WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE NORTH PALM BEACH COUNTY AIRPORT?

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE NORTH PALM BEACH COUNTY AIRPORT?

This is a strange story about the North Palm Beach County airport. For those of you that don’t know, this airport is in Palm Beach Gardens, next to the Loxahatchee Slough and the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area. It has 3 runways and services light aircraft. It seems like the filling in of 55 acres of wetlands near the runway could be problematic. The proposed $5,600,000 project involves filling the existing wetlands with 130,000 cubic yards of soil, which will take over 2 years. The real concern and reason for the project is the possibility of aircraft hitting birds. Despite not having had a bird incident since 2008, which involved a turkey vulture, there is added reason for the fill in. It will allow the North county runway to be extended 1,700 more feet, from 4,300 to 6,000 feet. This would allow larger planes but not commercial traffic. Here is the strange part. There are no current plans to extend the runway, although the possibility of doing so is provided for in the airport’s master plan. This filling in is about safety only at this point, so they claim. But the land being cleared has stirred up residents who fear the negative impact of airport growth. Then there is this: there is no need to expand the runway, no increase in demand at this point. But there are 3 large scale projects under consideration in the North County now, the Briger tract, Callery-Judge Grove, and Avenir. Those projects will bring at least 10,000 more homes to the area in the coming years. It is also expected to make the area more attractive for companies to relocate their corporate headquarters to. If that happens the leaders of those companies prefer to travel by private plane. These are a lot of hypotheticals and these homes won’t be built for at least 3 -4 years. So why is $5.6 million being spent to clear away wetlands? For safety?? The detective in me senses that something is not right here, and that usually means that someone’s company is benefitting from a decision like this. Doesn’t it seem like there are many better uses for $5.6 million dollars in Palm Beach County than this right now? But mysterious things like this happen all the time and no one really cares or notices unless it directly affects them. I just happened to see this one or I would fall into that boat myself. As always, thanks for reading and have a great day.