Columbia airport gets $2.8 million grant
The Columbia Regional Airport will get more than $2.8 million from the federal government to help pay for relocating a highway and extending a runway.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said in a news release Wednesday that the FAA included the airport in the first round of awards from a total of $3.18 billion in Airport Improvement Program funding. Of the $2.81 million the airport will receive, $2.2 million will pay for realignment of Route H and the rest will pay for design of an extended main runway from 6,500 feet to 7,400 feet, city spokesman Steve Sapp said.
Separately the FAA is giving the city $391,000 to help pay for repairs to the airport’s secondary runway prompted by safety complaints in April, an FAA spokeswoman wrote in an email response to questions from ABC 17 News.
The money represents about 73 percent of the more than $530,000 the city spent to fix runway 13-31 after pilots and passengers complained in early April about a bump. The repairs required the airport to be shut down to air traffic for several days because the main runway was closed for rehabilitation.
City officials said at the time that they hoped the FAA would pay for 90 percent of the repair cost.
