HIGHFILL — An access road to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport is a step closer after state highway officials said they have no more comments on the environmental impact study.

“We do have movement,” Scott Van Laningham, executive director of the airport, told the board Dec. 14.

Van Laningham said required public hearings and a public comment period could begin early next year.

Final approval from the federal Highway Administration could come as early as the middle of the year, Van Laningham said.

The only holdup is from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has expressed some concern about building highways in the recharge area of Cave Springs because of endangered species. A recharge area is where groundwater returns to underground aquifers. Gray bats and Ozark cave fish are the primary species of concern.

Van Laningham said neither the proposed access road nor the proposed U.S. 412 Northern Bypass are within the Cave Springs recharge area. Proposed routes that went through the area were rejected.

Eventually, the access road from the airport is expected to connect to a new section of U.S. 412, providing a faster, more direct route to the airport.

Officials planned to meet with fish and wildlife officials before Christmas to address their concern about the proposed access road.

The board will need to hire an engineering firm to oversee the access road project and staff will need to evaluate financing options to make sure the money is there for right-of-way acquisition and to build the road before moving forward.

“We’ve gotta make sure we don’t have the car packed with nowhere to go,” said Philip Taldo, board chairman.

In other business, the board approved the airport’s 2012 budget, which includesmoney for operating the new concourse. The three biggest increases are for janitorial services, utilities and insurance, which total $373,200.

The budget also includes $50,000 for an additional maintenance supervisor so someone is on duty during all operating hours, two additional police officers at a cost of $30,000, a 3 percent employee pay increase totaling $80,000 and increased health insurance costs of $9,000.

The budget contains $5.3 million for operational expenses and $5.9 million in debt service.

Total revenue and costs are estimated to be about $47 million.

School News, Pages 12 on 01/04/2012