Third group forms to fight Orange airport

HILLSBOROUGH - A group of northern Orange County residents has formed a third grassroots organization to fight a future Orange County airport.

About 20 people in the Coleman Loop Road area north of Hillsborough met in builder Jeff Peloquin's garage workshop Sunday and formed No Airport in Northern Orange.

The group joins Preserve Rural Orange and Orange County Voice, two other organizations that also oppose plans for an airport.

The new group is reacting to a suggestion by state Rep. Bill Faison. He supports an airport because it would generate jobs and would like to see sites in northern Orange considered. In an interview last month, he suggested the Coleman Loop Road area.

On Monday, however, Faison said he thinks that area is a long shot -- it's farther from UNC Hospitals than the university has said it wants. Instead, he suggested a new area off Interstate 40 near Hillsborough.

"It's certainly within the university's timetable of travel," he said.

Coleman Loop Road residents say they're not taking chances. Many are farmers and say with other groups putting up signs and holding meetings, they can't afford to sit back.

"If we're at the bottom of the list and everyone else is making noise, we could move to the top of the list," said Beth Banes. "So we've got to make noise too."

Chancellor's blog

On his blog last week (http://holden.unc.edu/), UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp again said the university must close Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill "to make Carolina North all that it must be."

"For AHEC and MedAir, I think a move to RDU for the short-term is workable," the chancellor wrote. "But for the long-term, we owe it to our doctors to appoint the airport authority to see if there's a better alternative."

AHEC stands for Area Health Education Centers, a program that flies medical professionals to underserved areas of the state and accounts for about a quarter of the flights at Horace Williams.

UNC leaders say a 2005 consultant's report that identified White Cross in southwest Orange County as a top airport location was preliminary and that the airport authority it will form early next year will search for sites all over again. White Cross residents, who have drawn more than 200 people to recent meetings, say if their community looked attractive three years ago, it might again.

Faison said he's just offering other options.

An airport off Coleman Loop Road could lead to road improvements that provide a bypass around Hillsborough and solve that town's Churton Street traffic tie-ups, he said.

An airport parallel to Interstate 40, between the highway and the new Durham Tech campus, would make sense for economic development, Faison said. Plus, the noise from the highway would drown out the sound of piston-driven planes taking off, he said.

"There are a lot of people going around as if an airport authority has already been appointed and a site has already been located," Faison said. "That's tremendously premature."

"I'm not out trying to site or locate an airport," he added. 'All I said is 'Here is one possible site.'

Bison herd

The bison grazing in Jeff and Linda Peloquin's field amble up to the gate as visitors approach.

The couple has 15 head now and slaughter three a year for meat that Linda sells at the farmers market in Hillsborough. The meat has improved her cholesterol, she says, raising the good kind and lowering the bad.

The Peloquins moved to Coleman Loop Road about four years ago, ironically from Dodson's Crossroads in White Cross.

A mother bison nurses her calf, and the shaggy-maned bull comes up to the electrified fence, standing between the visitors and the rest of the herd in the 25-acre pen.

His tail twitches, and Peloquin suggests moving back a few feet.

Peloquin agrees his community seems an unlikely spot for an airport. Another neighbor breeds dressage horses and says pilots making landings would have to make several overhead passes to clear the deer alone.

"We're not a subdivision; we're a bunch of farming neighbors," Peloquin said. "If nothing else, it's good for us to get together. There's a rationale for having a concerted voice."