All air traffic Norfolk International Airport gets uses a single primary runway. But upcoming maintenance to keep it operating may cause the airport to close for several months in the forthcoming years if a second one isn’t built.
Norfolk Airport Authority Executive Director Robert Bowen updated Virginia Beach city council on its ongoing plan to build a new runway. Virginia Beach City Council passed a resolution in support of the new runway in June.
Bowen said the only thing stopping it from moving forward is an environmental impact study the Federal Aviation Administration has halted. It’s a process it has tried to move forward with for more than 15 years.
“The parallel runway has been on our FAA-approved airport layout plan since 1968,” Bowen said. “In 2000, we started an [environmental impact study] effort with the FAA. The work had been completed … but someone at the FAA read the report and decided it did not meet their standards … so they pulled it.”
Bowen said the airport paid $2.3 million for that study.
The FAA halted the first phase of a second environmental impact study the airport wanted to conduct in 2014 and since then, it has been a match of tug-of-war between the two institutions. Even with voiced support from Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner along with Reps. Scott Rigell, Randy Forbes and Rob Whittman, the FAA still affirmed its decision not to complete the study, according to Bowen.
Now, the Norfolk Airport Authority is still working with local and state officials to resume the study, according to Bowen.
Perpendicular to the airport’s 9,000-foot primary runway — which handles all air carrier traffic — is the 4,8750-foot crosswind runway. The crosswind runway is no longer in use.
“The problem is the crosswind runway no longer meets FAA design and safety standards,” Bowen said. “It’s not practical to make it compliant with those standards, because we’re not able to extend one end of the runway.”
Bowen said the crosswind runway is currently closed for operations and is working with the FAA to mitigate safety deficiencies.
“We’ve been working for over 15 years to construct a replacement runway for the crosswind, which would be 6,500 feet long and run parallel to our primary runway,” Bowen said. “The crosswind runway would be demolished and we would use that land for further airport development.”
Bowen said the FAA decided that the airport’s “purpose and need” did not warrant continuing a second phase of the study because it doesn’t have enough delayed flights to justify a parallel runway.
“Our argument is it’s not a capacity study, this is a safety study,” Bowen said. “We cannot safely use the crosswind runway any longer.”
Bowen said the FAA cited funding as an issue and that the best the airport could expect was 50 percent of it to be covered. That could have cost about $300 million and Bowen said the airport was able to cover that share.
The airport is still motivated to push for completion of the study because research showed that its primary runway needed to be repaved in two years.
“We can do that at night, in short sections, over a period of several months,” Bowen said. “But that’s only going to gain us 10 years of operational life in our primary runway.”
Once a decade passes, Bowen said the airport would face reconstruction. It would take several months and the airport would close during that period.
“There’s no way to do it a section at a time,” Bowen said.
The Navy has expressed concerns with the proposed runway regarding airspace and flooding into the base from Lake Whitehurst. The latter is because the proposed runway would call for a section of the lake to be filled.
“Until we can get some more hardcore data to do an assessment, we don’t know the total impacts to the base,” Scott Mohr, public affairs officer for Joint-Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story told Southside Daily.
“We’re committed to being a good neighbor and supporting growth and development within the cities of Hampton Roads, but we’re also interested in protecting the installation and its mission-readiness as well.”
The 2014 environmental impact study’s incomplete first phase has cost the airport more than $1 million. Should the study continue, the second phase would cost about $2 million.
“The second phase of the [environmental impact study], which is what the FAA canceled, would address all those items,” Bowen said. “It would address airspace items, flood items and would give us the opportunity to look at those to see how they can be mitigated.”
Next week the Airport Authority will meet with the Navy staff, Norfolk and Virginia Beach city officials.
“We’re looking for support from the Navy, on behalf of our congressional delegation, so they can go back to the Department of Transportation and hopefully get our [environmental impact study] back underway,” Bowen said.
The FAA was not immediately available for comment.
