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Show Airport study is almost complete by Christopher Smart A Summit County airport feasibilty study is 60 days from completion and has isolated a bench area between be-tween Brown's Canyon and U.S. Highway 40 as the suggested site. Todd Wirthlin of Rocky ing problems, he said. The high elevation of the proposed pro-posed airport site and the distance from Highway 40 present access problems. The facility itself would cost approximately $8 million, he said, which doesn't include the purchase of the land. That fimira ie tnncilorahlv Record Tuesday that the first phase of a three-phase study is complete. The second two phases of the $50,000 study will be forthcoming forth-coming in Ncvember, he said. Ninety percent of the feasibility study was paid by a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to determine if an airport was needed and possible in Summit County. The county and Park City contributed the balance of funding for the study. Of four prospective areas where an airport could be placed, Wirthlin's firm selected what is known as Site C because of reduced impact on wildlife and water I resources. The first phase of the study indicates that fight patterns and noise levels at Site C would impact residents resi-dents minimally compared to the other locations. The approach pattern for Site C would steer the aircraft over largely unpopulated un-populated areas around Brown's Canyon and Rock-port Rock-port Reservoir, according to Wirthlin, while aircraft approaching ap-proaching the other sites would fly almost directly over the Silver Creek and Highland Estates subdivisions. subdivi-sions. The selected site, however, how-ever, does present engineer- higher than the preliminary estimates for development of the other sites. The second phase of the study concentrates on the actual layout of the airport, Wirthlin said. The runway should be 8,600 feet, according accord-ing to the report, and could handle small aircraft, corporate-style jets and prop-jets prop-jets to a maximum of 60,000 lbs. The third phase of the study will focus on the cost of construction and funding possibilities. According to Wirthlin, Salt Lake International Interna-tional Airport is interested in a "reliever" airport. The Summit County airport would be advantageous because be-cause it could act both as a reliever and as a destination facility, he said. Once the study is completed, com-pleted, Wirthlin said, it is completely up to the sponsors spon-sors whether or not an airport will be built. In this case the sponsors are Summit Sum-mit County and Park City. A survey, conducted by Wirthlin's firm, concluded that by 1985 anywhere from 42 to 96 aircraft could be based at the Summit County airport. That survey projected pro-jected as many as 123 aircraft could be using the proposed facility as a base by the year 2000. |