The Montana Aeronautics Board has awarded over $3 million to 46 public-use Montana airports this year in grant funding for improvement projects.
“We’re able to cover probably 80% of the total ask from low priority projects to high priority projects,” said Montana Aeronautics Board vice chair Wade Cebulski.
Each year, representatives from the airports can submit proposals to receive a grant. Funding comes from Montana’s gas tax, which sits at $0.045 cents per gallon of fuel purchased.
The most common project requests are safety-related, such as fencing to prevent wildlife from interfering with runways, lighting, and asphalt maintenance.
This process is most important for the smaller airports that receive no federal funding, meaning they rely solely on these grants to meet their needs
“Without us, they really struggle,” Cebulski said. “Probably one of the most important things is helping the non-federally funded airports in the state of Montana.”
“You know,” Cebulski continued, “when you have these here half million dollar projects for lighting or fencing, they flat can't afford it.”
At the Helena Regional Airport, the big project they’ll be working on this year is pavement maintenance on their crosswind runway.
“We requested $248,000, and we got $235,600, so yeah, we were very excited to receive that,” said Helena Regional Airport director Jeff Wadekamper. “It's much needed and much appreciated.”
Helena was one of the top recipients of grant funding this year, following only three other smaller airports. The runway needing work is one of their smaller ones, not used by commercial airlines. However, it is a critical part of the infrastructure for small aircraft.
“Having this runway for those other aircraft to use when there's strong crosswinds, huge safety issue, and so it's very important,” Wadekamper said.
Though by Montana standards, Helena is one of the larger airports, it’s a modest operation with a tight budget. Without the grant, the crosswind runway project would be solely on them to cover.
“It's not eligible for any federal funding, so we have to come up with a source to keep that runway going for the small aircraft,” Wadekamper said. “This is one such program that's very beneficial and very helpful to fund keeping that particular runway in use.”
Wadekamper says construction will start this summer.
Full list of airports that received funding
ANACONDA $12,600
BROADUS $2,970
BUTTE $58,829
CANYON FERRY $58,615
CHESTER $5,850
CHINOOK $11,318
CHOTEAU $130,245
CIRCLE $4,950
COLSTRIP $18,525
CULBERTSON $9,500
CUT BANK $395,892
DEER LODGE $269,980 $28,264
DUTTON $142,500
EUREKA $22,106
FAIRFIELD $19,000
GARDINER $90,250
GERALDINE $39,792
GLASGOW $96,193
GLENDIVE $36,077
HAMILTON $34,200
HARLEM $11,318
HARLOWTON $10,545
HAVRE $47,500
HELENA $235,600
HOT SPRINGS $94,525
JORDAN $15,349
LAUREL $51,007
LEWISTOWN $118,750
LIBBY $38,270
LIVINGSTON $22,050
MALTA $23,893
MILES CITY $15,200
PLAINS $14,155
PLENTYWOOD $33,912
POLSON $30,960 $5,040
RED LODGE $63,233
ROUNDUP $7,421
SHELBY $11,875
SIDNEY $137,600
ST IGNATIUS $495,000
STEVENSVILLE $57,600
TERRY $13,945
THOMPSON FALLS $13,870
THREE FORKS $6,305
TURNER $69,174
WEST YELLOWSTONE $231,555
Totals $3,330,004 $33,304
