BLUEFIELD, W.Va. – At the Mercer County Airport, snow and ice remain across the runway, but clearing those runways quickly isn’t as easy as it seems.
“Right now, we’re dealing with ice. They don’t let us put no salt,” said Pilkins. “Most of us, general aviation airports are stuck with ice and stuff because we don’t get that kind of government money to do any kind of, they do have a liquid fort, but it’s very, very expensive.”
According to Jim Pilkins, the manager of Mercer County Airport, treating the airport’s runway would cost around ten thousand dollars, and the airport doesn’t have that money for each winter.
Instead, they’ve developed their own method to partially clear the runway.
Pilkins explains, “The runways and stuff is grooved. It moves water off of it nicely. And then where it’s so dark looking the pavement part where we have it resealed. The other day when it was 18 to 20 degrees with a little sun, it still melted, but it is so thick out there right now it’s going to take a little bit more mother nature to get it off of there.”
The lack of sun and the frigid temperatures in recent days have slowed the clearing process, and the airport feels the impact day by day.
Pilkins says, “It makes it rough on the business. We’re selling fuel. Some of my helicopters, they can come right on in and get their fuel, but it’s just a rough time of the year. You lose the money on that. Each person that don’t come in and buy the fuel, that’s another money gone.”
According to airport officials, salt is not allowed on the runways due to environmental and maintenance concerns.
Salt can corrode aluminum on aircraft, so airports tend to use other methods to melt the snow and ice.
Until the weather improves, Pilkins and his team will continue scraping snow off the runways and hope for quicker melting.
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