The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Marc Jackson Snow Lake Writer Talk in Snow Lake has once again begun to focus around the community's airport, its location and the practicality of bringing the current site into the 21st century _ or scrapping it and building a new one in a more appropriate and advantageous area. In this vein, the town has put together an Airport Advisory Committee and hired professional services firm Genivar to do a study on the airport issue. The Advisory Committee is made up of Mayor Clarence Fisher; Coun. Dave Mayer; Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Precourt; project manager Viktar Lazar; public works foreman Peter Roberts; economic development officer MaryAnn Mihychuk; Community Futures Greenstone; Northern Regional Health; Gogal Air Service; QMX Minerals; Hudbay; and former Thompson airport employee Jack Burden. Their mandate is 'not to make decisions about the airport as it stands,' says Mayor Fisher, 'but to look at any revisions in planning and help the consultant to come up with a long term plan for the airport, wherever it is located.' Fisher feels an airport can be a primary economic driver of the community and he believes our airport has been underfunded, is in poor shape and everything from infrastructure to development needs to be looked at. The process has begun and with representatives of Genivar in attendance, the Advisory Committee held its initial meeting on the evening of Aug. 28. 'There are no numbers yet,' said the rookie mayor with respect to the costs of bringing the current airport up to standards. 'But basically they (Genivar) looked atÉ the advantages of (our) airport nowÉ things that need to be fixedÉ and what a site plan might look like.' Mayor Fisher says the meeting was a launch point that gave everyone a preliminary overview of the study's parameters and provided a larger discussion of other issues surrounding the airport. Dialogue He pointed out that the group also had an extensive dialogue about the location of the airfield. With respect to the discussion that focused on moving the airport, Fisher says there is a spot that is being looked at. While the airport is currently close to 17 km from town, the mayor says the region that is being suggested is 10 km from Snow Lake. He notes that although there isn't yet a firm cost, the price of a move could be substantial. 'So is it worth $5-7 million to locate the airport seven km closer?' Mayor Fisher asks rhetorically. 'I don't know, but it is something that needs to be looked at.' Fisher says that at present, numbers are just being pulled out of the air, but decision-makers need to know how much it will cost to develop a new strip up to the stage where the current one sits. There appears to be plenty of things that the town would like to do at the airport. The mayor acknowledges they'd like to put in electricity and lights as well as see people build hangars. 'But that's money that hasn't been spent yet,' he says. 'So really that money could be spent at a new location, just as easily as it could be spent at the current location.' The rough estimate to run hydro to the current strip is pegged at $380,000, and the mayor says the town crew often end up plowing the Osborne Lake road when they go out to plow the airport. Conversely, the new area being proposed is the soon-to-be abandoned highway along Anderson Lake. This expanse, according to Larry Gogal, the person who suggested it, is eight km (not 10 km) from town and has hydro and a provincially managed road close by. Gogal says he has maintained for years that the airport should never have been placed where it is and he has long held concerns with the positioning of the current airstrip. See 'A...' pg. 10 Continued form Pg. 9 'It is running southwesterly and the prevailing winds are northwesterly,' said the veteran pilot. 'So you have a 90-degree crosswind much of the time. Most airports have their strips heading in a north/northwesterly direction and this one is the opposite.' He adds that the air service and their pilots can handle this; however, it is just wrong _ the new area being proposed is running in the proper direction, northerly. Gogal also believes the town would have an excellent opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by moving the airport to an area, closer to town, where they could in turn develop commercial / industrial land. 'Look at Winkler. They have industrial businesses set up all around their airport,' Gogal reasoned. 'We could do the same here.' He says that rather than plopping industrial lots down in the bush all over the place, lots could straddle the airstrip and power and roads wouldn't be an issue. 'They could probably pay for a good part of the airport with the land sales,' he said. Gogal adds that the town could also do the same as every other airport in Manitoba, and lease land for hangars. It appears that some of what Gogal has brought up is garnering attention and those on the Advisory Committee appear to want to make sure the current spot is in fact the best location before any great amount of money is spent on upgrades. 'For a long time, people have talked about a study that had been done and that the current location was the best one for the airport,' said Mayor Fisher. 'Now we find out that there wasn't a full study done, there were just a variety of locations that were looked at and that's the one that came out of it. I brought it up at that meeting that if a study has never been done in the past then we owe it to people to say that we have at least looked at another potential spot.' Having said that, the current location requires maintenance, and officials from the town say they are concerned about the safety of the strip and keeping it at a standard where medevac flights will continue to come in. Soft spots As a result of several soft spots showing up on the strip last year, and one of a number of companies that provide medevac services refusing to land, the town did some minor re-graveling. But even if the decision were made to build a new airport, Snow Lake is still close to five years away from that, so the town feels any repairs done to the current airport are justified. This year the town will spend $193,000 plus PST to put down three inches of 5/8' crushed granite. The cost includes prep work, crushing, hauling and placing for an area approximately 1,250 metres by 40 metres. Gogal feels this is overkill and they could get by with much less until a decision on airport placement is made, but regardless the expenditure will go ahead. Although, there are many unknowns right now, it appears everyone involved is committed to finding the best location for the airport, prior to millions of dollars being spent. There will be a public consultation on the project. My Take on Snow Lake runs Fridays.
