Hermiston moves forward on plan to move Ott Road

HERMISTON – The city of Hermiston has accepted a $150,000 Critical Oregon Airport Relief (COAR) grant from the Oregon Department of Aviation (ODA). The grant will assist in purchasing property for Hermiston Municipal Airport’s runway protection zone.

City staff has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration, ODA, Umatilla County, the Hermiston Airport Committee, and a neighboring property owner since 2017 related to an effort to move Ott Road out of the runway protection zone as part of the airport master plan.

During Monday’s city council meeting, Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan said funding to purchase 140 acres for the project got pushed back and delayed several times on the federal level. This project is now programmed for funding this year.

The initial goal in working with the FAA was to move Ott Road further from the end of the runway.

“That right of way which invites people, traffic, trucks, vehicles all sorts of things into an area where you could potentially, very rarely happens but it could happen that you could have an airplane and vehicle conflict.” said Morgan.

The city plans to reroute the road anyways sometime within the next ten years, at a time when the road would’ve required improvement anyways due to natural deterioration.

FAA grants require a 10 percent non-federal match, which means the city is responsible for $365,000. The COAR grant is part of the cities’ match, which means the current breakdown for acquiring the land is:

• FAA Grant: $3,650,000 (90.0 percent)
• City Funds: $255,556 (6.3 percent)
• COAR Grant: $150,000 (3.7 percent)

The city plans to recoup their portion of the funding by leasing the land back out for agricultural production. The city anticipates that revenue will fully cover the cost in less than 10 years.

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