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The airport will be shutdown for a couple months this spring to complete a $6.9 million paving project.

Pittsfield Airport to Have Runway Repaved; Solar Array Installed

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The airport is expected to be shut down for 85 days this spring for the reconstruction of the main runway.
 
The City Council's Finance Subcommittee voted affirmatively on the borrowing to repave both of the airport's runways. The total project will cost $6.9 million, which is 95 percent paid for by the Federal Aviation Administration. The city's cost will be $349,735.
 
"We are required to authorize the entire project amount and that is reduced by any grants that come in to support the project," Director of Finance Matthew Kerwood said.
 
Airport Commission Chairman Tom Sakshaug said the airport will be completely shut down on April 30. The main runway will be paved. The smaller runway will be done right after and will be shut down for an additional 55 days.
 
Sakshaug said the Airport Commission had a number of possibilities but ultimately decided to do the paving all at once.
 
The project has been a long time coming. At one point it had been included in the massive airport extension project but got pulled from that scope. In fiscal 2016, the City  Council approved $3.5 million for the paving. But, then prices were estimated to come in higher. In fiscal 2017, the City Council authorized another $2.6 million.
 
"It was clear that the original $3.5 [million] plus the $2.6 [million] were not enough," Kerwood said.
 
Kerwood said since then the engineering has been completed and the bids for construction came in at $6.9 million and the two authorizations were at $6.1 million. The subcommittee approved combining both of those authorizations and then increasing the total.
 
The finance director added that in the future, administrators will wait until having a final price with the FAA before asking for an authorization — thus avoiding revisiting the authorization multiple times.
 
Meanwhile, the airport is also set to host two solar arrays. With Oak Leaf Energy Partners, the committee agreed to a 30-year lease, 20 in the initial term and followed by two five-year extensions. The agreement would bring between of $3.1 million and $6.8 million to the airport in lease payments and $6.5 million to the city for tax payments.
 
Consultant Beth Greenblatt said the agreement is in place, but the actual total will depend on when the state approves the tax incentives. Greenblatt said the state's Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target program — which replaced the SREX tax incentives — is based more on timing that it is revenue. She said there are various blocks.
 
Once a block is filled up, the next block provides lower incentives. Greenblatt has agreements in place with Oak Leaf for three different blocks, depending on where it falls in the program.
 
"It is less of a technical issue but more of a timing issue to when the project qualifies under the smart program," Greenblatt said.
 
Assessor Paula King said, "We're not really estimating. We are just giving you the different scenarios ... these are hard numbers but it depends on what block we enter into."

Tags: pittsfield airport,   solar array,   

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EPA Lays Out Draft Plan for PCB Remediation in Pittsfield

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Ward 4 Councilor James Conant requested the meeting be held at Herberg Middle School as his ward will be most affected. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric have a preliminary plan to remediate polychlorinated biphenyls from the city's Rest of River stretch by 2032.

"We're going to implement the remedy, move on, and in five years we can be done with the majority of the issues in Pittsfield," Project Manager Dean Tagliaferro said during a hearing on Wednesday.

"The goal is to restore the (Housatonic) river, make the river an asset. Right now, it's a liability."

The PCB-polluted "Rest of River" stretches nearly 125 miles from the confluence of the East and West Branches of the river in Pittsfield to the end of Reach 16 just before Long Island Sound in Connecticut.  The city's five-mile reach, 5A, goes from the confluence to the wastewater treatment plant and includes river channels, banks, backwaters, and 325 acres of floodplains.

The event was held at Herberg Middle School, as Ward 4 Councilor James Conant wanted to ensure that the residents who will be most affected by the cleanup didn't have to travel far.

Conant emphasized that "nothing is set in actual stone" and it will not be solidified for many months.

In February 2020, the Rest of River settlement agreement that outlines the continued cleanup was signed by the U.S. EPA, GE, the state, the city of Pittsfield, the towns of Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington, and Sheffield, and other interested parties.

Remediation has been in progress since the 1970s, including 27 cleanups. The remedy settled in 2020 includes the removal of one million cubic yards of contaminated sediment and floodplain soils, an 89 percent reduction of downstream transport of PCBs, an upland disposal facility located near Woods Pond (which has been contested by Southern Berkshire residents) as well as offsite disposal, and the removal of two dams.

The estimated cost is about $576 million and will take about 13 years to complete once construction begins.

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