the State of West Virginia. “Coming up in the next three years is a major runway rehabilitation – that’s going to be a $25 million project phased in over three years. The runway hasn’t been rehabbed since 2003, so it’s past time. It’s going to be some real rehab, not just an overlay of asphalt. There’ll be some new runway centerline lights, and new edge lighting, all going to LED. “We just finished up our Master Plan and the long-term goal is to do a standard safety area project for the runway. Currently, within the confines of the Airport, we do not have standard runway safety areas; we have a 500-foot threshold on Runway 5/23, and then we have an EMAS (Engineered Materials Arrestor System) bed on 5. The EMAS bed is about 300 feet long, but the width is only about 200 feet. A standard runway safety area is 1,000 by 500 feet. Given our terrain, we have heavily advocated for the FAA to pay for standard safety areas. And the way we’d do that is go off the end of Runway 23 and do a dirt fill - about 20 million cubic yards of dirt - into this valley that we own, from a county park adjacent to the Airport. So, we would have the runway safety area project, and the FAA has agreed to allow us to have a 7,000-foot runway from its current 6,715, plus the safety areas. But, in addition to that, we’re actually advocating for a runway extension to go to 8,000 feet, plus the runway safety areas. “One of the good things about filling the valley in is that part of the area that we take dirt from would come down. So, we would actually get the ability to have another ramp at the end of Runway 23 that can be 50-100 acres for future use – hangars, an industrial park, whatever we YEAGER A I RPORT