3-wk airport closure begins Monday
Closure of the airport begins Monday and will continue to the end of May to complete rehabilitation of the runway.
The contractor has been making preparations to hit the ground running, says the city.
A stock pile of gravel has been accumulating at the light industrial end of the airport for reinforcement of the base and the asphalt base, and an asphalt plant will operate on site, said airport manager Jeff Huntus.
“There will be no trucks travelling through the city with asphalt. Everything will be right on site,” said Huntus.
The exact quantity of asphalt required was not available Tuesday but there will be re-paving of 8,000 sq. metres and the asphalt will be about four inches thick, said Huntus.
Some piping will be placed under the runway, and some of the electrical work has already commenced, he said.
“We are on target to get things started at seven o’clock Monday morning,” said Huntus. “The start of the program will be to remove the existing asphalt.”
There will also be tunnelling under the runway to connect storm drains, he explained, and some concrete panels at each ends of the runway will also be replaced.
The airport will be closed completely for 24 days to rehabilitate the main runway and taxiway pavement surfaces. The airport runway was built in 1964 and has not had a major resurfacing in more than 20 years.
Organization for the work has been underway for some time and unless there is significant weather that hampers progress, the work should be complete by May 30 and the airport reopened on June 1, said Huntus.
The Alberta fixed-wing air ambulance service will continue to operate during the airport closure.
STARS helicopters will be used to transport critically ill patients out of Medicine Hat, Darren Sandbeck, Alberta Health Services EMS chief paramedic told the News in February. Patients will be transported by road from the hospital to the airport, and STARS will come down from Calgary for these transfers when required.
The fixed-wing air ambulance service will still be used for urgent cases requiring transfer, said Sandbeck. A ground ambulance will take the patient from Medicine Hat to Bow Island’s airport. The patient will then be transferred to a fixed-wing air ambulance sent down from Calgary. There will not be an air ambulance based in Bow Island for this period.
Non-urgent transfers will be done by ground ambulance, said Sandbeck.