FAA cancels Yeager Airport Environmental Impact Statement for improvement project

CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – The Federal Aviation Administration says they are no longer planning an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a project at West Virginia International Yeager Airport.

According to a statement from the FAA, the EIS would have involved the proposed Airfield, Safety and Terminal Improvement Project for the airport. This comes months after the FAA first put the EIS on March 27.

Back in August 2023, the airport got a $2.29 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to go toward the third phase of study for that project, which would have allowed them to look at alternatives to the controversial plan to expand the runway into Coonskin Park. The group “ Save Coonskin Park ” has been advocating to protect the park from the runway expansion.

At that time, they said this could include ideas such as expanding on the opposite end of the runway, transferring aviation activity to other airports, or even building a new airport, among other options.

Now, the FAA says they are canceling the EOS because more time is needed to conduct necessary studies.

The FAA’s report states that they conducted two public meetings in Charleston on July 9 for a discussion of the EIS pause and to present a revised Terminal Design Concept. They say they completed an environmental review of the revised concept, and on Aug. 13, issued a Categorical Exclusion for the project. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior , a Categorical Exclusion is a category of actions a federal agency determines “normally does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment.”

The FAA also noted that in 2023, the Central West Virginia Regional Airport Authority told them of planned changes in the carrier service and operations at CRW, including one carrier that stopped service in March 2023 and a new carrier that began service through CRW in May of 2023. These changes, along with the CWVRAA’s hope to attract additional new carriers created a need to revisit the planning process.

They say that based on the CWVRAA’s priority to focus the immediate future on financing and constructing the airport terminal and marketing new services, the FAA will need more time to conduct the necessary studies to support the components of the proposed airfield development.

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