Runway to become safer

Marion Municipal Airport’s runway, a safety concern for a year, will soon get repairs with help from a $122,025 grant from Kansas Department of Transportation to repair cracks in runway 17/35.

Airport board members told the city council in May that the cracks were so large a plane lost its tail wheel and another blew out a tire. They range from 1 to 9 inches wide, with 20 to 30 of them termed “sizable. The worst are on the end where planes come down.

Darrin Neufeld of EBH engineering estimated if the city put the project out to bid, it could cost $80,000 to $100,000. He said a cold patch repair would be a two-to five-year solution, and a hot mix repair would be a 5-to 10-year solution. The city will have to share somewhere between 5% and 50% on the work.