M.I. Airport project could begin by December
- Safety project designed to shore up runway
- 31 airplanes have been damaged since 1988.
Merritt Island Airport could break ground by late this year on an estimated $4 million project to shore up safety at its runway.
"The earliest would be December," said Brian Russell, project manager for Michael Baker Jr. Inc., the firm consulting on the project.
Federal, state and local permits are pending, and the project still would have to be put out to bid.
The airport would remain open during the six-month project, Russell said, except for a few nights in the beginning and end of construction, when workers change the runway's pavement markings.
The 3,600-foot runway's length won't change, he said, but a grassy safety area at the end of the runway will become 180 feet longer. The eroding safety area is currently 60 feet, instead of 240 feet required by the Federal Aviation Administration, and it lacks shoreline protection. The work entails filling in 1.2 acres of the Newfound Harbor portion of the Indian River Lagoon system.
"There's nothing to stop it from eroding," Russell said of the current shoreline.
According to the airport's records, 31 airplanes have been damaged since 1988 because the runway safety area at the end of Runway29 is too short and doesn't meet FAA's design criteria. The most recent incident was an aircraft that wound up in the lagoon in November 2011.
The project includes installing concrete shoreline protection along the runway.
FAA will fund 90 percent of the project, and Florida Department of Transportation and the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority will each pay 5 percent.
To expand the safety area, the airport would fill 1.2 acres of Newfound Harbor, resulting in "permanent and temporary impacts to seagrass, salt marsh and mangrove habitats," according to an U.S. Army Corps of Engineers public notice.
To make up for those impacts, the airport authority proposes to discharge "clean dredge and fill material" into 1 acre of the Banana River to restore a dredged hole to the proper elevation for seagrass to grow.
They'll also try to save as much seagrass as possible.
"We're going to actually transplant the seagrass that is going to be impacted by the runway safety area," Russell said.
They also plan improvements to a mosquito impoundment, just south of the airport. Temporary impacts to almost two-thirds an acre of open water and wetlands would be required to install two culverts into a currently closed, off-site mosquito impoundment.
According to the corps, the plan includes establishing a .8 to 1-acre seagrass mitigation area next to the north shoreline of the airport and offsite enhancement of a 23.6-acre mosquito impoundment about 2.2 miles south of the airport, on the west shoreline of Newfound Harbor.
The corps determined the project "may affect, but is not likely to adversely affect the West Indian manatee, wood stork, Atlantic saltmarsh snake, eastern indigo snake, smalltooth sawfish, or swimming sea turtles or any designated critical habitat."
Before issuing the permit, the corps consults the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether the plans comply with the Endangered Species Act.
According to the corps notice, the only alternative with fewer environmental impacts would have required shifting the runway to the northwest. That would have resulted in about 190 additional days of interrupted operations at the airport, up to $990,000 in additional cost, and possibly removing nearby occupied homes and businesses.
"From an environmental standpoint, and from a financial standpoint, this was our best option," Russell said.