Stimulus funding touches down at three Doña Ana County area airports

Three airports in Dona Ana County are in line to receive federal stimulus funding announced last week by the offices of Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich.

Among the 50 airports statewide that will receive funding are the Dona Ana County International Jetport at Santa Teresa, the Las Cruces International Airport and the Hatch Municipal Airport.

The Santa Teresa and Las Cruces facilities will each receive $69,000 in stimulus funds, while the Hatch operation will rake in $20,000.

The idea behind the funding is “to sustain critical operations and connect the state and rural communities to the resources they need,” the release stated.

William ‘Bill’ Provance manages the Dona Ana County International Jetport at Santa Teresa, and he said talks are still underway about how exactly the stimulus funds will be used.

The infusion of funds, he said, comes on the heels of a major renovation to the Jetport’s main runway. The $9 million project, he said, will allow the Jetport to “handle aircraft up to the older model Boing 737-400 series aircraft [as well as] limited cargo aircraft and larger corporate aircraft.

The previous runaway was 36 years old, he said, and had a weight capacity of about 20,000 pounds. The nearly completed renovation will allow aircraft up to 94,000 pounds to safely land.

“Basically, we rebuilt the runway from the base up,” Provance said. “They went down three feet and re-compacted the substructure, added six inches of base course and finished it with six inches of asphalt.”

He said the Jetport is home to two 85,000-pound aircraft, “so this was needed.”

Provance said the renovation projects was funded by grants from the Federal Aviation Administration, the New Mexico Aviation Division and three legislative capital outlay grants, one of which was for the planning phase.

As of last week, he said, “the new asphalt has been laid [and] they are now in the process of grooving the runway and installing the lights and new power transformers. It will then have to be painted and the temporary runway converted back to a taxiway.”

He said the engineering consultant on the project is Bohannan Huston, the construction contractor is Mountain States Constructors and the electrical contractor is Bixby Electric.

Rep. Xochitl Torres-Small praised the stimulus funding and the role of New Mexico’s municipal and rural airports.

“Families across New Mexico are doing their part to slow the spread of COVID-19 by staying at home and limiting air travel,” she said. “Our local airports, however, need to keep their doors open to support our frontline workers and connect communities with necessary goods and resources. This grant provides critical funding to help local airports continue operations and keep employees on payroll in both urban and rural communities like those across southern New Mexico.”