LONGVIEW — The stalled fuel tank replacement at Southwest Washington Regional Airport has a new shot at getting completed with the help of a newly available state loan program.
The Kelso City Council unanimously voted Tuesday night to support the airport’s application for a state aviation loan. The airport needs approval from the county commissioners, Longview and the Port of Longview before it can apply for the loan, which has a Nov. 23 deadline.
The airport has been planning for years to replace its existing underground fuel tanks with two free-standing aboveground tanks. The replacement would address the potential environmental risk from the 40-year-old tanks.
“We need to protect the fuel infrastructure of the airport. It’s much cheaper to do it preventatively now, when we can, instead of in a reactionary mode,” airport Director Chris Paolini said.
After more than a year of planning, the airport suspended the project this spring as inflation drove the project’s cost to an unaffordable level. The airport returned its $500,000 loan to the Community Aviation Revitalization Board, part of the aviation sector for the state Department of Transportation.
Paolini said two announcements in September created a path forward for the project. WSDOT announced that it would temporarily increase its max loan to $1.2 million to address inflation. The loan application is a competitive process but receiving the max amount would fully fund the project in Kelso.
Engineers also revised the fuel tank plans to lower the project’s cost. The new tanks will be located further south than the current fuel system, which Paolini said allows the airport to repurpose an oil-water separator and keeps the project separate from a federally-funded runway rehabilitation project.
“There are pros and cons for any decision, but there might be significantly more pros to this than the original location,” Paolini said.
If the airport is awarded the full loan amount, the Kelso council and other stakeholders would come back in a few months to budget the loan repayment. Each group’s share of the repayment would be roughly $15,000 per year on a loan with a 2% fixed interest rate.
“A 2% loan from the state is about as good as you’re ever going to get,” Kelso Councilman Brian Wood said.
Paolini said if the airport was awarded the grant, final engineering plans for the project would be created in December. Construction would begin and end sometime in 2023.
