CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It could be by late October before Keystone Drive in Charleston is reopened after a massive hillside collapsed at Yeager Airport’s overrun area there in March 2015.
Work to remove material off the road began this month. In the last two weeks, crews have removed about 25,000 cubic yards of debris from the road.
“Things are moving along on Keystone Drive, but not moving as fast as we would like for them to,” said Yeager Airport Director Terry Sayre.
On Wednesday, the airport board announced they received a $700,000 reimbursement check from their insurer AIG, who they’ve been in a legal battle with over claims from the slope failure.
“We’ll take all that money and put it into the expenses out here on the remediation of the — I just call it the mess that’s still down there on and above Keystone Drive,” Sayre said.
Sayre said estimated costs to get the road back to normal will be well over $1 million.
“That’s what it’s going to cost to get engineering and contractor fees to get that cleaned up,” he said. “We want to help get that open for the neighborhood and the businesses that that affects.”
The airport board hopes for bigger reimbursements in the future, but most of that is tied up in litigation against a number of defendants connected to the construction of the airport’s EMASS system on the runway extension.