Tweed environmental assessment nearly done

NEW HAVEN — Airport neighbors should get their chance to comment in early April on a nearly-complete Environmental Assessment on proposed expansion of Tweed New Haven Regional Airport, a draft of which the FAA is expected to complete around the end of February, according to Tweed’s new executive director.

“We’re hoping to have approval to publish” the draft, “hopefully by the end of next week,” Tweed Executive Director Tom Rafter said Friday. “We’re targeting a very early April public meeting date.”

Ultimately, the Environmental Assessment process — which the Federal Aviation Administration requires — will result in either a “finding of no significant impact,” or “FONSI,” or a requirement that the proposed expansion go through a more extensive Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, Rafter said.

Tweed’s proposed expansion project would include lengthening the runway from 5,600 feet to 6,635 feet and building a new 70,000-square-foot terminal on the East Haven side of the airport, along with a new airport entrance off Proto Drive in East Haven, with access off Hemingway and Coe Avenues, officials have said.

“We’re already deep into the EA process,” Rafter told the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority earlier this week. “We’re hoping to gain approval” of a draft of the EA to take to the public “by the end of the month.”

Tweed plans to hold a public meeting on the draft EA in early April to avoid issues with spring break and religious holidays in March, Rafter told the authority Wednesday.

“Any questions can be answered at the public meeting or in a 15-day period” that will follow it, during which the public also can submit comments directly to the FAA, Rafter said.

“Thank you for putting that information out there,” said Tweed Authority Chairman John Picard, who said “there’s some misinformation” suggesting the authority has the ability to decide what to do on its own.

“I just think there’s going to be a lot of information in the EA. It will answer a lot of questions,” Rafter said Friday. “I think people who are writing the letters are doing exactly what they should be doing” according to National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, https://www.epa.gov/nepa Rafter said.

There is a Citizens Guide to NEPA that explains the process in greater detail.

FAA approval of the environmental assessment is necessary before Tweed and its operator, Avports LLC, can proceed with plans mapped-out in Tweed’s previously-approved master plan update.

The Board of Alders last Sept. 23 unanimously approved a 43year lease between the city and the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority, which paved the way for a long-term operating agreement with Avports, under which Avports would finance the $70 million cost of proposed expansion and improvements.

But the runway extension and new terminal can’t go forward until the federally-mandated environmental assessment is approved. Tweed currently is served by one airline, Avelo Airlines.

One opponent of Tweed expansion, Lorena Venegas of East Haven, who is among a group of people, including a number of key local officials and area state legislators, calling for a more extensive EIS, said she is watching the process closely and there actually will be a 45-day period to comment.

Venegas, a member of the 10,000 Hawks environmental and grass roots community group and an administrator of the Keep Tweed Small Facebook group, said she’s watching the Federal Register to see when the draft EA is published.

“That’s when the clock starts” on a 45-day public comment period, Venegas said.

In addition to the Federal Register, the EA will be published on an airport website at https:// www.tweedmasterplan.com, Venegas said. It also will be available at the New Haven Free Public Library and East Haven’s Hagaman Memorial Library, she said.

“Residents from a 12-mile radius should feel free to participate in the public process,” Venegas said.

Expansion opponents have been joined in calling for a more comprehensive EIS by East Haven Mayor Joe Carfora, state Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, state Rep. Al Paolillo Jr., D-New Haven, state Rep. Joseph Zullo, REast Haven and state Sen. Paul Cicciarella, R-Wallingford.

Avports / Contributed photo A rendering shows concepts of what the new terminal at Tweed New Haven Regional Airport could look like in the project proposed by Avports and the Tweed authority on May 6, 2021. The 74,000-square-foot terminal would be located on the East Haven side of the airport and the old terminal on the New Haven side would be retired. Target for completion was announced as the end of 2023.