The Boulder City Municipal Airport is showing good signs of recovery from the recent recession. Most of the commercial tenants are doing as well, if not better, than before the recession hit and are now thriving today. As a whole, our airport continues to rank in the top 175 airports in the country for passenger enplanements – our passengers just happen to be going to just one place and they all return through our gates.

The primary goal of our airport is sustainability: both financially and ecologically. The airport is self-sustaining financially – not one single dollar from the City’s general fund is used to support the airport. All revenues derived at the airport pay for its staffing, maintenance, improvements and utilities.

For major construction projects, the airport receives grants from the Federal Aviation Administration. The more recently completed projects, such as the complete reconstruction of our primary east-west runway and the resurfacing of the north-south runway, were paid 95 percent by federal grants, with the balance coming from airport revenues.

Currently, the airport has several projects in the works, although they don’t entail any construction work. In our efforts to improve aviation safety at the airport, it has contracted with a consultant to perform a wildlife hazard assessment. The purpose of such an assessment is to minimize and mitigate any wildlife hazards to aviation. The most obvious hazard to most people are birds – plans versus birds usually do not end well for either party. In Boulder City’s case, while birds are of a concern, there are other wildlife hazards that you wouldn’t normally think of. For example, we have discovered that the local coyote population seems enamored with the runways. Other critters that have been observed during the study include foxes and even badgers. Once the wildlife hazard assessment is complete, the airport will undertake an additional project to implement the mitigation strategies that will both help protect aviation and our local critter population.

Visit Roger at http://www.bcnv.org/CityCouncil/Tobler.asp.