Airport votes to replace water pump

By MEGAN HUGHES

[email protected]

Ironwood — The Gogebic-Iron County Airport voted Monday at its regular monthly meeting to replace the airport’s water pump, which failed earlier in the day, leaving the airport without access to water in the main buildings.

Airport manage Jeremy Busch said that with the lack of access to water, the bathrooms were unusable, and in the meantime the airport called in for portable toilets to be brought to the site until repairs could be made.

“The capacitor went bad,” said Busch. “His suggestion was to replace it.”

Busch said he was waiting for a reply from Binz Bros. about the cost of replacing the water pump. He received a text during the meeting with the estimated cost of around $8,600 for the replacement pump; which the board voted immediately to purchase, with a cost not to exceed $10,000 for the repair.

Busch also told the board about estimate he gained for a backup generator for the airport. The estimated cost is around $115,000.

Interim manager Todd Richter said the generator is a three-phase generator, which is compatible equipment at the airport. Because of this, the backup generator would also need to be three-phase.

The board also discussed the airport’s website, which is in the process of being updated.

Secretary Kristi Freeman said the website is looking good, and that it is in the last stages of being up and ready to update, as she is just waiting on information for the webcams and domain information for the website to finalize it.

“We can’t go live with our new website until we have that information,” she said.

Freeman said the new website will be working with the company Embark Aviation.

The board also discussed marketing and the use of promotional tickets.