Thumbnail photo courtesy of Andrew Goff
County supervisors agreed to a year’s extension of the deadline on a line of credit they offered to the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority to replace roughly 1,800 feet of chainlink fence.
The fence project is in an environmentally and culturally sensitive area along the beachfront at Del Norte County Regional Airport, Director Sean Rosenthal told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. It’s needed to keep elk from getting onto the tarmac, he said.
“Right now we’re in the design phase and that should be approved any day,” he said. “And then we have to get a Coastal (Development) Permit. And, hopefully, we get all of our plant studies done in time for September construction.”
The cost of the project is about $900,000 with about 90% being funded through Federal Aviation Administration grant dollars. The BCRAA joint powers authority is required to contribute about 5% toward the project cost, Rosenthal said.
The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors initially extended a line of credit to the BCRAA in September 2025 to help the joint powers authority with a cash flow emergency tied to the fence replacement and two other projects.
The other two projects include the rehabilitation of Runway 18-36 as well as the purchase of an airport rescue firefighter truck, which are also being paid for through reimbursable federal grants.
According to a May 18, 2026 letter from BCRAA Chairman David Finigan to the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors, the airport rescue firefighter truck and runway rehabilitation project “are progressing as anticipated.”
The extension for the fencing project has to do with “ongoing coordination, reimbursement processing timelines and project closeout requirements associated with the FAA grant,” the letter stated.
Under the September 2025 agreement between BCRAA and the county, the line of credit had initially been set to expire on June 30. The extended line of credit for the fence project will last through June 30, 2027.
The airport fire rescue truck was 100% paid for through an FAA grant, Rosenthal said. The $8 million federal grant associated with rehabbing Runway 18-36 is fully closed out, the airport director said.
The rehabilitation project involved removing the runway’s top layer of asphalt and replacing it with new pavement. The project also involved installing an LED lighting system, replacing the incandescent fixtures previously installed.
The BCRAA is currently in the pre-design phase on the potential rehabilitation of the airport’s second runway, Runway 12-30. Rosenthal said geotechnical work is being completed to determine whether the runway needs to be reconstructed or if it needs to be rehabilitated.
“With that information we’ll go next year or the year after into the planning phase,” he said.
During public comment, county resident Sam Strait, a frequent airport critic, said the fencing contract is $17,000, though Rosenthal disputed that amount. Strait questioned the state of the BCRAA’s finances and accused the authority of failing to properly study the ground the rehabilitated Runway 18-36 sits on.
“This eventually will become a county problem,” Strait said.
Rosenthal, however, said Runway 18-36 is 100% safe. Its rehabilitation project went through a pre-design phase, was designed by aeronautical engineers and is inspected daily.
“Our weight limits are 43,000 pounds,” he said. “Well in range for the 30,000 pound plane that lands there.”
The Border Coast Regional Airport Authority is a joint powers authority consisting of Del Norte County, Curry County, Crescent City, Brookings, Curry County, Elk Valley Rancheria and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation.
