Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Los Alamitos Army Airfield Secures Funding for Runway Repairs

The National Guard has secured $1.5 million to temporarily fix Los Alamitos Army Airfield's tattered main runway later this year, a development which may alleviate a recent influx of military cargo planes and fighter jets at Long Beach Airport.

The National Guard, which uses the 1,400-acre complex for troop training and housing and to accommodate government and military air fleets, says money to fix the site's heavy aircraft landing strip should be enough to maintain the runway properly for 5 to 7 more years. Work is expected to begin in the fall and last a few months.

Beyond that, forces are working with Congress to garner several million dollars more for longer-term structural repairs and support.

The runway is suffering from "alligator cracking," a term used to describe perpendicular grooves on the 8,000-foot strip which can catch debris and make landings and takeoffs hazardous, said Sgt. Jan Bender of the California National Guard.

"It's been developing for some time from years of natural wear-and-tear, and so we erred on the side of caution when we shut down the main runway" in early 2009, Bender said. "The runway is still open for what we call `mission- critical' landings and takeoffs, but most pilots are urged to use other nearby facilities."

For the most part, those other "facilities" have been Long Beach Airport, which sits just a few miles northwest of the Los Alamitos facility.

Through the end of December, military operations at Long Beach Airport had increased by 48.5 percent from 2008, from 582 takeoffs and landings in 2008 to 864 in 2009. Much of the military and government increase is attributed to traffic from Los Alamitos, which handles such aircraft as Boeing's C-17, as well as Lockheed's C-130 and C-5 transporters and F-16 and F-18 fighter jets.

The Department of Defense lists Los Alamitos as one of the continental United States' most active Army air fields, handling some 1,100 annual takeoffs and landings annually.

While the airport can still handle some of that load on its shorter runways and landing pads, the damaged main runway has caused a massive diversion, Bender said.

For its part, Long Beach has welcomed the increased military and government presence, despite a few complaints from neighbors regarding noise and late arrivals, which constituted about 1 percent of the airport's total noise complaint tally for 2009, according to airport records.

But it has raised the question of Los Alamitos Airfield's future, and prompted federal legislators and the National Guard to begin lobbying for funds to ensure the main runway remains viable for decades.

Airport and National Guard officials are reportedly working with area Congress members, including Rep. Jane Harman, D-Torrance, to secure long-term funding for the site, which officially sits in Republican Rep. Ed Royce's 40th District.

The Long Beach Airport Advisory Commission had been expected to consider a formal appeal to Harman, who sits on the House's Energy and Commerce Committee, regarding repairs to the air strip, but their Jan. 21 meeting was canceled due to flooding.

However, the issue will again be raised during the commission's Feb. 18 hearing at Skylinks Municipal Golf Course, 4800 E. Wardlow Road, in Long Beach.

"We'll give an update of the situation to the airport advisory commission (in February) and leave it up to them to decide if they want to write a letter or make any formal overtures to the appropriate authority or authorities," said Airport Spokeswoman Sharon Diggs-Jackson.


(Kristopher Hanson - Long Beach Press Telegram)

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