FAA tells Warren County Airport: runway extension would remove long‑standing waiver; commissioners weigh costs, road impacts

Jack De Brunner, president of the Warren County Airport Board, opened discussion by asking consultants to explain how the airport authority reached the recommendations in a recently completed master plan and to report back on whether the Federal Aviation Administration would again grant a modification of standards (a waiver) for changes to the runway.

Nick Brown, lead consultant from CMT, told the board the FAA’s Air Force District Office and the Airport District Office have reviewed the master plan and said a runway extension or other change to runway geometry is not an “incremental improvement” and therefore would not receive the same waivers the airport has historically obtained. "It is a degradation of compliance to those standards, not an incremental improvement," Brown said, summing up the FAA position. He told the board the FAA planners (Robert Jekowsky and Alex Erskine in the ADO) had reviewed the master plan by teleconference and had been categorical: modifications that change runway ends or geometry remove the previous waiver authority.

The master plan’s preferred development shown to commissioners includes a full‑length parallel taxiway on the west side of Runway 1/19, additional hangars on recently purchased property, and a runway widened to 100 feet and lengthened to roughly 5,006 feet. Consultants said they evaluated about 72 conceptual alignments ranging from about 4,800 to 6,500 feet, then narrowed to four alternatives: extend both ends, extend only the north end, extend only the south end, or rotate…