BLUEFIELD — Perimeter fencing designed to keep deer, bears and other wildlife off a local airport’s runway and help improve overall safety received more funding Monday in the form of a West Virginia Aeronautics Commission (WVAC) grant.

The $46,029 WVAC grant will be spent on erecting a three miles of 8-foot-tall chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire around the Mercer County Airport, Airport Manager Clint Ransom said in early October when a $828,528 FAA grant was announced. Gov. Jim Justice visited the airport Monday to announce the state’s share of the project’s funding.

“The Mercer County Airport is in reception of a grant for a little over $800,000 for a perimeter fencing project,” Ransom stated Monday. “What this will do is allow us to put a wildlife mitigation and security fence around the perimeter of the airport. Currently, the fence that we have covers less than half the perimeter of the airport and what we do have is in dire shape and needs to be replaced. Once we have this in place, it will allow us to move on to other projects around the airport such as building hangers and things like that.”

Another five percent of the project’s funding will be provided by the airport. Charlie Cole, president of the Mercer County Airport Authority, said the airport was raising its $46,000 share by allowing a company excavating the nearby King Coal Highway project to dump its excess fill on airport property about a mile from the runway.

Installing new fencing will make the county airport a safer environment. In the past, deer and other wildlife have wandered onto the runway.

“I’ve seen a bear out here,” Cole recalled. “I actually hit a turkey a few years ago.”

Cole said he didn’t know if the fence could stop turkeys, but it could deter other animals.

Local officials attending the grant presentation said the airport is a vital part of the county.

“It’s of great significance,” Mercer County Commission President Gene Buckner said. “It could be detrimental to our business community if it doesn’t stay in presentable shape.”

Justice, who said the state recently issued a proclamation for General Aviation Month, said helping airports finance improvements helps local economies as well as the state’s economy.

“I’ve said it over and over and over. Absolutely the lifeblood of our communities has to start with the airport,” Justice stated. “The airport gives us so many opportunities from the standpoint of people coming and going and everything, economic development and on and on.”

“What we want to accomplish is just as simple as this: At the end of the day if you can’t get to and from (there), you’re not likely to locate there. You’re not likely to put a business there. You’re absolutely not likely to go there. What we want to do is grow our state, and to grow our state in job opportunities, you’ve got to have good airports, so that’s what we’re trying to do.

Bringing commercial air service back to county airports is something that the state is looking at as well, he said.

“Absolutely. We’re really working at that all over the place,” Justice stated.

The state could get commercial flights to local airports is it can raise enough funding to guarantee air carriers “a certain occupancy on flights,” he said, adding, “and so as we build, that’s the kind of thing we’re looking to maybe be able to do.”

— Contact Greg Jordan at [email protected]

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