BIDDEFORD — At their last meeting on Feb. 4, Biddeford City Council members raised concerns about several projects listed on the Maine Department of Transportation’s three-year work plan for the Biddeford Municipal Airport.
Councilors said they hadn’t approved any projects, and questioned why they were on the DOT list.
According to an MDOT spokesman, no projects at the airport will go forward without city approval.
There is no connection between the projects and the recently established airport commission.
“The items for the Biddeford Airport that appear in the work plan are projects that have appeared there for several years,” wrote Stacie Haskell, MDOT’s Aviation Program planning and programming manager.
“The reason they keep showing up is because the airport has not yet moved forward with any projects,” Haskell said in an email to the city’s Planning Engineer Jennie Franceschi.
Projects in the work plan are selected during an annual meeting between the Federal Aviation Administration, MDOT and the Biddeford airport manager, wrote MDOT Aviation Manager Scott Rollins in an email to the Journal Tribune.
The projects include: installing a security access gate, estimated at $154,000; installing fencing estimated at $288,400; acquiring an easement for obstruction removal estimated at $154,500; and removing obstructions on the runway 6 end of the airport for $309,000.
“The projects selected for Biddeford are all safety projects as required by FAA, such as removing obstructions. No other non-safety projects can be done until all safety issues are addressed,” stated Rollins.
Biddeford’s former Airport Manager Tom Bryand, who was at the last meeting with the FAA and MDOT representatives in April, said the four items in the work plan are listed in the airport master plan, and that the work is needed to fix deficiencies at the airport.
However, he said, no work can proceed without city council approval.
Even with that approval, said Bryand, there would be a lengthy process to secure other necessary approvals before any work at the airport could be scheduled.
Without council approval, stated Rollins, “the projects will not move forward, like they have not moved forward for years, and will keep moving out in time.
“Biddeford has not moved forward with a project in a while,” he wrote.
As a consequence, for several years the city has forfeited the annual $150,000 in entitlement funds from the FAA received by airports of its type.
If the city continues to put off safety projects, it will be in non-compliance with its obligation to the FAA that accompany federal grant funds. The FAA requires airports to be maintained to a certain safety standard. If these standards are not met, the federal administration could require the city to repay the grants.
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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