PULLMAN, Wash. — A project over a decade in the making has finally wrapped up at the Pullman-Moscow regional airport.

On Thursday, airport leaders formally opened the airport's newly realigned runway on the Palouse. Physical construction on the project, which was budgeted at $142.5 million, took place over the last few years.

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“It’s outstanding," said Tony Bean, the airport's executive director. “We don’t have a railway, we don’t have a waterway, we do not have an interstate. But we do have a local airport.”

The runway was realigned to meet standards set by the Federal Aviation Administration. As part of the project, the FAA installed and tested an instrument landing system related to the new runway. The equipment, along with FAA-developed approach maps and procedures, are essential during low-visibility landings, according to airport leaders.

At a ribbon cutting ceremony near the runway, area officials called the project's competition a major win for the Palouse.

"To tell people that are traveling in and out of the Palouse in the winter that we actually have instrumentation, and you can trust that your plane is going to be as reliable as it is at other cities in the Northwest, is an amazing thing to be able to tell,” said Bean.

“Although the project was about a runway, it was about more than that," added Rob Parrish, a former executive director at the airport. "It was about a belief in what the future of our communities needed to be.”

Representatives from Schweitzer Engineering, Washington State University, and the University of Idaho all spoke to the airport's importance related to the area's economy. “It will allow a parent to come visit their student at the University of Idaho when they’ve been apart just a little too long,” said Dan Ewart, UI's Vice President for Information Technology.

The work comes at a crucial time for the increasingly busy airport, too. According to the airport, In 2011, Pullman-Moscow Regional saw 32,000 enplanements. In 2018, the number had doubled to 66,000, Bean said previously.

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The project also represented an accomplishment for local construction crews. According to the airport, contractors moved eight million yards of dirt and put down 140,000 tons of asphalt over the runway's construction.

“There were mountains moved here,” said a speaker on behalf of one of the contractors.

The runway realignment required continuous amounts of cooperation between local and federal authorities, airport officials said. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers spoke at the ribbon cutting along with an FAA spokesman and representatives from Washington's senate delegation.

“This is an example that [lawmakers] actually can get things done, OK?!” joked Pullman mayor and airport board member Glenn Johnson. “Every time you drive by on airport road, this is an example. When you fly out, just remember, everybody did work together and got it done.”

Airport officials had previously feared that the federal government shutdown and FAA furloughs earlier this year could have delayed approval tied to the project. However, Bean indicated that the work remained on schedule. “Flight checks got pushed a little bit and it’s been compressed, and we’ve been hectic on it, but we’ve been able to deal with it,” he said.

With the FAA-compliant runway now in place, Bean said that the airport could be work on designing a new terminal.

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