Runway takes wings

The Saratoga Airport Board, during their regularly scheduled meeting at 1 p.m. on May 9 at the Saratoga Town Hall, were informed that the runway rehabilitation was nearing completion. The board also discussed the logistics of selling the rotomillings from the project should the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approve the sale of the material.

In attendance at the meeting were two employees of Century Construction, Zach Heer and Kirk Haas, who informed the board they were nearing completion and believed they would have the airport back to the Town of Saratoga and able to be opened by Wednesday, May 16. One of the reasons for the delayed completion was Century needing to complete work at the airport in Casper.

“We actually started the project last August, right after the eclipse and this week the phase 2 closure was closing down both runways up there. They gave us 50 hours, 8 a.m. Saturday morning to 10 a.m. Monday morning, to have it done. It was originally supposed to be done last year in September. Due to weather and chances of rain, we ended up canceling it,” said Haas. “This winter we rescheduled in January for this past weekend. We were hoping we had it scheduled so these guys would be done down here and they’d move right up there, but with the weather they ran into down here when they started the project that obviously didn’t happen.”

Haas told the board that Century did not like pulling people off projects and apologized for the delay in the completion of the project.

“Another obstacle we’ve run into up there is with the fabric,” said Dave Schultz of Sage Civil Engineering. “It’s turned out that the fabric won’t stay down unless its allowed to cure for a number of hours.”

According to Schultz, this curing process is not mentioned in any of the literature pertaining to the fabric, which is laid down before resurfacing to mitigate the formation of thermal cracks. Richard Raymer, town council representative for the airport board, told Schultz, Heer and Haas that he didn’t have any complaint about the work being done or the minor delays.

“Well I can tell, from my own personal opinion and what I’ve seen out there, that you guys have been daylight to dark seven days a week. You’ve got no gripe from me,” said Raymer.

With updates on the rehabilitation project finished, the discussion moved to the rotomillings.

“We’ve been asking and left several messages and I sent an email to the FAA as to get some clarification on some logistics for getting rid of the piles (of rotomilling). For whatever reason, I’ve got replies on other things, just not that question,” Schultz said.

“The way I would like to see it from the town’s side of things is the town loader and operator will be the only authorized entity to go in there and load out the millings, if we are in fact able to do something with that. One (reason) being, load tracking. Two, just the flat out liability,” Raymer said.

In other business, board member Ellie Dana informed the other members of the board and those gathered that she was working on bringing in World War II planes from the Commemorative Air Force to Saratoga. According to Dana, she was looking at the third week in August as the time to bring in the aircraft.

With no other business to conduct, the board adjourned. The next scheduled meeting of the Saratoga Airport Board will be at 1 p.m. on June 13 at the Saratoga Town Hall.