Mesquite Airport Closed For Runway Resurfacing

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The skies above Mesquite have been relatively quiet over the past couple of months. That is because, except for Mercy Air emergency response helicopters coming and going, the Mesquite Airport has been completely closed to all air traffic.

Since September 7, the airport has been under construction. The mile-long runway, and its four approaches, are getting a full resurfacing upgrade. The project contractor, Trade West Construction, has been working furiously for two months in removing the old asphalt, performing some dirtwork to the base layer, and repaving the runway surface to get the airport back up and running as quickly as possible.

In an interview last week with The Progress, Mesquite Public Works Director Travis Anderson said that the project is pretty much on schedule. It is expected to be completed by around December 6.

Anderson explained that this is the first time since the airport was built back in 1991-1992 that a full resurfacing has been done to the runway.
“It has been thirty years now and, you know, asphalt deteriorates over time and gets cracks and that,” Anderson said. “So it was definitely due for a facelift.”

Of course, at a mile long and about 75 feet wide, it is a lot of asphalt to put down at once. The low bid on the project, which was Trade West, came in at more than $3.8 million. Fortunately, the whole tab for the project is being picked up by a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Anderson said.

“This whole project is being reimbursed to us through the FAA,” Anderson said. “We had to go through an extensive grant system and they will be picking up 100 percent of this work. So it is a great thing for the city of Mesquite.”

Of course, the FAA also has some fairly finicky requirements about how the job is done. There are strict specifications that must be followed regarding no less than eight inches of base material beneath the asphalt. The asphalt surface must be four inches thick, poured in two different 2-inch layers, Anderson explained.

The contractor is also required to pave the entire strip in full-length runs north to south, without any perpendicular seams across the runway, Anderson said. Special treatment must also be done to smooth out those long, length-wise seams and prevent cracking and lifting over time.

In addition, the project also included the job of lifting the southern end of the runway by about 13 inches. This will reduce the overall slope of the runway, Anderson said.

Currently, there is a slight downhill slope from north to south at a little more than 2 percent, Anderson explained. That causes regulatory problems for some types of aircraft to be able to take off and land at the airport.

“The regulations for some of the corporate-style jets are such that if your runway is steeper than a 2 percent grade, they won’t land on it,” Anderson said. “We were just barely over that; like less than 2.1 percent. But the regulation is what it is. So in this project, we have brought it to be just barely under a 2 percent grade.”

Also included in the project was the installation of all-new LED runway lights. “That might help us just a little on cost savings for power,” Anderson said.

Even though the entire project is grant-funded, there was still a moderate cost to the city in lost airport revenues. The land leases on hangars and ground storage space at the airport bring in around $15,000-20,000 per year to the city. But even more significant, from a fiscal standpoint, is lost fuel sales. These can bring in more than $250,000 each year to the city.

“We are losing three of our prime months during the fall, so that is significant,” Anderson said. “And it does hurt some of those businesses up there that are our tenants and are basically grounded during this project.”

Anderson added that the city had looked at possibly doing the project during the summer months when there is less visitor traffic to the area through the airport. The trouble with that is that the Bureau of Land Management has a fire station base at the airport for fighting wildfires in western mountain ranges. Summer is their busy season. Over the past summer, there were six airplanes and two helicopters flying in and out of the airport keeping the fueling stations busy all throughout the day.

“During their fire season, they are a huge fuel buyer,” Anderson said. “We get about 60 percent of all our fuel sales in that three month time of the summer. So we didn’t want to shut it down during those months, even though it would have been less impactful to the everyday tenants of the airport.”

The contractors anticipate being completely finished with the paving portion of the job this week. Unfortunately, there is a significant time horizon required before the runway can be put back into use.
“The FAA requires that the asphalt sit for 30 days after paving before the stripes can be painted onto it,” said Anderson. “So now we just wait for the thirty days.”

Meanwhile the contractor will install electrical wiring, finish putting in the edge lighting and do some dirt work to dress up the shoulders of the runway.
“Then after the thirty days they will do the striping and it will be good to go again,” Anderson said.