Airport in Caribou gets new equipment

CARIBOU – The city has received a $170,000 grant to purchase snow removal equipment for the Caribou Municipal Airport.

The city plans to purchase a payloader that will be equipped with a snowblower, an earth-moving bucket and a quick-hitch snowplow assembly.

The equipment, according to City Manager Steven Buck, cannot be used on city streets. The airport does not have a facility to house the equipment so it will be kept at the Caribou Public Works garage.

Approval of the funds from the U.S. Department of Transportation was announced last week by Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. The funds were part of the DOT’s $2.6 million in projects announced in Maine.

“This federal funding will help fulfill the transportation needs [of the city],” the senators said in a joint statement. “It will allow the city of

Caribou to better handle harsh winter conditions.”

Buck said the machinery can get from the city garage to the airport without traveling on city roads. He said the city will be working on a grant application to get money to construct a facility to house the equipment at the airport.

The money comes from the Airport Improvement Funding Program for capital improvements at airports.

The city owns the 220-acre airport, located half a mile from the business center. It was constructed in the 1930s and now has two asphalt airstrips. One is 4,000 feet long and 100 feet wide and the other is 3,000 feet long and 75 feet wide.

The airport is designated as an Airport of Entry by U.S. Customs because of its proximity to the Canadian border.

The city constructed a 7,000-square-foot hangar in 2000. The facility is open during daylight hours and by appointment after dark.

One of the services housed there is an aircraft used for air ambulance service from Aroostook County hospitals to medical facilities in southern Maine and Boston.