Vale airport dropped from funding matrix
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:27 PM PDT
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| LARRY MEYER | Argus Observer
The Vale Airport (seen here) has been dropped from further consideration for funding under the ConnectOregon program. City and airport officials have been trying to find funds to pave the runway and had sought $800,000 from the program.
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Larry Meyer Argus Observer
ONTARIO
The Vale airport runway paving project will not make it to the final decision round for ConnectOregon program funding, but three other projects in Malheur County are still in the running for money.
The Oregon Transportation Commission will decide which projects will be funded at a meeting July 19. Eleven other projects from the Oregon Department of Transportation's Region 5 - which consists of eight Eastern and Central Oregon counties - are under review for possible funding through the ConnectOregon program.
The Vale airport is one of three projects from Region 5 not recommended for funding by the ConnectOregon Consensus Committee, which made the final recommendations on project funding to the Oregon Transportation Commission. The committee reviewed the projects for about a month.
The Transportation Commission will hold a hearing Thursday in Boardman on the recommendations from every region during its regular monthly meeting. Harney County Judge Steve Grasty, chair of the Southeast Area Commission on Transportation, will represent the local area at the hearing. The hearing is expected to be packed, he said. Grasty reviewed the final recommendations during a meeting of the Southeast Area Commission on Transportation Monday in Ontario, representing Malheur, Grant and Harney counties.
Malheur County projects still on the list to be submitted are the Ontario Airport Runway extension, with a recommended funding level of $1.04 million; Treasure Valley Renewable Resources for construction of grain storage and loading and unloading rail and truck facility, with recommended funding of $1.5 million; and Oregon Eastern Railroad for construction of a mainline siding at the TVRR plant site, with recommended funding of $260,000.
Recommended funding levels for the Ontario airport extension and the rail project were what was originally requested.
TVRR officials had requested $4.5 million for its project. The City of Vale had requested $800,000 to pave the runway at its airport. A proposal to build a terminal at the Grant County Airport was also dropped off the list, as well as an airport project at Enterprise.
“I think we did very well,” Grasty, who represented Region 5 on the consensus committee along with Terry Tallman, chair of the Northeast Area Commission on Transportation, said. “We got a project in every county (that submitted one).” Harney County did not submit a project.
“It was clear the Oregon Department of Aviation was not going to support it,” Grasty said when asked about the Vale airport project.
“There was no support for it. It is too close to another airport,” he said.
Besides representatives from each area commission on transportation, the consensus committee included representatives of rail, public transit, aviation and freight.
ConnectOregon was established by the Oregon Legislature as an investment in transportation infrastructure, other than highways, with funds raised through the sale of bonds, backed by lottery dollars. About $100 million will be available for the program.
“We ended at about $20 million,” Grasty said, commenting on the total amount for Region 5. While it was announced that $15 million would be available for each region, Grasty said, according to the law, that was the minimum. Region 5, with a total of approximately $20.9 million in projects was second only to Region 1, the Portland Metro area, in recommended funding.
Although at first he did not think they would, Grasty said the area commissions on transportation did have a lot of influence on transportation issues.
“We have a chance to have positive influence,” he said.
On another transportation issue, Oregon Department of Transportation South Area Manager Rena Cusma told the area commission that with an estimated cost of $32 million it is unlikely a proposed realignment of the Rome Hill grade will be funded, given traffic numbers, even though it is a major freight route. It is being recommended that part of the money which was to be set aside for engineering work on the project be used instead to find an alternative which can be funded.
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Disgusting. "