It’s early days for tower discussion

It has been a dozen years since Douglas County voters narrowly approved lifting the 30,000- and 50,000-weight limits from Minden-Tahoe Airport.

With a victory margin of only 278 votes which represented 1.3 percent of the votes cast in the 2010 election approving the ballot measure it was not a foregone conclusion.

Carson Valley residents have had an interesting relationship with the airport over the past four decades, first approving an ordinance limiting the size of aircraft in 1984 and revising it in 1992.

The ordinance was never enforced, and wasn’t really enforceable, given most of the funding for work on the airport came from the federal government, which looked askance at something that said it’s OK for some aircraft to be over the limit and not others.

According to The R-C, there were about 70,000 movements a year at the airport in 1992. According to the airport’s draft marketing plan, that’s up to 90,000 some 30 years later.

A key concern is that a tower will increase the air traffic at the airport, which will increase its impact on residents living north of it.

Airport officials counter that without a tower and the five-mile controlled airspace it brings, they don’t have any control over what pilots do once they leave the ground.

They say safety is the key motivation to seek a tower for the airport, which we agree makes sense.

Whether residents agree is another matter entirely.

On Tuesday, The R-C confirmed that airport management is aware that establishing a control tower at the airport will require a public vote. That means there’s no chance that residents will one day wake up and find the silos across Heybourne Road are no longer the tallest structures in that precinct.

Those for and against establishing a tower will have an opportunity to make their cases for voters.

Before any of that happens, the airport will have to justify the expense of building and manning a tower to the Federal Aviation Administration, which will pay for most of the construction and all of the personnel cost. That process will be a lengthy one.