Sen. Steve West, R-Paris, is the latest to withdraw support for an airport expansion at Bluegrass Station. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and House Republicans differed on plenty in their two-year state budget proposals but landed on one area of agreement: Supporting efforts to build a general aviation airport with a 7,800-foot runway and airpark at Bluegrass Station, a state-owned industrial park at Avon in Fayette County.?

A local government attempt to build the airport was defeated in 2017. The plan’s revival has reignited opposition from Bourbon County residents who complain of “government secrecy, eminent domain, and corporate welfare.” Opponents are organizing in hopes of blocking a project they say would destroy prime farmland and displace people from family farms.?

The former military post dates back to 1941, and Kentucky fully acquired the 780-acre business park in 2008 from the U.S. Department of Defense. It now hosts tenants including military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, which has more than 1,000 employees executing contract work for the Special Operations Command.?

The House GOP budget as passed would provide the Kentucky Department of Military Affairs — which the Bluegrass Station business park operates under — more than $300 million to build an airport and airpark as an expansion onto existing facilities. That includes a $55 million loan to acquire an “initial” 2,000 acres for the project, $36 million to build two hangars where massive C-130 turboprop transport aircraft and $15 million to create a multi-purpose building for when “emerging needs and existing federal tenants arise.”?

Beshear’s support of the airport in his budget is much smaller, only including the requested $55 million to acquire land for the airport.

The potential economic impact of the expansion, as envisioned by a 2022 report prepared by consultants and paid for by the state legislature, is significant: 3,000 to 6,000 new, permanent jobs, $12 million to $20 million in annual tax revenues and more than $1.2 billion in private investment.?

“It’s a real game-changer for Central Kentucky,” said Steve Collins, the Bluegrass Station director in a Lantern interview.

This isn’t the first attempt at building such an airport and airpark at Bluegrass Station. Efforts to have Bourbon County Fiscal Court shoulder the loans necessary to fund such an expansion failed in 2017 after news of the project sparked backlash from local residents, particularly Bourbon County landowners who feared their farmland could be taken through eminent domain for a potential runaway.?

Collins, the Bluegrass Station director, at the time told the Lexington Herald-Leader the project was at the request of a tenant who wanted to outfit C-130 planes but needed a runway and hangars.

Now, the project could be financed through the state budget and development overseen by the state. Bourbon County residents concerned about the project’s impacts in 2017 are now organizing against the inclusion of the airport funding in this year’s state budget.?

?“We do truly believe it is, you know, a government-military land grab,” said Ike VanMeter, a cattle farmer who owns about 1,500 acres in Bourbon County near the Bluegrass Station. He believes some of that land could be taken through an “egregious misuse” of eminent domain for a potential runway.?

VanMeter also said the project’s funding has been “cloaked in a veil of secrecy,” saying he only learned of its inclusion in the state budget about two weeks ago without anyone reaching out to him about it.?

Local residents opposing the project have organized their opposition against the project in a Facebook group, urging people to email local officials, state lawmakers from Bourbon County and Beshear to “fight against government secrecy, eminent domain, and corporate welfare.”

One elected Bourbon County soil and conservation district supervisor has proposed putting land by the Bluegrass Station into an agricultural district, which would mean the land couldn’t be condemned without litigation, to create a further bureaucratic barrier for the airport project to overcome.?

“I just don’t like seeing land taken from people who aren’t willing to sell,” said Samuel Clay, the conservation district supervisor who also farms row crops and raises cattle.?

“There’s not too many places in the country or in the state where you can run cattle like you can here,” Clay said. “I’d just hate to see ground like that turned into asphalt.”?

Report details ‘eminent domain’ use

In the last two-year state budget passed by the Kentucky legislature in 2022, state lawmakers allocated $500,000 for the Department of Military Affairs to continue “preliminary work” on a potential Bluegrass Station airport project and issue a report in November 2022.?

That report detailed how such a project could be structured and financed, including how an initial 2,000 acres, up to potentially 4,000 acres, could be acquired for the project.?

Featured in that report was the potential use of eminent domain to acquire land for the project, something the report stated could “inspire public resentment” if the state wasn’t transparent with its actions or why the project was needed.?

Collins said once monies are allocated for the project, there will be public outreach to make sure people are heard in the land acquisition process. He also pushed back against the characterization that using eminent domain was a “land grab.”

“People name things whatever they name it. It’s not true in my perspective,” Collins said. “The needs of the many versus the wants of a few in the public good is generally served by these processes.”?

Collins also said he didn’t believe the development of the project had been done in “secrecy,” another complaint levied by those opposing the airport. The report had been published and available since late 2022, he said, and was waiting for funding in the next state budget.

“It looks like we’ve been dragging our feet or hiding something for two years. Basically, it’s waiting on the money,” Collins said.?

Backers of the project include Bourbon County Judge-Executive Mike Williams, who was supportive of the project in 2017, and Sen. Steve West, R-Paris, who represents and lives in Bourbon County.?

West said after local efforts to build the airport failed in the 2010s, Bluegrass Station leadership has been working with the state executive branch on the potential airport project, including to get funding for the 2022 study.?

West is supportive of the Bluegrass Station airport funding because of its potential economic impact and the fear that, if the expansion is not done, contract work at the station supporting Special Operations Command could consolidate and move away from Kentucky.?

He said while he was empathetic to the landowners’ situation — mentioning he would likely be opposed if he was in their shoes — he believed the airport could be a “game changer.”?

“Eminent domain is eminent domain. It’s always messy,” West said. “I would say that my vote would be that the state be very generous with the landowners.”?

Collins also said he fears that Lockheed Martin’s presence could be affected if the airport project doesn’t go through. A request for comment on the budget allocation sent to a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin was not immediately returned.?

But, says Todd Earlywine, the Bourbon County magistrate who represents potentially affected landowners, any economic development would favor Fayette County while Bourbon County would “get a bunch of asphalt.”?

“I actually thought it was a dead deal until I found about it last Sunday,” Earlywine said. “I figured if Lockheed Martin wanted it bad enough, they were gonna go to the state.”?