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Asbestos abatement at Kenai Airport terminal reimbursed by FAA

Nearly a half-a-million dollars has been spent from the Kenai Airport Terminal remodeling project’s contingency fund on asbestos abatement alone. However, the city is being reimbursed at a significant rate by the Federal Aviation Administration. 

City of Kenai administration brought forth an ordinance last week that would accept almost $409,000 from the FAA to reimburse two change orders that totaled almost $462,000.

“Almost of this is associated with asbestos abatement,” City Manager Paul Ostrander explained.

“So when those change orders come in, we then contact FAA and have discussions on them on what portion or percentage of those change orders are going to be eligible for grant funding. In this case of the $461,000 in June and change orders that we've authorized 400 (thousand), almost $109,000 of that is going to going to be paid for through an FAA grant. So what this ordinance does is it takes that $409,000 and appropriates it into this project fund. So essentially what we've got is out of the $461,000 that we've processed in change orders, only about $53,000 of that is actually going to be paid for from city of Kenai airport funds.”

City Councilman Jim Glendening expressed concern over the change orders.

“I have the understanding any way that this is well managed, well designed and well conceived of. And it's hard to ask for assurances that we're not going to have any more change orders. But I would like to see that maybe this is the last of the change orders unless they're just, you know, something that's that's unworkable, unsafe, or, or environmentally faux pas,” Glendening said. “Is that a fair enough demand?” 

“Council member Glendening, we certainly are very conscientious when we go through a project like this to make sure that we are not authorizing change orders that are in excess of what we should,” Ostrander replied. “And even though a lot of this is paid for, but through federal grants, I still treat this as every single dollar is the city of Kenai’s. So we're very careful about change orders in this and in any project with the city.” 

The council unanimously accepted the funds and transferred them into the airport terminal improvements fund. The terminal remodel was budgeted for almost $11.5 million including the contingency fund. Blazy Construction is the contractor.

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