Law grounds new NC airport notion for now

By Gregory Childress

CHAPEL HILL -- With the stroke of her pen last week, Gov. Bev Perdue ended any lingering chance that a new airport might be built in southwestern Orange County.

Perdue signed into law a bill that, among other things, rescinded legislation that would have allowed the UNC Board of Governors to establish an airport authority empowered to build a replacement for Horace Williams Airport when it closes.

The measure, Senate Bill 593, eliminates "certain state boards and commissions that have not met recently, are duplicative or are not deemed critical."

State Reps. Verla Insko and Joe Hackney and state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird requested that the UNC airport authority legislation, which was signed into law in 2008, be added to the bill.

The 2008 law gave the Board of Governors the authority to establish an airport authority empowered to identify a site within Orange County, take land by eminent domain and oversee construction of an airport.

Orange County residents protested plans to build a new airport, contending that such a facility would negatively impact residents, that the process for creating the enabling legislation was flawed and the cost of building a new airport was too high.

"The repeal of the airport authority legislation gives us all a cause to rejoice and thank our legislators for listening to us," Cliff Leath, an Orange County resident and Preserve Rural Orange board member, said in a news release. "It also reminds us that people working together for the common good can and do make a difference."

A spokesman for UNC said the university did not oppose SB 593.

In fact, in January 2009, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp asked the Board of Governors not to create an airport authority to identify a replacement site for Horace Williams.

That reversed his earlier staunch support for such an authority.

"I'm convinced that we really do have to close the airport to make Carolina North all that it must be. I'm equally convinced that we should fully support the airport authority authorized by the General Assembly as the best way to pursue creation of an airport in Orange County," Thorp said in a Nov. 19, 2008, blog. "For AHEC (Area Health Education Centers) and MedAir, I think a move to RDU for the short-term is workable. But for the long-term, we owe it to our doctors to appoint the airport authority to see if there's a better alternative."

Tom Schopler, also an Orange County resident and board member of Preserve Rural Orange, a grassroots environmental group, said Thorp's action was reassuring, but that the legislation gives residents peace of mind.

"Some future chancellor could have made a different decision and some other Board of Governors could have created an airport authority," Schopler said. "This legislation allows neighbors to rest easier."

The UNC Medical Air Operation, which operates out of Horace Williams, is scheduled to move to a new hangar at RDU International Airport later this month.

Med Air, as the operation is called, flies doctors and other health professionals associated with UNC-based AHEC across the state to visit clinics and to conduct educational programs.

The service makes it possible for faculty to reach very remote sites in the state on a daily basis while maintaining a full slate of professional activities.

Officials have said the move won't impact general aviation operations at Horace Williams immediately.

The airport will remain open until the Carolina North research campus project, stalled due to the current economic doldrums, gets under way.