The Girdwood airport received much needed improvement to its gravel airstrip earlier this month. It wasn’t resurfaced with a high grade asphalt, like some would desire, but, instead was sprayed with an emulsion, a tar and hot water mixture that is suppose to aid in erosion and excess dust in the air—a common problem in the summer. “It was suppose to be a relatively hard surface to offset the erosion from aircraft landings and take-offs,” said Keith Essex, owner of Alpine Air, which has operated at the airport for 17 years.
Essex is not happy with the final product, arguing that the state promised to put a recycled asphalt pavement.
“The product they ended up getting is a lower quality of recycled asphalt,” he said.
The airstrip was resurfaced three years ago using a D-1 gravel, but Essex said it was getting displaced very easily by the aircraft. He also said dust was a big problem, not only for people breathing it but the aircraft ingesting it as well.
Larry Bushnell, who works at the Girdwood post of the Department of Transportation and is the airport manager, was contacted for this article but did not return phone calls.
In addition to problems with the airstrip, Essex expressed concern over the access road to the airport, which the DOT and municipality jointly maintain.
“There were times last winter when we could not drive to the airport because of a lack of maintenance,” Essex said. “Part of its state and part of its Muni, and the municipal part of it is pitiful. It’s a pitiful excuse for a road. It makes me embarrassed to bring customers down that road. It needs to be paved as well.”
Essex is not supportive of paving all the roads in Girdwood, but, he said, there are commercial areas that need it, like the airport road.
Essex estimates that in the 17 years he’s operated his helicopter operation, air-traffic has doubled with an average of about 50 helicopters and fixed-wing aircrafts using the airport everyday in the summer. But that number drops off dramatically in the winter, he said.
The airstrip taxi way is 2,100 feet long, and for now Essex said he’ll take a wait and see attitude as to the results of the new pavement. But in the long term, he believes, a paved high grade asphalt airstrip is the only way to truly combat the problems of erosion and dust.
“I think they thought they could make due with the material they had gotten,” Essex said. “Time will tell whether it holds up or not. The DOT crew did the best they could with the material they were given. Hopefully, it will hold up three or four years.”