CHRISTINA EICHELKRAUT / PVT Gary Hongo, field engineer with Reinard W. Brandley Airport Consultant Engineers, collects soil borings from the site of the proposed airport, about two and half miles south of Gamebird Road. The soil tests are the first step in beginning the design phase of the runways, access roads, and parking areas. Advertisement

Since the idea of the Pahrump Valley Airport was first conceived in 1983, a lot of work has gone into the project.

Meetings have been held, grants have been applied for and approved, boxes of paperwork have been created, and last July Aries Consultants Ltd. presented a draft final of the airport's master plan to the Pahrump Technical Advisory Committee.

This week, however, progress was literally groundbreaking.

Engineers and drill operators have spent the last week drilling and collecting borings from the proposed site on the south end of town, near the California border about two and a half miles from Gamebird Street.

Gary Hongo, a field engineer with Reinard W. Brandley Airport Consultant Engineers, explained the samples would tell engineers and designers what the ground is made of, which in turn would determine the thickness and materials needed to construct a stable runway.

Hongo and his drill hands took samples from the proposed areas of the future runway, parking lot and roadways.

"It's the first step of any major project so we can excavate properly," Kristian Coleman, drill hand, explained.

The airport will be a general aviation airport, meaning that it will be used for smaller planes, (for example, a corporate Cessna), the smallest of mail delivery planes, or the increasingly popular and common "air taxi," which is just what it sounds like, a small plane that takes travelers from point A to point B.

In order to obtain land for the project, Pahrump has worked with the Federal Aviation Administration to get the land from the ever-present Bureau of Land Management by placing it on the Nye County Mini-Lands Act, the shorter and quicker legislative equivalent to the county's proposed Public Lands Act.

In addition, there's the usual slate of required weather and environmental studies.

Some of these, including a year's worth of wind studies, have already been completed.

The drilling is a small but essential part of the first phase of the airport, expected to last until 2012.

That will include constructing the first 5,000 feet of what eventually will expand into a 6,000-foot runway.

In addition, the first phase will include installing fencing, grading access roads and extending utilities.

Phase two of the project will include building hangars (a potential revenue generator as they could be rented out to the private sector), taxiways and a parking area for private planes (including a tie-down area).

Finally, a terminal administration building, fire station, more hangars, a maintenance facility and an "aircraft pollution abatement facility" (bureaucratic-speak for a place where pilots can wash their planes) will be added.

The town has also worked steadily to generate funding and chip away at the airport's daunting price tag of $33,746,000.

Thanks to the FAA Airway Improvement Act of 1982, which established a trust fund used to assist the development of airports nationwide, up to $25,535,075 could possibly be funded through FAA grants.

The Nevada Department of Transportation has also been given authority to match money a town or community receives from various federal aviation funding programs.

In January 2006, the town approved an NDOT grant for $15,789 that was a state match to a $375,000 FAA grant the town received in 2003 from the Airport Investment Program.

Other possible sources of revenue include private financing, such as commercial aviation facilities like flight schools, general bonds, revenue bonds, in-kind services, donations, tax-exempt financing, and possible grants from federal public works programs or even the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Pahrump Airport Planning Director Charlie Gronda is not paid for any of the work or many hours he has invested in the airport project.