Business View Magazine | October 2019

174 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 belongs, on a separate ramp with the East Hill Flying Club, we had to move the fuel farm. The fuel farm has been there for many years; the Airport grew up around it. But, it wasn’t a good situation. We had a mixture of student aircraft and trucks all converging at the same spot. So, with the help of the State of New York again, we are moving the fuel farm to a remote corner of the Airport, where there won’t be the conflict between delivery vehicles and airplanes - particularly airplanes with students in them.” In other news, Hall reports that the Airport is working on several alternative energy initiatives. It has taken the terminal off of the natural gas hookup and replaced it with ground-source heat pump heating and cooling. The Airport is also going to be putting up solar panel carport covers in the terminal’s parking lot. “We get a lot of snow here, so it’s nice to have cars in a certain part of the parking lot that’s covered,” Hall says. “We chose to cover a certain number of parking spots at the Airport, both practically and symbolically, with solar panels.” Finally, Hall says that ITH is aiming to be a completely solar-powered facility in the future. “It happens that there’s a power plant not far from the Airport that burned coal,” Hall remarks. “That, of course, is not an economic alternative, now; coal plants are headed out. This plant intends to repurpose itself as a data center and cloud storage site, and that’s a facility that needs a lot of power coming into it, instead of going out of it. They have a lot of surrounding land that they’re going to turn into a large solar field, and we’re trying to arrange with them to feed a circuit at the Airport, which would allow us to be powered by renewable energy. It’s an important, visible leadership step on the part of the Airport, and it’s certainly important to our future. If done properly, it will have a significant impact on the economy and the environment.” PREFERRED VENDOR n Schuler-Haas Electric Corp. www.schuler-haas.com Schuler-Haas Electric Corp. Greatly appreciates being a part of the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport Expansion. The company has been part of the Ithaca construction market for over twenty years and we value our relationship with our local suppliers, employees and the surrounding communities. Schuler-Haas will continue to be a contractor who places jobsite safety as our number one priority on all our jobsites. We remain committed to the continued success of Ithaca and the surrounding area.