PORT ANGELES — The Port of Port Angeles has decided to wait until a park redevelopment plan is finished — at least another year, maybe two — to cut down trees at Lincoln Park just east of William R. Fairchild International Airport.
The port had obtained permission from the city earlier in the year to fell up to 50 trees, but after surveyors began their work to determine exactly which tall firs to cut, more than 150 were found in the flight path, said Airports and Marinas Director Doug Sandau.
“We stopped at that point,” he said.
“When we saw about three times as many as we were expecting, I decided not to waste the money looking.”
Instead of cutting the trees right now, the port will wait until a master plan of the redevelopment of Lincoln Park is finished, he said.
That process — which is being done in conjunction with the city, which owns the park — will likely stretch into 2012, Sandau said.
The redevelopment of the popular west-side park is planned because the tall trees are growing in the approach zone to the airport’s runway.
The port plans to reclaim 1,354 feet of the runway’s east end — now not used — because 60-year-old Douglas fir trees in the Lincoln Park approach have grown too tall.
The trees must be felled to accommodate increased numbers of corporate jets as well as provide additional runway length for Kenmore Air, the passenger airline, to land during inclement weather.
The 50 trees that were planned to be logged were to maintain the current runway length.
A grant from the Federal Aviation Administration will pay for the plan to redevelop the park — which will include planting with trees that don’t grow as tall.
The amount of the FAA grant hasn’t been told to the port yet, Sandau said.
After the park master plan is finished, an environmental analysis will be done and then it is likely that most of the trees in the park will be logged, port officials have said.
In 2008, about 350 trees were cut down in Lincoln Park — mostly in a former campground — because they were in the immediate approach to the airport runway.
Because of the trees and FAA restrictions, Kenmore Air must fly its nine-passenger aircraft in from the west rather than the east during foul weather — something that Kenmore officials have said costs the small airline an annual $150,000 to $180,000.
New instrument technology for landing — which spurred some of the shallower angles to determine which trees must be cut and which can be spared — should allow Kenmore to land from the east even in low-visibility weather, the port has said.
In a letter to the city, Jeff Robb, port executive director, said he had talked to Kenmore about the change.
“I have also briefed Todd Banks, president and CEO of Kenmore airlines, of the current situation, and although he would prefer to see a more rapid advance in the upgrading of our instrument approach system, he understands the level of sensitivity involved and supports the port’s decision of advancing the project forward within the context of a city park master plan,” Robb wrote in the letter.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
