OC decides to shorten airport runway, not expand

(Feb. 26, 2010) After 10 years of planning, talk of expansion and tens of thousands of dollars spent studying different ways to create a longer runway at the Ocean City municipal airport, city government has decided to do the opposite.

Instead of being longer, the runway will be shorter.

Buckling under political pressure against land acquisition and having agreed to work within the confines of airport land the city already owns, the Ocean City Council opted to cut 120 feet off the length of the main runway to meet new safety standards.

Ending up with a runway shorter than what’s currently there will still cost $11.9 million, but that might be a bargain as compared to the negative publicity that would ensue if the council had to buy neighboring properties in order for the expansion to occur.

“We’re just not able to meet the benchmark of a 5,000-foot runway,” Mayor Rick Meehan said. “Under the current eco- nomic conditions, the council decided that’s just not an attainable goal at this time.”

The latest chapter of the decades old airport saga began in 2000, when the council formed a task force to recommend how to improve the West Ocean City facility. In 2001, the group determined there should be at least one runway of 5,000 feet so planes using the airport could come in at maximum capacity.

The main runway running east to west is 4,070 feet long and the secondary north-south runway is 3,200 feet. In 2002, the city began looking at ways to expand those to meet the 5,000-foot recommendation.

After years of study, a recommendation was made to extend the main runway, but that would have involved acquiring land and moving a portion of county road Route 611 to the west to make space for the longer runway.

“In conversations with the Worcester County Commissioners, they made it clear they didn’t support any options that would go outside the current footprint of the airport,” Meehan said.

Airport neighbors and some residents of Ocean City also were less than enthusiastic, since it had been promised years earlier that the airport would not expand. In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers ruled that the runway’s alignment would harm the wetlands environment.

That plan was shelved amid the political outcry, and in 2008 a second study began to search for other ways to meet the 5,000-foot length without altering any roads or requiring any property purchases. This proved an impossible task.

“We pretty much had to work within the lands we already own,” Public Works Director Hal Adkins said. “With the ultimate goal of obtaining a 5,000-foot runway, only one of the alternatives was able to achieve that because of the limits placed on us.”

The new study examined 13 runway options, some simply extensions of the existing two runways and others completely new runways. That list was narrowed to six alternatives, and on Tuesday the council announced its decision.

The chosen alternative, known as option 9B, would see the west end of the main runway extended by 30 feet. Adkins said that distance was chosen because any further extension would force the city to acquire lands to the west.

Besides that extension, however, 150 feet has to be cut off the eastern end of the runway, leading to an overall shortening of 120 feet. The buffer zone past the eastern end no longer meets the current safety requirement of the Federal Aviation Administration, and the FAA would not fund its 95 percent share of the work unless that was brought up to code.

“The FAA will therefore fund the reconstruction of both runways, which are in a severe state of decay,” Adkins said.

A similar option that would have extended the runway 480 feet to the west — the maximum distance without affecting Route 611 — would have increased the overall length to 4,400 feet, close to the target length. But the council dismissed that option because it involved the acquisition of three properties.

“We didn’t want to get into land acquisition. Those families have owned those properties for years. It would be too disruptive, so we decided against that,” Councilman Jim Hall said. “A shorter runway goes against general logic, but it’s really the best way to go.”

Adkins is scheduled to present the various runway options considered and the decision the city made during the council meeting March 1. Once the council formally votes on its choice that night, the next step is for a site plan to be drawn, then an environmental study will be started to determine any impact.

That should take around 12 months to complete, Adkins said. In the meantime, he said work to rebuild the secondary runway can begin right away.