FAA Awards $2.1B in Airport Improvement Grants

The largest award this round went to Tucson International Airport.

Photo Courtesy Tucson Airport Authority

In its latest round of airport infrastructure grant awards, the Federal Aviation Administration is providing over $2.1 billion for hundreds of runway, taxiway and other projects around the country. A full list of the grants can be viewed here.

The grant awards, which the FAA announced on Sept. 6, constitute the fifth round of the FAA's Airport Improvement Program grants (AIP). These grants are not funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

A highlight of the latest award round is that it includes the FAA's first AIP grant to test technologies to reduce, mitigate and remove contaminants found in firefighting chemicals such as aqueous film forming foam, which includes per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), so-called “forever chemicals" which have been found to be harmful to human health.

Of the total, $1.9 billion is from the AIP and will go for 519 grants in 48 states, Guam, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The other $269 million is for supplemental discretionary grants, which will fund 62 projects at 56 U.S. airports.

Five Largest Awards

The largest award in this round is $55.1 million to Tucson International Airport to shift or reconfigure Runway 11/29.

Ranking second with $43 million is Deadhorse Airport in Alaska, to construct drainage and erosion control features as well as to install wildlife perimeter fencing.

Chicago O’Hare International ranks No. 3, with a total of $39 million in grants to extend and expand a taxiway.

Ranked fourth, with $37.3 million, is California's Monterey Regional Airport, to construct a terminal and apron, rehabilitate a runway and acquire an aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle. Grand Junction Regional Airport in Colorado receives $32.6 million for grading and drainage work to shift a runway.

The three airports receiving a combined $5.4 million for testing PFAS remediation are San Luis Obispo County in California, Nantucket Memorial in Massachusetts and Pellston Regional in Michigan.

Shannetta R.Griffin, FAA associate administrator for airports, said in a statement, “This funding helps ensure traveler safety, reduces the environmental impacts on communities and builds more resilient airports nationally.”

Some airports are using funds from the grants for projects related to sustainability, including St. Louis/Lambert International, Muskegon County in Michigan and Salt Lake City International and Fort Wayne International in Indiana.

Tom Ichniowski has been writing about the federal government as ENR’s Washington Bureau Chief since the George H.W. Bush administration, and he has covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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