Daggett County reviews draft airport layout plan and operations manual, discusses pavement preservation

Daggett County commissioners and staff reviewed a draft airport layout plan for the Manila and Dutch John airports on June 26 and discussed preparing an operations manual and initiating pavement-preservation work that the state has listed for the airports.

The county’s consultant, Brent, distributed the draft ALP and walked commissioners through planned changes, including moving hangars away from the canal, using county-owned land west of existing hangars for future development, and showing a location for a search-and-rescue building and a potential future helicopter pad. Brent said the draft keeps the Manila runway at its current length rather than extending it as earlier plans had shown and that he had not yet submitted the plan to the state because the county should confirm it first before sending it for review. Brent said, “This is what I sent you,” when distributing the materials.

Consultants and commissioners recommended relocating the segmented circle from its current position in the road-district yard to a mid-field location between the runway and future taxiway so it would provide accurate wind information to pilots. Kent recommended moving the segmented circle “mid field between the runway and the future taxiway” to avoid blocking by future buildings.

The draft also shows a future aircraft fueling area and space that county staff said could be shown on the ALP for a fixed-base operator, a pilot lounge, and general parking without detailing exact configurations. Staff discussed the potential to designate a parcel adjacent to the airport as county property but not label it formally as airport property if commissioners preferred that option for administrative flexibility.

County staff and consultants said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and state review will shape the final plan. They said a full instrument landing system (ILS) approach is unlikely because of surrounding mountains, and the approach work is expected to use a GPS-type procedure. A nighttime evaluation and an operations manual are required as part of the instrument-approach study; county staff estimated the operations manual would cost about $10,000 to complete for the airports (the transcript discussion left some ambiguity whether that figure was total or per airport).

State-identified pavement-preservation work was discussed as well. Staff said the state lists a Manila pavement-preservation project and a Dutch John pavement-preservation project for 2027 and 2025, respectively, and mentioned a state estimate of $124,000 for a pavement-preservation effort; staff noted the county expectation to cover about 10% of such a project and discussed tracking any local crack-seal costs so they could be credited toward future projects. County staff encouraged tracking any county-funded crack sealing if performed before larger preservation work.

Next steps identified by staff: incorporate the recommended edits into the ALP, consider a draft stamp and send the revised ALP to the state for review before final county approval, and prepare the airport operations manual to support the instrument-approach work. Staff said they would return with a revised plan and an operations-manual draft for formal action.

Ending: The commission directed staff to revise the ALP with the described edits, pursue the operations manual needed for the instrument-approach study, and coordinate with the state on pavement-preservation scheduling and funding. The items were scheduled for follow-up at a future meeting.