QUIET END TO LONGTIME OC AIRPORT SAGA

(March 5, 2010) Decades of planning, hundreds of thousands of dollars and political wrangling ended this week, when Ocean City decided to shorten the main runway at the municipal airport instead of extending it.

The alternative chosen by the City Council with a 4-2 vote adds 30 feet to the west end of the main runway, but chops 150 feet off the east end to create a required 300-foot safety zone. The total length of the runway would decrease from 4,070 feet to 3,950 feet.

This runs counter to the airport master plan, which calls for a 5,000-foot runway. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of studies searching for ways to meet that goal were for naught, as the council abandoned that goal amid fears of the political backlash such an expansion would generate.

The airport saga goes as far back as 1958, when the city purchased two properties along Route 611, ostensibly to create a buffer zone at the western end of the main runway. Some felt the purchase was a prelude to the expansion of the airport, though at the time, city officials denied it.

From that time forward, city officials have given mixed signals about their intentions to expand the airport. In 1977, the city used Federal Aviation Administration funds to buy most of the land where the city- owned Eagle’s Landing Golf Course now sits, because at that time the city said it planned to expand the airport in that direction.

Decades later, the golf course was firmly entrenched and the city conceded it no longer planned to extend the airport into those lands. The FAA then requested that the city return the money used for the purchase.

The 1989 airport master plan called for growth at the airport to include the extension of both runways and the relocation of Route 611 to make space for the growth. A decade later, the city bought two properties and relocated more than 40 residents to create a buffer zone at the end of the runway, though Mayor Rick Meehan, council president at the time, publicly said the purchase was for safety reasons only and the city had no intention of expanding the airport.

But the expansion plan remained on the books and proposals to lengthen both runways by about 900 feet each continued to be developed. The plans were brought to the attention of the Worcester County Commissioners in 2006 and the commissioners strongly opposed the relocation of Route 611 but the big blow was a scathing response from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps had never been consulted on the plan, even though it was a major component of the process, and showed its anger when it declared bluntly that it would not issue a permit for the expansion because of its negative environmental impact. The council, subsequently, had to begin anew.

In addition, public opposition to the acquisition of more property by municipal government cast a long shadow over the prospect of expansion.

“There was an unwillingness to move forward with that plan,” Public Works Director Hal Adkins said Monday while giving a review of the new set of options during Monday’s Ocean City Council meeting.

The city then confined its new search for runway alternatives to the existing airport lands. Finding a way to create a 5,000-foot runway without buying any land or moving any nearby roads proved impossible.

“We pretty much boxed ourselves in with our goals and objectives,” Adkins said. “When you look at the reality of the one alternative that would have achieved a 5,000-foot runway, [the FAA] would not approve it unless two holes of the golf course were moved. That’s near impossible.”

Given the self-imposed constraints, the new set of runway options focused on minor changes to the existing main runway. Most of the options called for the runway to be shortened in order to meet new safety guidelines, since any extensions would affect neighboring lands and the city dismissed those.

This choice to shorten the runway instead of expanding it frustrated some on the council.

“The recommendation from the original task force was to extend the runway. In my opinion, to put 10 years in, and an unbelievable amount of money, only to go back and pick the do-nothing alternative is … It’s a mess,” Councilman Joe Hall said.

Councilwoman Margaret Pillas, who has long opposed expanding the airport, also was frustrated with the time and money spent by the city on various studies and plans over the years.

“I think we spent a lot of time and a lot of money getting nowhere,” she said.

Other city officials bowed to the political pressure against property acquisition and the costs and displacements associated with it, calling the choice to shorten the runway the only feasible alternative at this time.

“It’s evident the public did not support that alternative,” Meehan said of the initial expansion plan that would have required Route 611 to be moved. “We ran into an awful lot of resistance. This is not the perfect solution, but if we can get it moving, then it’s the right decision.”