Damaged tank sets back airport fuel availability

Reporter

Robert Wardwell, a pilot with a hangar at the Morrisville-Stowe airport, snapped this photo of a jet fuel tank that was recently damaged during installation.

Robert Wardwell, a pilot with a hangar at the Morrisville-Stowe airport, snapped this photo of a jet fuel tank that was recently damaged during installation.

Robert Wardwell, a pilot with a hangar at the Morrisville-Stowe airport, snapped this photo of a jet fuel tank that was recently damaged during installation.

The fuel farm under construction at the Morrisville-Stowe Airport, shown here in early May.

A jet fuel tank was damaged during its May 23 installation at the Morrisville-Stowe Airport, setting back the long-awaited return of fuel access to the state-owned tarmac for an undetermined amount of time.

The tank was damaged during installation when the contractor, Lakes Region Mechanical Contracting, was lowering it into a below-ground holding area and dropped it several feet, according to Robert Burley, a lifelong aviator and local fixture at the airport.

Agency of Transportation executive Trini Brassard confirmed that the tank was damaged to the extent that the agency did not find it acceptable, nor would they accept a repaired version of the tank, only a full replacement.

Brassard noted that the aviation gas tank was installed at an acceptable level of quality.

The agency is still waiting for a timeline for completion from their Lakes Region for the new work, but supply chain issues have already caused the delay of fuel farm installation for several years. The airport has been without a fuel farm since a new federally funded parallel taxiway was installed in 2021 and its former operator, Stowe Aviation, left and stopped supplying fuel to the airport in 2022.

The lack of fuel has contributed to a reduction in both private and commercial traffic at the airport, which has been without an operator since Stowe Aviation's contentious departure over a year ago.

Now the fully functional fuel farm promised this summer will have to wait a while longer.

As a long-promised fuel farm nears completion at the Morrisville-Stowe Airport, the state-owned facility remains without an operator over a year after the departure of Stowe Aviation.

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