New location for Rexburg-Madison Airport has been selected

The Rexburg City Council held a public meeting Wednesday with a team of engineers to discuss plans regarding the Rexburg-Madison Airport.

A new airport site has been selected by the Engineer company, which is based out of Cody, Wyoming, and has another locations in Herber, Utah; the company will soon open in Boise. Discussion about the new airport have taken place for years. However, ideas to either expand the airport or relocate it entirely have been up in the air since 2013.

The airport’s current location is surrounded by residential homes, protected wetlands and highways. City officials said there’s little room to expand. Currently, corporate jets looking to land in the Upper Valley are forced to fly to the Idaho Falls Regional Airport or the Pocatello Regional Airport, because they have the longer runways the business jets need to land and take off.

At Wednesday’s public meeting, a team of GDA engineers presented a master plan outlining their analysis. They discussed facility alignment, environmental and biological findings, wind data collection and an environmental assessment.

Rick Patton, GDA Engineer and aviation planner, conducted the meeting and told Local News 8 and KIDK Eyewitness 3 details regarding the project.

The airport improvement program, or AIP, will fund 90 percent of eligible projects, typically the runway taxiway and apron area. About 10 percent will be split between local community and state grants.

“The AIP is funded from user fees which is the tax on anything aviation including aircraft tires, parts and airline tickets,” Patton said.

The engineering team looked at more than a dozen sites. One of the runner-up locations that GDA Engineers identified was approximately six miles north of Rexburg on the county line. That one was ruled out because of infrastructure disruptions. The other location was about 4.5 miles to the southeast of Rexburg. This other location was ruled out because it sat on high ground and there were concerns about the weather patterns.

The selected site is directly west of Rexburg at the beginning of the Bureau of Land Management managed land. There is a federal statue in place that allows for public use of a airport to be transferred from public managed ground.

“The land would then be transferred via a deed, as long as all environmental concerns have been mitigated,” Patton said.

Next will be an environmental assessment, which will include looking at plants and animals that occupy the area.

“It will also include a review of the social impacts that it could potentially have on the community, for example noise, traffic and economic impact. The engineers will be developing cost estimates as the plan progresses,”Patton said.

A concerned citizen who attended the meeting brought up a concern pertaining to re-establishing new leases at the new airport and how their investment value would be transferred out.

“How will it affect hangars?” asked David Taylor. “The city and the county are still working details out,” Patton answered.

Bryan Lee, a local pilot said it was important for the town to continue to grow and supported the project.

“I think it needs to happen. Rexburg is growing at high speeds, especially with the college,” Lee said.”However, I can understand the concerns people may have.

The new airport would take the place of the current Rexburg-Madison Airport.

Patton said, “To bring the current airport up to meet safety standards for future needs it would cost approximately $100 million beyond the cost and impact several neighborhoods and highways.”

Currently, the airport accommodates single engine and light twin engine aircrafts, but does not meet the standards for medium and larger business class aircrafts. The new airport would continue to serve Rexburg as a general aviation facility, not having commercial airline service.

Some of the criteria used by engineers to identify the sites were drive time, slope of terrain, weather concerns and community impacts. The one that was chosen met all the criteria.

“One of things that brought the site up to the top of the list was it was not privately held, relatively close to town and minimized community impacts,” Patton said.

“A key feature of the selected site is its expansion potential. The existing airport just served the needs for private recreational and small business use,” Patton said. “Rexburg is growing at high rates and community leaders are planning for the future.”

The project is estimated to take 10 to 15 years. The environmental assessment is estimated to take two years to complete.