Photo by Mathew White A small plane takes off from the Osoyoos Airport during the morning hours of Thursday, Oct. 11. Tom McHale, president and owner of Gemstone Logistics, who approached town council last year with the idea to expand the Osoyoos Airport in order to transport workers from southern B.C. to northern Alberta, said the recently completed airport obstacle study gives nothing but positive results. Photo by Mathew White.
Turn back the clock 12 months and the hot topic around town was the possible expansion of the Osoyoos Airport.
After Tom McHale, president and owner of Gemstone Logistics, approached the town last fall with the idea of expanding the airport in order to transport workers from southern B.C. to gas and oil industry sites in northern Alberta, town council appeared extremely interested.
Over the following months, town council and McHale met and discussed various options and scenarios. The last movement on the project was seen last December, when the town agreed to contribute up to $5,000 for an airport obstacle study, which would determine if expansion at the local airport was a possibility.
Ten months later, that report is now complete and the findings are very encouraging, according to McHale.
“In all ways, it’s the perfect location for an airport,” he said. “We were a little bit delayed … but we’re still full on and we still believe … this will seriously benefit the community of Osoyoos.”
Jet Pro Consultants, an engineering firm based in Alberta, was hired by Gemstone Logistics to complete the study.
Mayor Stu Wells said the town’s contribution of up to $5,000 paid about 25 per cent of the costs of the study.
McHale said the findings of the study clearly indicate that after a runway expansion and additional upgrades are completed, the Osoyoos Airport would be would able to meet all the requirements necessary for larger aircrafts to be used to transport workers to and from northern Alberta.
In addition to the runway expansion, McHale said another big focus of the report was looking at the weather in and around Osoyoos and how it might affect air travel in the area.
Both the altitude and geology of an area play great factors in whether or not an airport can sustain reliable, year-round travel, he said.
“When you’re building an airstrip, you have to look at bad weather days and you have to look at the surrounding terrain,” he said.
The fact the Osoyoos Airport runway sits well below cloud level means the airport would face little-to-no blackout dates, which is a great benefit, he said.
It’s also a great location from an aviation perspective as is the fact it’s situated so close to town.
“There’s probably no days at all that you would have a weather outage or seldom days that you’d have a weather issue at the airport,” said McHale.
While he is happy with the findings of the study, McHale admitted it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. He said based on all of the experience he and his company have had in this area, it was pretty much bang-on with what they expected.
Moving forward, McHale said the next step is to examine all the information found in the study and determine whether or not the airport expansion would be financially feasible.
“We’re looking at a feasibility (study) to determine the construction, costs, the runway expansion and the manoeuvring area,” he said. “Basically, it’s like if you’re going to build a house, where do I put my garage and where do I put my driveway? That kind of stuff.”
“Now that we know it’s a good location, the feasibility (study) is just going to give us a rough idea of bills, costs and what we would have to do to bring it up to a given standard.”
Mayor Stu Wells said he was also very pleased with the results of the obstacle study.
“It’s even better than Penticton is – as far as the obstacle component and mechanics of it,” he said.
Although the excitement surrounding the proposed project has quieted down a little, Wells said there is still a lot of discussion going on in regards to what’s going to happen to the airport.
Besides continued talks with McHale, Wells said he has also been approached by numerous residents and businesses, each with their own ideas about the airport.
But in the end, Wells said the town is not planning on spending any tax dollars on expanding this airport. He said those funds will have to come from the private sector.
“The town certainly hasn’t committed or done anything like that in any regard,” he said. “This isn’t going to be a large tax-dollar initiative. It’s going to come from the private sector.”
McHale said he expects the feasibility study to be completed before the end of 2012, at which point he plans on meeting with town council once again for a further update.
