New airport soon in St. George?

ST. GEORGE — Nearly 10 years after St. George officials first started talking about building a new airport to accommodate growing traffic in the region, hopes are high that construction could soon begin.

"We are encouraged," said Larry Bulloch, St. George public works director, after a final environmental-impact statement was released this week by the Federal Aviation Administration. "This study suggests there would be no significant impact on the environment because of the new airport. It even says there will actually be less noise with the new airport than the existing airport."

St. George city's current airport sits on top of a mesa in the middle of town. Because of the airport's location, runways can't be extended and the size of aircraft SkyWest Airlines is able to use is limited.

The replacement airport site, located on 1,306 acres about five miles southeast of St. George, could accommodate commercial jets instead of the turbo prop aircraft currently flown by SkyWest. Without the new airport, say local officials, economic development in the area would be stifled.

Moving the project forward has been difficult, Bulloch said.

A 2000 draft environmental assessment indicated the new airport site would not harm the environment, and the FAA agreed. The Grand Canyon Trust filed suit in 2001, challenging the FAA's conclusions and asked for a more in-depth noise analysis of all aircraft flying over Zion National Park, not just aircraft originating out of St. George.

"We've done the best that we can do with it. We've tried to make it legally defensible so if there's another court challenge it will stand," said TJ Stetz, regional environmental protection specialist with the FAA's Northwest Mountain Region office in Seattle. "We ran an audibility analysis that was requested and did some additional air quality analyses. None of those have really changed our initial analysis."

The final environmental-impact statement concludes that cumulative noise levels gathered within an 80-by-88-square-mile radius of the new airport site would not significantly increase noise levels at Zion National Park or its surroundings.

Grand Canyon Trust spokesman Richard Mayol said Wednesday he had no comment at this time on the impact statement and its conclusions.

The FAA could file a final record of decision for the project after a 45-day public comment period, which ends July 3. The document is available online at www.airportsites.net/sgu-eis/.