WISCASSET

 An airport and a campground may seem to be discordant neighbors. On the sloping hillside of Chewonki Campground, however, the occasional rumble of a single-engine plane soaring over to the Wiscasset Municipal Airport is more of an amusement than a nuisance.

The abutting businesses have reportedly been friendly neighbors since 1961 — the year both campground and airport opened. In fact, Pam Brackett, co-owner of the campground with her sister, Ann Beck, has been a member of the airport committee for the past decade.

Tonight, prior to the regular Board of Selectmen meeting, there will be a public meeting regarding a draft environmental assessment that studied the potential impact of acquiring aviation easements to mitigate “off-airport vegetative obstructions.”

A portion of these obstructions, Brackett said, are trees on the campground which were hand planted by her parents to delineate and provide shade for 23 of the campground’s 47 sites.

Mitigation, per recommended action in the environmental assessment carried out by Stantec Consulting Services Inc. in Scarborough, could require a “full clear” of the obstructions, or partial removal and lighting installations.

The loss of these sites would devastate their family business, which Brackett said, is the only campground in Wiscasset.

“Most of the sites are surrounded by trees, and the entrance, which we call the gateway to the business,” said Brackett, “is lined with an avenue of trees — these are all highlighted to come down.”

The trees also surround the family home, adjacent to the entrance. There is an existing 2.77-acre avigation easement over a portion of the campground, Brackett said, but these areas are not included in that easement.

Brackett and Beck’s parents passed away suddenly in 1969, within six months of each other, leaving then 18- and 16-year-old sisters to care for the family business.

And they have done so, for the past 53 years. The campground hosts approximately 12,000 people during its fivemonth season, Brackett said, noting that 60 percent of these guests are return visitors.

“That’s a seasonal family there,” Brackett said, pointing to an R.V. through a shaded grove of pines. “They’re in their 80s now and they’ve been coming here since the ’60s.”

The 50-acre campground is one of the top property taxpayers in Wiscasset, said Brackett, and estimated that the visitors staying at the campground spend a total of $600,000 to $2 million in the town at restaurants, museums, grocery stores, retail stores, and in gas sales.

Taking “no action,” however, could be cost prohibitive for the town.

According to the environmental assessment, failure to remove the airspace obstructions could render the airport ineligible for future funding from the Federal Aviation Administration, “due to the failure to honor existing grant assurances requiring the airport maintain a safe operating environment.”

This would continue to restrict the airport to daytime only operations, said Airport Manager Ervin Deck, and limit operations also in inclement weather. Moreover, not taking action now would put the airport in jeapordy of losing federal funding.

“Until this is dealt with, the FAA will not grant the town anymore funding for the airport,” said Deck. “The town would be in default of its assurances — there’s string attached to accepting federal money and one of them is that you maintain the airspace.”

At the May 31 Town Meeting, voters approved an article to appropriate $8,000 from the capital reserve account for the town’s contribution to easement acquisition and obstruction removal. The town also voted to raise and appropriate $316,657 for airport operations, and appropriate the airport’s estimated revenues of $323,415 to reduce the town’s tax commitment.

According to the updated Airport Master Plan, the 2013-14 fiscal year “was the first time in the airport’s history that aviation derived revenue (excluding property taxes) exceeded expenses by about $17,000.”

The plan also noted that based aircraft have increased from 31 in 2001 to 48 in 2013, operations have increased 44 percent during those years, and predicts a continued growth rate of 4.4 percent over the next ten to 20 years.

The work slated for the airport is part of the Maine Department of Transportation’s three-year work plan, for 2014-16.

The work is broken down into two phases, with phase one easement acquisition and phase one obstruction removal occurring in 2014, with the DOT funding estimated at $206,000.

The expected funding for phase two easement acquisition and obstruction removal, to occur in 2015 and 2016, is $309,000. The work plan also estimates $154,000 during this time frame for design and permitting for runway reconstruction.

If a full clear were to be performed, the environmental assessment states that there are in total 61 acres of vegetation that have been identified as obstructions to the protected airspace for the municipal airport runway, called Runway 07/25.

Of these acres, 15 are located off airport property. For a full clear, 13 avigation easements — an easement that protects airspace above a property for the use of aircraft — would have to be acquired, including an easement to remove 4 acres of obstructions on the Chewonki Campground.

An alternative plan, which proposes lighting some obstructions rather than clearing them, recommends removing approximately 50 trees from the campground and installing two lights to mark the uncleared obstructions.

This alternative, which would require three avigation easements, recommends nine lights be installed, and an additional acre of trees be removed from another private parcel of land.

Both alternatives require approximately 3-5 acres of obstructions be removed from wetlands, and between 19 and 46 acres of clearing on airport grounds.

The total cost of a full clear is estimated at $1.05 million and a partial clear and lighting plan is estimated to cost $740,000.

The obstructions were identified as part of the Airport Master Plan, a study updated approximately every 10 years, which outlines the developmental goals of the airport for the next 20 years.

“The master plan recommends acquiring the easements,” said Deck, “but before the town can acquire private property, an environmental assessment has to be done.”

Deck said that there are currently trees obstructing both ends of the runway, and his understanding is that the earliest work will be done on the end of the runway that is removed from the campground.

“Generally the FAA requires commercial airports clear all obstructions. We don’t currently have any commercial flights though,” said Deck, so he is recommending the obstruction removal and lighting alternative.

Ultimately, if approved, Deck said it is the FAA that will decide the alternative with which to proceed.

In a March 14 memo requested by the Board of Selectmen, Deck estimated the cost of closing the airport at $16.5 million.

“The actual costs are very hard to estimate,” said Deck, “and first you’ve got to get permission from the FAA to close.

“Assuming they said ‘OK,’ we’d have to get a fair assessment of all the airport property and give that to the FAA; we’d have to do an extensive environmental assessment; we’d have to pay back grant money for development; and we have a couple million dollars worth of hangars leased.”

Deck said he didn’t think that there was a real risk of the airport being closed, but noted that funding was “desperately” needed for runway reconstruction.

“I want to let the process run its natural course — its a long process,” said Deck, noting that after tonight’s presentation on the assessment, “the public has 30 days to comment on it, after that the comments are compiled as part of a report and the final report is sent to the FAA.”

Deck said a decision could be reached by the FAA sometime in late summer.

“There’s a huge amount of information to digest here,” said Brackett, who will be presenting possible alternatives to the recommendations in the environmental assessment, including options to displace the runway threshold, alter the angle of approach, or change the minimum descent altitude.

Brackett said she would like the selectmen to consider these options, which would not disrupt the campground and which she believes may also meet FAA requirements for maintaining a safe approach to the runway.

“I would like to find another way to this, to abide by the FAA rule without doing something so drastic,” said Brackett.

“Can we negotiate to cut a couple of trees now and replant them, and then do some more a little bit later?” she said. “If there is something we can all agree to and work together on — without them taking an easement or claiming eminent domain — we would be so happy.”

The public meeting will begin at 6 p.m. The selectmen will vote on the adoption of the Airport Master Plan at their regular meeting, which will start at approximately 7 p.m. Both meetings will take place at the Wiscasset Town Office, located at 51 Bath Rd.

rgargiulo@timesrecord.com