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Staff Photo by Tim Barber/Chattanooga Times Free Press Cecil Whaley, 17-year operator at the Barwick-LaFayette Airport, watches an aircraft take off.
The airport in LaFayette, Ga., is trying to get half a million dollars to help keep deer off the runway.
The city has applied for a grant for the airport to get $500,000 to build nearly two miles of 10-foot fences around the mile-long runway at Barwick LaFayette Airport. The money would come as a OneGeorgia Authority Equity Fund grant.
Officials were not sure when they might hear about the grant.
Airport Manager Ron Westbrook said pilots see deer around the runway frequently during take-offs and landings and, while there haven’t been any accidents, the deer make people nervous.
“Deer can be awfully challenging for airplanes,” he said. “They just don’t mix.”
Westbrook recalled one close call two or three years ago when the pilot of a twin engine plane had to lift off early to avoid hitting a deer.
“That plane just cleared him by inches,” the manager said.
LaFayette Mayor Neal Florence said securing the runway from deer — and occasionally teenagers on four-wheelers — is important. But the deer are a “critical problem,” he said.
“If you were touching down and saw one crossing, I don’t think there’s any way you could pull up and jump him,” he said.
For the 12 months ending in June 2009, the airport had 6,750 aircraft operations, including takeoffs and landings, according to the Airport IQ Data Center.
Florence said the airport is a key resource for the area because the city and county fly in business prospects being wooed for industrial growth.
“This airport is very important not just to LaFayette but to Walker and Chattooga counties,” he said.
Andy began working at the Times Free Press in July 2008 as a general assignment reporter before focusing on Northwest Georgia and Georgia politics in May of 2009. Before coming to the Times Free Press, Andy worked for the Anniston Star, the Rome News Tribune and the Campus Carrier at Berry College, where he graduated with a communications degree in 2006. He is pursuing a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Tennessee ...
A ten ft tall chain link fence is very expensive alright. A six ft line fence with a tight mesh curtain on one side is much, much cheaper. It works on deer BECAUSE deer won't jump over the fence when it can't see the landing spot on the other side. Of course, politicians don't know of such things but they sure do understand more and more money.
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