Durango La Plata Airport Runway Paving

Brief Overview

Airport operations are critical to tourism in Durango which is located in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado and is the gateway to many scenic attractions. When plans to repave the airport’s sole runway were announced, local media carried several stories about the project and the economic impact of possible closure of the airport in early summer just as vacationers would normally be flying into the area.

The Durango airport is also home to a US Forest Service Air Tanker Facility. Its runway is the only one in the Four Corners region able to handle large slurry bomber aircraft used to fight forest fires. After a devastating fire near Durango just a year earlier, the community was worried about the possibility the runway would be shut down.

Responding to these concerns, Nielsons Skanska and other project stakeholders devised a plan for use of the airport’s taxiway by commercial, firefighting and light aircraft during construction. Originally, the project schedule called for the airport improvements to be finished in three phases during two months. The stakeholder project team refined this plan into 2 paving phases, shortening the time that airport operations were affected.

Once paving began in May 2003, Nielsons Skanska crews worked 14 and 15 hour single shifts, double shifts, and Sundays to further improve on the revised schedule. Supporting them was a fleet of state-of-the-art paving equipment. The experienced and productive Nielsons Skanska paving crews succeeded in producing a smooth, high quality runway and opening the runway ahead of the stakeholders’ revised schedule.

The Durango Airport has one 9,600 foot long runway. The original runway paving had been laid by Nielsons in the late 1970’s. In addition to its first overlay in 1989, the 2003 runway project included grade corrections that would improve the runway to current FAA safety standards.

Use of asphalt paving for grade changes eliminated the need for time consuming excavation and grading work, shortening the period airport operations would be impacted. Under the project team’s accelerated schedule, nearly 80,000 tons of asphalt paving had to be placed in 6 weeks.

The intricate paving sequence required construction of leveling courses and grade corrections, laying fabric above the final leveling course, and laying a two inch intermediate and a two inch surface course. The grade correction material ranged from 1.25 inches to 17 inches in depth. Placement of the grade correction impacted production of the lay down operation,since the deep section required multiple lifts and cure times. Despite the technical challenges, Nielsons Skanska’s complete runway surface met challenging FAA requirements for both elevation grade and smoothness.

With paving completed Ron Dent, the City of Durango’s Airport Manager, told the Four Corners Business Journal “We opened the runway 11 days early... We are happy, and at this point we’re about a quarter million dollars under budget...The best part is, we had a really good project.”