GHENT — Mention the Columbia County Airport and tensions can run high, but there are always at least two sides to a controversy and the airport is no exception.
After months-long debates about extending the runway and most recently a grant for safety improvements to one of the airport’s hangars, the Federal Aviation Administration last week requested a wildlife study.
But the backdro in the community remains the same.
Lifetime county resident Catherine Gallo, 70, not only lives in the house wher she grew up in Hudson but works for Richmor Aviation in fixed base operations at the Columbia County Airport in Ghent.
"I’m single with no college education," said Gallo. Richmor "hired me and I made a living."
Gallo handles the billing for owners who keep their planes at the airport but which require fuel, pilots and other services supplied by Richmor.
"I love it here, it is a nice place to work," she said.
Recently offering vocal support for the airport at a Ghent Town Board meeting, she asserted that it’s only with the influx of new arrivals to the county that complaints about the airport have heated up.
"The airport was here first and we hadn’t had any complaints from neighbors for years." she said. "There is a crop duster that makes a lot of noise but he has the right to be here. It is free airspace."
The crop duster, she acknowledged, can fly low but she said low altitude is necessary to its task.
"What do they think," she said of nearby residents concerned about any expansion at the airport, "747s will come in here? A gulfstream is the biggest we have."
The Gulfstream website lists a G650ER, which carries 19 passengers, as just under 100 feet long, about the same in wingspan and almost 26 feet high. It is powered by two Rolls Royce engines.
"Three jets park in the corporate hangar and then there are a number of propeller planes," she said. "It’s a little airport."
But has she learned to fly? "I haven’t had the time," she said.
Judy Rusk, 78, is the other side of the airport equation. A resident of Ghent for eight years, she moved here from Bangor, Maine to be close to family. once here she has only become more enamored with the county’s natural beauty.
"I love it here. I love Columbia County," she said.
Though she is a former chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Ghent, she said she is not a political person.
"I am interested in havin the best I can for my children and grandchildren," Rusk said.
Rusk acknowledged the area is divided between those who came in recent years versus those who have long called the county home, possibly for generations, but emphasizes she is not against the airport itself.
"I don’t mind the airport; we don’t want the airport to go away," she said. "We just don’t want it expanded and we would like an accounting of how does it play into the county as regards money coming and going?"
And as a relative newcomer to the county with a strong appreciation for its relatively untouched landscape, she is also concerned about the environment. "Do we really want all these planes burning fuel in the air," she said. "We have enough hangars for the people who do fly in."
