Endangered New Mexico meadow jumping mice found near the Durango-La Plata County Airport could force plans for the access road to change.
Surveys that ended in August found federally protected mice living where officials had planned to build a new alignment of County Road 309A.
“It complicates the new access point and introduces questions about if that will work or how that will work,” said Tony Vicari, interim director of aviation.
The access road project was planned to coincide with construction of a new terminal on the east side of the runway.
County voters will consider a property tax increase to cover $40 million of the construction. Grants and other funding measures are expected to cover the remaining $85 million of the project’s first phase.
The road was to be built east of the intersection of County Road 309 and Colorado Highway 172 to improve safety, he said.
The Durango-La Plata County Airport Commission and other city and county elected officials were notified about the mice last week and airport consultants are exploring solutions, Vicari said.
Raising the road a few feet off the ground may be one solution, he said. Moving the road might be tough because of the airport’s property lines, he said.
“Dramatically moving it is probably not realistic,” he said.
Leaving the current access road in place might be possible, but it would be less direct, and the capacity of the road would have to be examined, he said.
Consultants with Jviation should have more answers to these questions in two weeks, and the results will likely be presented to Durango city councilors and La Plata County commissioners.
The boards will make major decisions about access, if necessary, he said.
The mice were not found near the east side of the runway and no changes will need to be made to plans for building construction, he said.
Consultants also were looking for endangered Southwestern Willow Flycatchers, but none was found, he said.
The search for these endangered species is part of the environmental assessment required to build the new terminal.