As Yeager Airport prepares to negotiate buyouts of the last four Keystone Drive properties located near the site of the March 12 safety-overrun slope failure, its insurance carrier is scheduled to begin mediation early next month with representatives of the Keystone Apostolic Church - who seek $8 million in compensation, according to a letter recently received by the Charleston airport.
"I guess the mediation process will start from there," Terry Sayre, Yeager's executive director, told members of the airport's governing board Wednesday.
Since March, Yeager has bought more than a dozen houses and land parcels in the Keystone Drive vicinity after its insurance carrier, AIG, balked at buying any property in the slope failure area pending the settlement of slide-related lawsuits involving the airport.
Since then, the airport board voted to finance buyouts for willing sellers on its own, to let airport neighbors get on with their lives without having to wait for legal issues raised through no fault of their own to be resolved.
Meanwhile, more than 50 feet of material has been removed from the top of the safety-overrun area by the airport's contractor, S&S Clearing and Hydroseeding.
"The work's going really well," Sayre said. "Looking up from the toe of the slide, it doesn't look as scary as it used to."
The airport director said all unstable material should be removed from the site by the end of October.
In another development, members of the airport board passed a resolution calling on U.S. Customs and Border Protection to immediately hire a replacement for former Yeager-based Customs agent Norman Justice, who retired last October after 30 years of service.
Not having a local Customs presence "puts us at an economic disadvantage," Sayre said. "Business executives and charter flights can't fly directly to Charleston from places outside the country and clear Customs - they have to land somewhere else first, to go through Customs, and then fly here," Sayre said. "The Air National Guard can't fly directly back to Charleston from overseas. Air cargo planes flying parts here from Mexico for the Gestamp plant in South Charleston have to land in Texas and clear Customs before flying to Charleston."
A new Customs officer in Charleston also would clear flights landing at Beckley, Huntington and other Southern West Virginia airports, Sayre said.
The regional director for Customs and Border Protection is scheduled to visit the airport next weekend.
Col. Johnny Ryan, who replaced Col. Jerry Gouhin as commander of the Yeager-based 130th Airlift Wing following Gouhin's retirement in July, introduced himself to airport board members and said he wants to do more to enhance his Air Guard unit's community service mission.
Ryan said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James is scheduled to visit the 130th in October.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelhammer@wvgazette.com, 304-348-5169, or follow @rsteelhammer on Twitter.