3 area airports get federal grants for development
Published 10:18 am Saturday, August 16, 2014
Lake Charles Regional, Southland Executive Airport and DeQuincy Industrial Airpark were among nine regional airports throughout the state to receive grants from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The grants, totaling almost $5 million, are to be used for construction development and safety projects.
Lake Charles Regional received $230,000; Southland Executive was awarded $195,759; and DeQuincy Industrial received $315,681.
Heath Allen, executive director of Lake Charles Regional, said the grant money will be used for redesigning and rehabilitating the airport’s lighting system.
“All the taxiway and runway lights in the airfield are pretty much original,” Allen said.
“We are going to switch over to LED lighting on all of our light fixtures,” he said. “With LED lights, you can get lots and lots of hours out of the fixtures. That is one of the biggest benefits. And the efficiency is another; it is much less expensive to operate LED versus standard incandescent lighting.
“We anticipate being done with the design phase sometime in the first quarter of next year. We look to hopefully receive a grant sometime in the second or third quarter of next year to start construction on the project.”
Allen said 90 percent of funding will come from grants through the FAA’s airport improvement program. The state will provide the remaining funding for the project.
Other grants awarded:
l $106,734 to Slidell Airport.
l $219,285 to George R. Carr Memorial Air Field Airport in Bogalusa.
l $246,979 to Le Gros Memorial Airport near Crowley.
l $270,000 to Thibodaux Municipal Airport.
l $901,667 to Alexandria International Airport.
l $2,440,000 to Shreveport Regional Airport.
