Osoyoos airport advocates feeling optimistic

By ROY WOOD

Proponents of turning the Osoyoos airstrip into an actual airport have a bounce to their step these days after town council recently stepped away from a process that could have seen the airstrip vanish.

“Everybody is in deep breath mode now,” Councillor Mike Campol said in an interview, referring to council’s decision last month to abandon plans for a study into turning the area into an industrial park.

Campol is the town’s member on a steering committee that also includes representation from the Regional District, Destination Osoyoos and the Osoyoos Indian Band.

The airstrip, just west of the town on Highway 3, has changed little since more than half a million dollars was spent in the mid-2000s on work that included technical preparation work, paving the runway and creating the intersection with Highway 3 and the frontage road beside the airstrip.

Development of the airport ran into a serious downdraft in about 2008, when the council of the day lost enthusiasm for the venture. Part of the reason was the possibility of a major industrial development on the site and its promise of jobs for the community.

An industrial firm from the Lower Mainland was reportedly interested in moving to Osoyoos. After many months of talks, the proposal fell through.

But the notion that the airport lands would be of more value as the site of industry rather than as a small, rural airport did not go away.

But neither did a core group of local business people and others who believe strongly that an enhanced airport would be good for the town. The current iteration of airport advocates is the three-year-old Osoyoos Airport Development Society.

About 30 members gathered for the group’s annual general meeting on Tuesday. President Glen Harris told the meeting that as a result of council’s recent decision, “I feel we have a mandate to move forward.”

The immediate next step will be a presentation to town council on December 5, where the society will ask for at least council’s blessing as it begins applying for mainly provincial grants to begin upgrading the airport.

Board member Rob Rausch said in an interview that the society and the town are in agreement that it makes sense to have an airport in the town and what is needed now is a long-term growth strategy.

Rausch said that in the longer term he hopes the town will drive the process and that the society “will become a volunteer group that supports the town’s efforts.”

Guest speaker at Tuesday’s AGM was George Miller, former longtime manager of the Langley Airport and member of the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame.

He told the meeting that a viable airport would be a benefit for the whole community, not just those involved in aviation.

Availability of flight training, ease of access for medivac and search and rescue efforts, the attraction for fly-in tourists and sightseers, the possibility of hosting flying clubs and the creation of jobs in aviation related businesses are some of the potential benefits, he said.

Osoyoos is lucky to have the airport o close to the town centre. “What you have here is an opportunity to do it right,” he said.

There seems to be consensus now that the priorities in the short term include a perimeter fence, secure tie-downs for aircraft overnighting at the airport lighting and new runway markings. Rausch said each of the items would be the subject of separate grant applications and that none of them will likely be more that $100,000.

The longer-term wish list would include better parking, an airport terminal building, tanks for aviation and jet fuel and, eventually, an expansion of the runway from 2,477 feet to as long as 5,000 feet.

Asked about whether an expanded Osoyoos airport would be in competition with the Oliver Municipal Airport just a few miles up Highway 97, Rausch said such thinking is old fashioned.

“It’s not a zero-sum game,” he said. In the longer term, both airports will “max out on their current footprints” and will be complimentary rather than competitive, he said.

At this point, he said, the society is just trying to make baby steps. “Let’s make it an airport.”