The city of Lewiston will be getting $119,004 in the upcoming fiscal year for the firefighting services it provides the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport.
An agreement, including the new fee, was approved Wednesday by the airport’s authority board, which had been discussing the issue for more than a year.
The city previously had provided the coverage for free, but sought compensation when the airport changed where it keeps its firetruck.
The truck is now stored in an airport building with other airport equipment, instead of at a Lewiston fire station that covers a large share of the Orchards. The airport building and the fire station are more than 2 miles apart.
The place where the airport houses its firetruck shifted because the airport bought a new truck to replace one that was more than 20 years old and it was too big to fit in the Lewiston fire station.
One firefighter has to staff the airport truck 15 minutes before and after any flight with 30 passengers or more to meet Federal Aviation Administration requirements.
The firefighter handling that responsibility is unavailable for other duties, such as responding to fires and medical emergencies.
While the agreement passed, more than one airport board member raised questions. Chris Hays wondered about a provision requiring charter times not be changed less than two hours before arrivals or departures.
“We don’t have control over that,” said Hays, who was an airport manager at one time. “They do change quite frequently.”
The two-hour notification will prevent situations where the firefighter on duty with the required specialized airport training isn’t on another call when planes land, said Lewiston Fire Chief Travis Myklebust.
One possibility would be for the airport to have some of its staff trained as firefighters to supplement what the city offers, said Board Chairman Gary Peters.
“I know there’s a better solution if we all keep talking about it,” he said.
Hays was also concerned by a provision he believed could be interpreted as specifying the city do all repairs on the firetruck.
That could be a problem partly because that might not meet requirements in the new truck’s warranty, he said.
The payment to Lewiston was part of the airport budget for the fiscal year that starts Tuesday, which the board passed at the meeting.
The airport expects to spend $1.14 million on operations and $7.94 million on capital projects. The most expensive infrastructure upgrade is a $7.2 million reconstruction of one of the airport’s two runways, which is expected to begin in the spring. The FAA is covering about 90 percent of the cost for the work on the older and shorter of the airport’s two runways.
The budget includes a number of other improvements, such as $100,000 in security enhancements and $200,000 for an expansion of the waiting area for passengers after they have cleared security.
Right now, the main floor waiting area can serve only one flight at a time because it can hold only about 60 people.
The board is looking at installing stairs, an elevator or both to connect the existing waiting area to the space just above it on the second floor. That area used to be a restaurant.
That initiative is part of the airport’s plan to replace the service it lost when Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air ended its Boise and Seattle flights. That withdrawal left Lewiston with a single carrier, SkyWest, which goes to Salt Lake City.
“We’ve got to get on this project and we’ve got to get on it quick,” Peters said.
Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2261.
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