Prineville, Ore. – A $2 million ODOT state grant to help pay for improvements will bring jobs to the Prineville Airport, relieve aviation congestion and make it easier for the U.S. Forest Service to fight fires from the Central Oregon facility.
Prineville councilors approved how the city wants to spend the Oregon Department of Transportation money during a special meeting Tuesday.
The grant will go toward an $8 million project that will create a refueling system and a Forest Service facility at the airport by summer 2019. Prineville Airport officials said the new Forest Service facility would expand the helicopter firefighting operations based out of Prineville.
The improvements are expected to add 50 full and part-time jobs to the airport.
Construction on the new 15,000-square-foot Forest Service facility, as well as an above-ground fueling system that will replace an aging underground system, is scheduled to start by summer 2018.
The remaining $6 million for the project will come from the Federal Aviation Administration and Crook County.
The grant — an ODOT ConnectOregon award — was awarded last summer and is the second such grant the Prineville Airport has received. In 2012 the airport received a $110,000 grant for a new weather observation system.
Beyond the expanded firefighting operations, the new Forest Service facility will also help reduce aircraft congestion at the airport. Airport officials said the way the airport currently is set up can bring long delays during fire season for general aviation aircraft that have to wait for helicopters and air tankers to take off.
The new facility, which could add up to eight helipads to the four that are already there, would relocate all the firefighting operations to the north side of the airport. The move is likely to be what general aviation pilots notice the most as far as changes in day-to-day operations go.
