Main runway reopens after $21.5 million project to level surface

MOSES LAKE — It’s not a walk the three Port of Moses Lake commissioners — Stroud Kunkle, David “Kent” Jones and Darrin Jackson — take very often.

“Now you can see to the end of the runway,” Jones said as he strolled across the brand-new asphalt of Grant County International Airport’s main runway on Tuesday.

They walked to a spot, smack in the middle, where Air Force C-17 transports on training flights, or giant 747 freighters hauling cherries, would need to cross in order to land and take off.

“The Grant County International Airport runway 32 Right is open for business,” added the port’s executive director, Don Kersey.

The 13,500-foot-long main runway was closed in December to allow workers to remove a roughly six-foot high hump that blocked the view from one end of the runway to the other. While this wasn’t a problem for the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s, the hump violated Federal Aviation Administration’s rules.

In the end, workers removed and repaved roughly 4,000 feet of runway at a cost of $21.5 million — most of it paid for by FAA and well under the original engineering estimate of $26 million, according to Airport Director Rich Mueller.

“A lot of dirt moved, a lot of concrete moved, a lot of steel moved,” Jackson added.

While the work went on, the airport was open, as it has four runways.

The main runway reopening was supposed to have been greeted with much greater fanfare. Runners were supposed to run the nearly 10-kilometer length of the main runway — one end to the other and back — in early June, and the second annual Moses Lake Air Show was to have regaled audiences the Friday and Saturday before Father’s Day.

But with the COVID-19 outbreak, it was not to be. Even the formal opening of the runway was delayed a week because the contractor paved it initially with the wrong kind of asphalt. Early Monday, Mueller quietly landed the first airplane on the new runway, followed not long after by a military training flight.

“It’s smooth,” Mueller said.

Even as big planes start using the main runway again, Mueller said the port needs to wait to cut small grooves across the new pavement to allow rainwater to drain properly.

“We cannot do that until the pavement is cured for a month,” he said. “So, we will be doing some night work in July.”

According to Kersey, the first 747 freighter filled with Washington state cherries and bound for destinations in Asia is set to take off on Friday.

While Mitsubishi has grounded its SpaceJet flight testing program for at least a year, Boeing is expected to begin a series of flight tests of the newest version of its 777 wide-body passenger jet soon in Moses Lake, and AeroTEC is vying to host the 747 it is converting to an engine-test aircraft for Rolls Royce.

Which means completion of the runway work couldn’t have come at a better time.

“We can get more flights in,” said Jackson as he walked across the runway. “At least on the test side. And it’s ready for cherry flights. Wherever they go, so long as they go.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.