Corey Murphy, president and CEO of the New Castle Henry County Economic Development Corporation, had plenty of business to bring to the New Castle City Council at its Monday meeting.
Murphy spoke about projects that are going on or planning to happen.
Murphy first started with the New Castle Airport. The airport is looking to add an apron to the facility, adding additional parking for people who come through in their planes.
Construction for this project is expected to start in April of 2022.
Murphy said, “This would give us room for two more large planes, gives us additional parking. The construction is going to cost $540,300, however it is through a federal aid project, requiring very little pay from New Castle. I’d say less than $15,000 is coming from the City of New Castle.”
Murphy continued saying, “We’ve made improvements to the airport, with local funds appropriated by the council. The problem has been when the (IU Health LifeLine) helicopter is on it’s cart, it makes it difficult for airplanes to fill up at the fuel pumps, with it there. This apron would allow the helicopter to be out of the way and allowing aviation traffic to flow.”
Murphy also announced more big news for the airport.
“The airport is going to be receiving an automated weather system,” he said. “IU Health was willing to bear most of the installation costs. It would allow pilots to get a weather report via radio, online, or through the phone. This is tremendous for our airport to have an automated weather report system. This will also really help IU Health.”
CSO project updateMayor Greg York also gave a brief update during this week’s city council meeting on the sewer upgrade project.
“They are about 40 percent done with this long project,” York said. “We didn’t get off to a great start with it, hasn’t been going well, and it’s not going to be good if it continues.
“Is there a list of how many water lines they’ve hit? And they hit three gas lines in three days, and tore out a guy’s electrical service,” the mayor continued. “There’s been toe-to-toe meetings. We’re not in a good spot with them right now.”
The sewer project is separating New Castle’s combined sewer overflow (CSO) system so that wastewater from homes and businesses flows to the water treatment plant. Upgrading the system should prevent that waste from spilling into Big Blue River during heavy rains.
This is Phase 3 of the city’s CSO Mitigation project.
– Story by Dakota Locker (DLocker@TheCourierTimes.com) of The Courier-Times. Read more local stories at TheCourierTimes.com.