The Smithers Regional Airport is hoping to purchase a grader.
Smithers town council approved a grant application to the Federal Airport Capital Assistance Programs (ACAP) for the purchase of a grader for the airport at its last regular meeting.
Airport manager Rob Blackburn said it wasn’t the first piece of machinery on their wish list, but will still be needed and used.
“We do borrow the work operations grader [from the town] from time to time and there was a grader at the airport at one time, so we think it would be beneficial, we’re trying to do the best we can, especially with ice removal on the runway, it’s pretty difficult with the equipment we have.”
Initially, Blackburn wanted to apply for funding for a runway plow truck. At the 2022 finance meetings, staff introduced a budget that included applying to ACAP for a self-propelled snow blower and for a runway plow truck. The application for a snow blower has been submitted. The administrators at ACAP told town staff that the airport is not eligible for a plow truck until 2025/26, but that they are eligible for a grader.
When the Town took ownership of the airport an older Champion grader was part of the fleet. The Champion grader was from late 1960s or early 1970s. Blackburn said the old grader was not utilized often as staff members were not comfortable running it due to its age, frequent breakdowns and safety issues. Parts for the old grader were difficult to source. It was sold at public auction around 2015.
Blackburn added that changing weather patterns have caused the airport to use more ice control than in previous years. The existing fleet of plow trucks and runway sweepers are not efficient when dealing with ice. A grader has the ability to cut through ice reducing the amount of time truck sweeper units are on the runway. It may also help to reduce the amount of area required to melt ice.
Council was on board to submit the grant application for the grader. Councillor Laura Leonard asked how much one would cost.
“Until we go to the actual tender process, we don’t know, but the maximum funding available is $545,000, I believe that does include the delivery of the vehicle,” Blackburn explained. “And they’ve reached that value by tenders across the country. So we should be in that norm somewhere.
“If the value came in higher, we have a couple of options available for us. We can negotiate with the lowest bidder, or we can come back and try to find additional funding to get the actual machine we want. It’s quite strict guidelines around what the cap will be. So once they set their cap, we’re kind of stuck at that. And most vendors that we would be working with through the tender process would know that that’s the cap so we would hope that will be coming very close to that.”
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