Dogs Prompt Partial Fencing Project at Lake Chelan Airport
Dogs from neighboring orchards are obstructing landings and takeoffs at Lake Chelan Airport, prompting the city of Chelan to plan about $152,000 in partial fencing as a barrier to “man’s best friend.”
“We’ve had several near misses this summer,” said city administrator Laura McAloon at the Sept. 22 City Council meeting. “Unfortunately, some (pilots) aborted flight takeoffs as a result of animals running onto the runway from the orchards.”
Lake Chelan Airport, 32 Kelly Lane, is bordered by orchards on both sides of the runway, according to McAloon. McAloon said she did not know the exact number of businesses or owners operating in the orchards. The four-legged trespassers have been the source of multiple Notices to Airmen, or NOTAMs, issued by Lake Chelan Airport personnel.
The Federal Aviation Administration defines a NOTAM as “a notice containing information essential to personnel concerned with flight operations but not known far enough in advance to be publicized by other means. It states the abnormal status of a component of the National Airspace System.”
The fencing will not extend the entire length of the runway, but will be installed “in the areas where we are seeing the most frequent animal activity, creating a barrier so we can have safe takeoffs and landings,” McAloon said. Dogs are primarily chasing the planes during takeoff, McAloon wrote in an email.
“Animal control is a significant issue (for airports),” said McAloon. “Maintaining a fence around the entire perimeter of an airport, that’s common. Chelan does not have that. It’s probably a long time out in the future before that would be something we would move to.”
Chelan City Council approved an updated Capital Improvements Plan, or CIP, for the airport at its Sept. 22 meeting. The plan includes the roughly $152,000 partial fencing project.
The fencing project, including design and construction, is slated for completion in 2027, with an estimated $137,000 to be funded by the FAA.
The Capital Improvements Plan tracks the timeline and anticipated funding needs for airport improvement projects over six years. Any project the city wants to fund with FAA money must be listed on the airport’s CIP ledger.
The updated CIP also moved up the timeline for repairs to the airport’s Automated Weather Observing System, or AWOS, which McAloon said had “deficiencies.” AWOS reports real-time weather conditions, such as visibility and wind speed, at an airport, according to SKYbrary, an electronic repository for aviation safety data.
“We’ve had situations this summer where it said it was clear as a bell here and obviously we had limited visibility at the airport due to smoke,” said McAloon.
In the 2026 CIP, the project was scheduled for 2029. Due to safety concerns flagged by pilots over the summer, design and bidding for improvements to the system will start in 2028.
The CIP estimates the 2028 work will cost about $333,000 and anticipates $300,000 from the FAA for the design and bidding portion. Construction for the system improvements is earmarked for 2030, with an estimated cost of roughly $666,000. The FAA is expected to provide almost $500,000 for construction.
Lake Chelan Airport is a public-use airport with one runway. The airport covers about 78 acres and is owned by the city and the Chelan Douglas County Regional Port Authority.
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