Trout Lake airport gets off the ground
Project finishes 20 per cent over budget
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, November 20, 2014
SAMBAA K'E/TROUT LAKE
The Trout Lake airport began operating last Thursday, five years after construction started and 20 per cent over its initial budget.
The new Trout Lake airport, with a runway that can handle King Air medevac planes, opened last Thursday. - photo courtesy the Department of Transportation
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Opening the 3,500-foot runway now means larger aircraft can land in the community, including pressurized King Air medevac planes.
"It's a huge win for Trout Lake," said Nahendeh MLA Kevin Menicoche about the completion of the work.
Residents of the community were involved in building the runway, which Menicoche said was a great training opportunity for those involved.
"They should be proud because they helped build it," he said.
Several attempts to reach Chief Dolphus Jumbo of the Sambaa K'e Dene Band for comment were unsuccessful following the opening of the new airport.
Located a 2.5 kilometre drive from the community's centre, the new runway is 868 feet longer than the runway that opened in 1987 in the heart of the community.
Without space to expand that facility, construction began in September 2009 at a new location.
The airport consists of just the runway with landing lights and apron; no terminal building or fuelling depot was built.
The new runway is aligned to take advantage of prevailing southwest winds.
Finishing the runway marks a major milestone, said Delia Chesworth, the director of the airports division with the Department of Transportation.
"There's a lot of work that went in to this," she said Monday.
The work included building an access road and clearing space for the runway.
Construction was already behind schedule in winter 2012 due to the lack of an all-weather road and equipment issues. Trout Lake is accessed by a winter road from mid-December to early April and outside those months, access is via the airport.
At that point, it was predicted the airport would be ready by summer 2013.
Building materials had to be brought in over the winter road or from a local gravel pit and construction finished in mid-September. Since then, the process of commissioning the airport and getting it published in the Canada Flight Supplement got underway, which was completed a week before the official opening.
The delays are typical of large construction projects, Chesworth said.
The final cost of the airport was $11.2 million, she added. Through the Provincial-Territorial Base Fund, the federal and territorial governments provided a joint contribution of $9.3 million.
The remainder of the cost was picked up by the GNWT, said Chesworth.
She said those extra costs were incurred because of the unique nature of the project.
"There are always costs that you can't anticipate or don't think of when you're doing a budget," she said.
The new airport will cost $50,000 annually to maintain, said Chesworth, a 60 per cent increase over the cost of the old airport.
With the new facility open, the old one has been closed and decommissioned. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs will take over the land after an environmental assessment has been completed, said Chesworth.
From there, Trout Lake could enter into discussions to acquire the property if it wishes.
