Owls Head airport may be growing> Some residents express unhappiness with being left out of facility planning

OWLS HEAD — The question of what Knox County Regional Airport will look like 20 years from now is putting some residents of neighboring towns at odds with their county government.

And Ed Sleeper, chairman of the Knox County commissioners and a part-time pilot who uses the airport, said he understands why he has become a lightning rod for many who oppose growth of the airport.

He describes himself as an unabashed booster of the facility, which he believes is a vital economic development tool for the region. The airport is also an important spoke in a transportation system that puts nearby Rockland at the hub of rail and high-speed ferry links, a plan that the state Department of Transportation is developing.

At the prompting of the Federal Aviation Administration, Knox County — which owns and operates the airport — is putting together a master plan that anticipates improvements and growth at the facility for the next 20 years. An engineering firm that specializes in aviation issues, Dufresne-Henry Inc. of Portland, was hired to draft the plan.

Sleeper said the fact that the plan coincides with some of the initiatives touted by DOT is just “a happy coincidence.” The last plan was completed in 1982. “It’s really overdue,” Sleeper said.

The county formed a 35-member planning advisory committee, made up of some who were known to oppose growth of the airport as well as those who are airport supporters, to work with Dufresne-Henry. The advisory group does not have veto power over the plan, but serves as a source of local sentiment, Sleeper explained.

The advisory committee met in August and December of last year with the consultants, and again in March and April of this year. Each of those afternoon meetings was followed by public meetings in the evening, at which neighbors of the airport expressed their concerns about further growth.

Criticism of the planning process and the plan — which is still not complete — has spilled over into county commissioner meetings, with two airport opponents challenging Sleeper last week. One of the opponents, Lee Schneller of South Thomaston, had some harsh words for Sleeper, saying he was not listening to her concerns and further accusing him of being “extremely biased.”

The other opponent at last week’s meeting, Debbie Chapman of St. George, sent a lengthy letter to Sleeper that asked questions about the planning process and the role of the public. Chapman wrote: “There is much residual unhappiness, anger, bitterness and frustration about the process” from the installation of the Instrument Landing System, or ILS, in 1996.

ILS is a system that helps pilots land in poor weather and under other conditions when they have no visual references.

That $4 million project included lengthening one of the runways by 500 feet, clearing trees and brush that had screened the airport from a road, and adding electronic equipment that can make it possible for a pilot to land in the fog that often shrouds the airport in the summer.

In the course of the project, the federal Environmental Protection Agency determined that 21 acres of wetlands were damaged, setting off a permitting battle.

Sleeper agrees with Chapman that much of the distrust of the current planning is the logical fallout from what he describes as the public relations nightmare of the ILS project. But he does not agree with a perception that Chapman offers in her letter, “that `political and business powers’ simply did what they wanted to do and didn’t care about what the `people’ thought or wanted.”

And Sleeper said he believes the nearly completed plan will call for prudent, incremental improvements, not fast-track development.

“We do need it bigger,” he said of the airport. “It’s inadequate now.”

Sleeper wants to see the airport become a “gateway to the midcoast,” and he envisions spruce trees planted near the terminal and a granite sign to give tourists and part-time residents, who account for many of the air travelers, the feeling they are indeed arriving in Maine.

From an average of one jet landing or departure a day, the airport is projected to see an average of three jets a day over the next 20 years, Sleeper said. Credit card lender MBNA accounts for nearly half of the jets that now take off or arrive at the airport. To offset that, MBNA pledged a gift of $100,000 each year to the airport so long as the company operates here. This year’s gift was used to pay for evergreen screening along two roads that border the airport.

This week, a jet from Mexico was at the airport, Sleeper said, apparently here on a business deal. But far more jet traffic is generated by those who own second or third homes on nearby islands or along the Knox County coast. Sleeper said he flies many of these people to the islands when he works for Telford Aviation, one of two airlines that operates from the airport.

“They drop a lot of money here,” he said. On average, each time a jet lands, it generates about $2,000 for the local economy, he said. Over the next two decades, total landings and takeoffs are projected to grow by 20 percent to 30 percent, Sleeper said.

A trend in the aviation industry is people buying “time shares” in jets, which makes it increasingly affordable for, say, a stockbroker in New York to fly to the family summer home in Maine on a Friday afternoon.

Among the many questions Chapman raises in her letter to Sleeper, one that he feels is especially relevant is her call for a simple summary of what is planned for the airport. The plan so far is a document about 4 inches thick, full of technical data. Sleeper agrees that an easy-to-digest list ought to be part of the final draft, which is due next month.

A working list of improvements includes constructing a terminal building to replace the current double-wide manufactured home, extending a taxiway, constructing a 10-unit hangar, clearing tree obstructions, filling storm water detention areas, grading a runway, reconstructing an access road, negotiating easements with neighbors, buying a snow blower and plow truck and repaving a runway.

Sleeper stresses that the list does not mean each project — for which FAA funding would be sought — is a done deal. Extending the taxiway, which runs parallel to the runway and allows planes to easily prepare for takeoff, is probably not essential, he said, and should be cut from the plan.

The plan calls for an additional 220 parking spaces, but Sleeper believes 60 make more sense. Grading of an area at the end of a runway is for safety, he said, so that if a plane fails to stop it rolls onto a flat surface. Filling of the storm-water retention ponds has been given a green light by the EPA because the ponds rarely hold water, he said. Sleeper also believes private enterprise should fill the need for a new hangar, not public funds.

Some opponents of the airport resist any of the building improvements, Sleeper believes, because they fear anything that makes the airport more receptive to more planes and people, causing more more noise and traffic. But he argues that the airport serves a growing area and cannot remain static.

Sleeper praised Chapman’s call for distributing the draft plan over a wide area. He hopes to have copies available in town offices and libraries around the county in early June, then plans public meetings in Camden, Rockland and Owls Head over the summer months. In addition, he hopes to send out a letter to county residents explaining the plan.