4/30/09
Okhay Owingeh’s Tsay Corporation is passing up $150,000 in federal funding for its airport this year because it is still spending almost $200,000 it received last year.
The Federal Aviation Administration is making available $150,000 in maintenance funding for Ohkay Owingeh’s San Juan Airport and the Jicarilla Apache Nation’s airport, provided they submit an application, according to a news release from Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) office.
Administration spokesman Roland Herwig said the San Juan Airport did not submit an application before a deadline earlier this month to fund “runway safety” renovations and address erosion from an arroyo near the runway.
Herwig said the Jicarilla Apache Airport, 10 miles south of Dulce, is in line for a yet-undetermined amount to renovate its airport access road, install an automatic gate and repair snow removal equipment.
Tsay Corporation Chief Executive Officer Ron Lovato said his company did not apply for the funds because it is still spending a $187,000 award to rehabilitate the runway. Lovato said the company is also installing hangars and a fueling facility at the airport and building a nearby industrial park.
“We’ve got a whole lot of improvements going on at the airport,” Lovato said. “It’s the next phase of development since we re-opened the runway in 2005.”
Administration data indicates the airport’s runway is “closed indefinitely.” Lovato said that data is not accurate.
“Just go out there any Saturday, and you’ll see all the activity we have going on there,” he said.
Lovato said the airport averages 30 “operations” a week. The airport counts any take-off or landing as an operation. He said the airport gets some out-of-state traffic, but is mainly used by pilots in training and by Angel Flights, a service that transports patients to medical facilities.
FlightAware, a commercial company that publishes federal airport data, states on its web site that the airport averages one flight a day.
Tsay Corporation also received $400,000 for the airport in 2003 to fund runway rehabilitation and install runway safety lights, fencing and a beacon, Herwig said.
The Jicarilla Apache Nation received $373,000 last year for runway rehabilitation and $173,500 in 2003 to purchase snow-removal equipment, Herwig said.
Administration data indicates that the Jicarilla’s airport’s asphalt runway has “numerous 5 inch cracks” and warns of “wildlife in the vicinity of the airport.” Data counts 1,000 operations at that airport from May 1998, when the airport was registered with the federal government, and April 2006, when it was last inspected by a state Transportation Department contractor.
The Jicarilla Apache airport averages two flights a day, according to FlightAware.
Lambert Callado, whom the Administration has on record as the Jicarilla Apache airport administrator, could not be reached for comment.