Aviation View | Volume 2, Issue 1

20 AVIATION VIEW VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1 Judge Executive, “and it’s right on the northern border between Kentucky and Indiana. There are a lot of rolling hills, a lot of beautiful country, it is a very rural area with less than 9,000 people. Interestingly, we are 45 minutes from Cincinnati, and 30 minutes south of Boone County, which is one of the three fastest-growing counties in the state. We get a lot of benefits from being close to that populated area, but we are not taking advantage of what it could offer our county.” Back as far as the late 1980s, there were conversations between the county, the state, and the FAA about the possibility of a general aviation airport, but nothing was hammered out until 2019. By that time land had already been purchased and the consultants went to work. “We had them on contract for 15 years as we waited and got everything ready for just this moment,” Morris chuckles, “so they were pretty excited to start working and start getting paid.” Phase One of the project saw the levelling of 535 acres of rolling farmland. With a $9,000,000 grant from the FAA, the county hired Bizzack Construction out of Kentucky to move 1.2 million cubic yards of dirt (roughly 45,000 dump truck loads). They had to cut the grade below the actual surface to level the runway, and the topography was rolling hills, so just imagine what it would take to level over 500 acres. Bizzack already had experience at the Lexington Airport and proved an invaluable partner. Morris acknowledges, “One of the amazing AT A GLANCE GALLATIN COUNTY AIRPORT WHAT: A new general aviation airport, now under construction WHERE: Sparta, Kentucky WEBSITE: www.gallatincounty.ky.gov/