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US 395, Part 3: Inyo County (Little Lake to Manzanar)

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Go to: Part 2 | Main 395 page | Part 4

Inyo and Mono counties represent probably the largest county-specific portions of this photoessay (minus specific city focuses such as Carson City, Reno and Spokane). This is due in no small portion to the large amount of US 395 that runs in these two counties alone, almost 250 miles worth (realigned).

Inyo county was first created as Coso county in 1864, named for the famous local mountain range, but changed to Inyo in 1866. Like Kern county, it was another cast-off portion of Tulare county, but also took a small piece from Mono county to the north. "Inyo" refers to a local Indian name for the fabulous peaks between which the highway nestles, translated roughly as "dwelling place of the great spirit," as identified by Chief George of the Paiutes when asked by white settlers what the mountains were called. Despite being the second largest county in the continental United States (San Bernardino county being #1), its population numbers a faint 18,250, practically desolate given its surface area. US 395 acts as the string in this small pearl necklace of towns and settlements, holding the county's spread-out population together, a theme repeated in Mono county to its north.

Almost all of US 395 in Inyo and Mono counties from CA 14 north is part of the old Sierra Highway, also known as El Camino Sierra, originally trekked by the great Jedediah Smith and later promulgated by prospectors from the south. Advocated in the motor age as a connector from El Camino Real (US 101) to Yosemite, it was best known during its US 6 days. Today the Sierra Hwy name is little used outside of southern California, where it retains importance as a regional alternative through the Antelope Valley. The Sierra Hwy designation does not disappear until just before the Nevada state line, at the CA 89 junction in Part 9.

Much of US 395 in Inyo county is now on realigned mileage, although a great deal of this was done before the 1964 Renumbering and so is not marked on the PMs as such. In addition to a 1966 bypass of Little Lake, there is old alignment marked on the NAVTEQ plots west of Olancha and some scattered old pieces of alignment north of Lone Pine which were apparently bypassed sometime in the 1940s. Most of these old pieces do not even appear on most plots and are difficult to reconcile with maps from the time. More pieces to follow.

The Pearsonville playground and, of course, the Hubcap Capital of the World. (If you missed why, go back to the end of Part 2.)

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Turnoff for Nine Mile Canyon Rd and the Kennedy Meadows as we leave Pearsonville. Designated as InyoCo J41 and TulareCo J41 but apparently not signed as such in Inyo county, this difficult road sharply ascends to 6,500' and the eponymous meadow region named for landowner Andrew L. Kennedy who first opened the meadowland for cattle in 1886. From the Meadows where J41 ends, the roadway continues as National Forest Rd NF-22S05/Sherman Pass Rd over the Sierras through the Sherman Pass at 9,170', and then a harrowing and treacherous descent into the Kern River valley and either the back way into Sequoia National Monument or south to Kernville and Lake Isabella at CA 155.

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Distance signage.

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Entering into the southern end of the Owens Valley. Owens Valley was named for its most significant geologic feature, Owens Lake, in turn named for Richard Owens, a member of Gen. John C. Fremont's 1845 survey and exploration party. These almost honeycombed rock faces bordering US 395 act as the southern inlet, and are volcanic in origin.

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This portion of US 395 (between here and the Nevada border, in fact) is designated a national scenic byway. The Eastern Sierra Scenic Byway designation appears signed in multiple places to indicate local points of historical or geologic significance.

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The left turn ahead is the old alignment of US 395 through Little Lake before it was bypassed in 1966. This is a old section of road with some history, so we'll look at it briefly.

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Fork 1: Old US 395

As we turn off the highway, the most noticible feature is the striking basalt columns which are both here and around Little Lake's namesake which we will get to in a minute. These were formed similarly to the much larger columns of the Devils Postpile (briefly discussed in Part 7), in which hot volcanic material shrunk as it cooled and separated into the distinct spires seen here.

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[Little Lake, 1950s, 126K.] Little Lake was originally most famous for its hotel, shown at right in a 1950s picture postcard (click for a 126K larger image). Despite the evapouration of the mining trade to the south, it still was an important railroad stop as well until the railroad stopped coming in 1982. Sadly, the hotel was ravaged by fire in 1989, and over a period of four years most of the other local buildings were razed or abandoned, including the post office in 1997. This is a nice, if poignant, memorial of Little Lake.

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The short alignment is very ill-maintained, but quickly pulls up and around to rejoin the highway.

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We turn right to cover the very short portion which is now expressway.

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Fork 2: Modern US 395

There isn't much to this, but I like to be thorough.

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Rejoining our fork.

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Distance signage heading north.

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This is the Little Lake itself, for which the town was named. It really is quite little, although in this picture the water level is a bit lower than normal. Hints of the basalt columns we saw before can also be seen here.

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As we pass by the Little Lake recreation area, the terrain becomes a little less rugged.

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Wind warning leaving Little Lake.

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Expressway alignment continues NB at this BLM turn off for Fossil Falls, another volcanic formation down a somewhat slippery canyon trail.

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The hills in the valley are much more gentle and rolling now.

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Advance signage for Coso Junction and the rest area.

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Coso Junction, also named for the mountains (in front of us). It is also the site of this convenient off-expressway rest stop and service station. The Cosos' highest peak is, naturally, Coso Pk (8,160'). There are some hot springs known to the Indians in ancient times to the east.

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Re-entering US 395 from the rest area.

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Distance signage.

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This segment of US 395 carries a memorial for CHP Officer Paul H. Pino, a 23-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol who was struck by a speeding driver and dealt fatal injury while writing a traffic ticket along this stretch on the shoulder in 2003. Pino, a native of Holland, was a longtime denizen of US 395, originally based in Los Angeles but later transferring to the Bishop region. Remembered as a solid career officer on a lonely beat, his death was mourned by his partners and his four children.

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Inyo county receives considerable support from Los Angeles county to the far southwest, in return for access to the water supply (such as Owens Lake, now dry) and hydroelectric plant placement along the bodies of water in the Owens River valley. These agreements and water right claimage have existed in some form or another since the early 20th century; Los Angeles first asserted water rights in 1905 (see Part 5 for the marker), and the Los Angeles Aqueduct was dedicated in 1913 with expansion well into the 1940s. When William Mulholland started the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct at the dawn of the 20th century, paved highways eventually followed to service the massive project, along with service centres, lodging and restaurants. One of these towns was Dunmovin, west of the highway.

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Dunmovin is abandoned now, and apparently for sale, but during the 1950s and 1960s was a roadside resort. Hitting hard times during the 1970s, it became a residence for various desert dwellers until they, too, looked for greener vales and the property so far remains fallow. The derivation of the name should be pretty obvious.

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One of the plant turn-offs (here for the Haiwee Power Plant operated by the Department of Water and Power, named for the Paiute term haiwai, or dove). The hydroelectric plants are ingenious in that the Los Angeles aqueduct system was built to require no pumping, using only gravity to faciliate flow. A series of penstocks inside the aqueduct system bleed off water to power plants in the valley gorge and are used to turn turbines.

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Realigned and temporary postmiles appearing together instead of the usual ahead-back pair. These occur several places along US 395.

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And then, shortly afterwards, back to non-realigned miles.

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This doesn't mean that LADWP's usage of the Owens Valley has been all good. Indeed, Wm. Mulholland's name is execrated in some local quarters as the destroyer of Owens Lake, diverting most of the Owens River's flow south to the Haiwee Reservoirs (shown here in the distance, although they are difficult to see from the highway) and ending the viability of the Owens Valley for large-scale farming.

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(singing) "All the way to Reno .../You're gonna be a star"

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End divided highway as we enter Olancha (unsigned from NB). Caltrans has been trying for years to find a bypass route around Olancha. Although community opposition to a shifted US 395 has not been as pitched as it was in, say, Independence (Part 5), local businesses are still concerned about losing the mainline through the town. It is unlikely that a bypass routing will be chosen in the near future, let alone built.

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[US 395 south of Olancha from High Sierra, 1941, 31K.] Our postmile realignment ends and we return to non-realigned miles.

Compare this view to this 1941 screen grab at right from High Sierra (see US 395 In Popular Culture); click for a 31K enlargement. Although this particular scene in the movie plot is ostensibly taken north of Lone Pine, at the end of this Part, the lie and terrain of the foothills give the true location away. The view is northward, looking at Humphrey Bogart's car traveling south.

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Entering Olancha. Olancha has a population of 134 [2000] and derives its name from the nearby peak (12,123') near it, which also gave its name to the nearby creek. The creek is noteworthy because the water sources in this area is good enough to be bottled (as Crystal Geyser brand; there's a plant north of town which we'll snap on the way out) and brewed (by Anheuser-Busch, which uses local wells as one of many water sources for their beers). Where the peak got its name from is less clear, but probably came from a corruption of Olanches, the Shoshone name for the region in pre-colonial times. West of this point, barely visible here, a very disused old alignment of US 395 branches off (see Google Maps) marked as Old State Highway. More on that in a moment.

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Advance signage for the CA 190 junction to Death Valley.

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Slow down! (Officer, I was stopped when I took this picture. The 56mph was the one-armed man driving the Bugatti Veyron.)

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In the last picture, on the left, is an anonymous dirt road rejoining the mainline. This is the end of the Old State Highway alignment, shown here, which is now just dirt and otherwise unmarked; based on the postmiles, it had to have occurred before 1964 and probably was around the 1950s.

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Here's that jerky they were talking about in Johannesburg (Part 1), btw -- wanna stop for some? No? Okay then.

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Marker for Farley's Olancha Mill, constructed by Minnard Farley along the Olancha Creek around 1862 while looking for silver. Specifically, he was looking for the "Lost Gunsight Lode," yet another miner tall tale, supposedly indicating a legendary silver strike where a settler lost his gunsight near Death Valley and replaced it with some soft metal he found lying around, which was, of course, silver. Naturally Farley didn't find the mythical lode, but he did find enough silver other places nearby to make him a very rich man. This all came to a halt, however, when the Indians burned his eight-stamp mill to the ground in 1867, but by then the stage lines were already running regularly into nearby Cerro Gordo ("fat hill") and the newly renamed Olancha became a stage stop -- becoming "official" with its own post office in 1870. After the mining died down, Olancha faded somewhat but remains a local agricultural and ranching centre due to the ample water supply and good soil.

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[CA 190 routing changes.] Junction CA 190. This is the later alignment of CA 190 after 1964. Originally, CA 190 proceeded to Death Valley much further north, routed along what is now CA 136 today (we'll see that shortly), as you can see in the comparison maps on the inset. CA 190 is split here; it remains unconstructed in the present day between Quaking Aspen (on the other side of the Sierras) and US 395, with its western terminus at CA 99 (old US 99).

[Olancha realignment plans.] Further plans for another minor realignment in Olancha seem to be in the works, as shown in the 2003 official state highway map at left; this likely represents Caltrans' wishful thinking about the Olancha bypass. Note also the purple dotted line extending down from CA 190 along the currently proposed routing over the mountains.

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North Olancha.

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Distance signage as we leave Olancha "proper."

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Just north of Olancha is this moderately sized industrial complex ...

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... which is the aforementioned plant for Crystal Geyser. And yes, it is in operation; I've seen bottles passing through even late at night.

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Cartago, named for the ancient Mediterranean sea port Carthage (Cartago being its Latin rendering from the Phoenician words for "new city"). Carthage was an important city-state in classical times, traditionally founded in the 9th century BC by Dido of Tyre and pulverized by Roman invader Scipio Africanus Minor in the Third Punic War of 149-146 BC. Cartago barely carries this proud name today as a ghost town with only a few hardy inhabitants left, but when Owens Lake still had water in it, it was a major port on those shores for the mining trade. Cerro Gordo (on the other side of the lake) started as a small Mexican silver mining operation, but the secret didn't stay hidden long and soon prospectors were invading the area to set up their own stakes. A clever entrepreneur named Mortimer Belshaw, already present in the area as part-owner of the Union silver mine, realized that transport would eventually become the rate limiting step and by July 1868 Belshaw was extracting tolls from all traffic along his road between the mines and Los Angeles (the "Yellow Grade"). In a fit of foresight, Belshaw had placed his toll house in such a way along a natural pinchpoint that no competing road could go by it and bypass him completely. For this purpose, Belshaw hired Frenchman Remi Nadeau in 1869 to do the hauling, which cost Belshaw nothing on his own road, of course. However, disagreements between the two and concerns over the cost of maintaining the road (not to mention its increasingly disadvantageous length) caused Nadeau and Belshaw to part ways. Instead, Belshaw hired James Brady, working for the competing Owens Lake Co., who established a steamboat operation across Owens Lake in 1872. The steamer, the Bessie Brady, went across the lake to Cartago, shaving off several days of travel time.

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Despite Brady's innovation, the weak link was still the wagons carrying the silver out from Cartago as their aggregate carrying capacity still proved inadequate for the volumes Belshaw wanted to handle. Firing Brady and rehiring Nadeau didn't help his fortunes any, and the mining operations in the area finally slowed in the late 1870s. A short-lived competing boat, the Molly Stevens, persisted for only a few months of 1877. In 1882, the Bessie Brady exploded and burned to the waterline, and the steamboat operation was abandoned for good. A legend persists about the bullion it was carrying; I'll just let this fascinating story of the Owens Lake steamers explain the whole tale.

Little of Cartago survives now, of course, except these ruins.

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Ascending out of the Olancha Creek valley. Notice the speed flasher pointing the other way as we resume 65mph.

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BLM marker as we approach the expressway.

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Back to (realigned) divided highway.

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Along this route we come to a turnoff for the Cottonwood Kilns.

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[Cottonwood Kilns postcard, 69K.] In 1873, Colonel Sherman Stevens built a sawmill in this region to harvest nearby wood after the miners down south around Cerro Gordo had already denuded their own forest supply. Not only was the wood needed for fuel, cooking and building, but charcoal was an important fuel for the smelters; Stevens' flume down nearby Cottonwood Creek loaded the wood into the sawmill where it was cut to size and reduced in the kilns, and the resulting coals were sent south to the ore processors. Sadly, Stevens' kilns have greatly deteriorated and the road to them is difficult, so I have simply reproduced the postcard at right. This marker is at the turnoff.

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Some of the old stations and pumps can be seen overlooking Owens Lake. Most of them are no longer in operation.

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Owens Lake, mostly dry bed now.

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At the north end, the median shrinks down to double-double lines instead.

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NB 395.

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Widening slightly before Diaz Lake. This was a very late upgrade, done in 2000, with the southbound lanes representing the original road which narrowed to one-lane-per-direction at this portion.

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Diaz Lake recreation area (from SB). Diaz Lake was one of the geologic consequences of the horrific 1872 Lone Pine earthquake, which took place at 2:35am on 26 March 1872 and measured an estimated 8.3 on the Richter scale. The severity of this earthquake was such that the ground was literally ripped open, some seams and scarps of which can still be seen today. Diaz Lake itself came from a graben (that is, a down-dropped block of the earth's crust resulting from extension or pulling of the crust; compare with "horst," which is a lifting resulting from a similar process) formed between the Owens Valley fault itself and a smaller fault now east of the lake that filled in with water over time.

While the Lone Pine quake's true magnitude remains disputed, it is still believed by many to be the most powerful earthquake in California within the last two centuries. Its fury leveled almost the entire town (north of us which we will enter) and twenty-seven people died, subsequently buried in a mass grave north of the settlement. By comparison, the much more infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake was "only" estimated at around 7.8, but its horrors come from its location in a much more populated area. Diaz was the name of the Diaz brothers, who owned the rancho on which the lake today lies.

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End divided highway as we start to enter Lone Pine.

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Lone Pine received its name from a single towering Jeffrey pine tree found alone on a local mesa by the McGee brothers who first settled along the local creek in 1861. That tree is long lost, but a facsimile landmark is on the north end of town. Lone Pine is the major hub for the southern Owens Valley and Inyo's second largest town with a 2000 population of 1,655 (today over 2,000), chiefly offering services to people working in the local Los Angeles Department of Water and Power operations as well as to travelers for the local parks and especially Mt Whitney, the highest point in California at 14,494', and for that matter the highest point in the continental United States as well. The mountain was named after Josiah Whitney, a chief geologist of the state of California, and first climbed in 1873. In an interesting irony, Death Valley's Badwater, the lowest point in the United States at -282', is a mere 90 miles away and an "ultramarathon" runs between Badwater and the Mount Whitney trailhead at Whitney Portal today (covering 135 miles and over 8,400' change in elevation). Mt Whitney is flanked by the Alabama Hills, named by prospectors with Confederate sympathies after the Southern battleship that confounded Union shipping routes during the US Civil War, a name which then stuck.

Lone Pine appears in the hit movie Back to the Future, sort of. Actually, Lone Pine is quite frequently used for location shots, especially in Westerns and action films. A local tourist museum even capitalizes on that fact.

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CA 190 again?

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Well, not quite. This is actually CA 136, CA 190's old routing along the northern shore of (dry) Owens Lake. It was created in 1964 as part of the changes of the Great Renumbering, as we mentioned when we met CA 190 in Olancha (see above for that, and for comparison maps). Note, however, that CA 190 is "cosigned" with CA 136 on this distance sign, despite being CA 136. We also see one of the Scenic Byway markers (all numbered; this one is the local visitor's centre #20).

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As proof, here's END CA 136, and a beautiful vista of the mountains, which still had a little snow on them even in early summer (when this was taken).

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Weird US 395 sign after the CA 136 junction.

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Many of the towns in Inyo county are associated with local Indian reservations. In particular, many of the towns here have significant Paiute affiliations, particularly Bishop (where inevitably a casino has sprung up on the north end of town; we talk about this in Part 6). The Paiutes were crushed after a war of attrition starting in 1861, two years after white settlers had started to establish claims in the Owens Valley. Blood was spilled after a hard winter in which the Paiutes had little of their own food sources left and went after the ranchers' cattle instead. By the end of the winter of early 1862, the Paiutes capitulated after what remained of their food supply was destroyed by the settlers and were banished by the United States Army to reservations near Tehachapi. Some have returned to their ancestral home and inhabit these reservations today.

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Municipal limit. US 395 becomes Main Street through Lone Pine.

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Local LADWP office in Lone Pine.

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Here's that film museum, by the way. No small operation, this.

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[US 395 and US 6 shields in Lone Pine, 1941, 43K.] [Downtown Lone Pine, 1941, 38K.] Downtown on Main St/US 395. Much is made about the frontier quality of the town for the tourists' benefit. Compare this photograph with the 1941 views at right taken from High Sierra as well (again, see US 395 In Popular Culture), including a nice view of Lone Pine's old downtown (38K) and US 395 and US 6 shields posted on a lamppost. As we saw in Part 1, the shields are indeed authentic, and in fact the scene itself was filmed right here on the highway. Remember that until 1964, we were signed with US 6 all the way into Bishop.

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Turnoff to Mount Whitney via the Whitney Portal Road. Whitney Portal Rd is largely paved, but frequently closed in winter, and snow is not removed from all of it. It is best driven in summer and fall, and affords outstanding views of the Owens Valley.

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North Lone Pine.

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Inyo's relationship with LADWP has not been one-sided. To preserve their operations and local support, LADWP has made a point of donating or leasing their assets to the local communities and municipalities for civic works such as this.

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Leaving town, becoming divided highway again.

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Distance signage.

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Pumping station ...

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... and spillway, named for the Alabama hills as well.

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Another beautiful vista of the Sierras.

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Into Manzanar.

Continue to Part 4

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[Return to the US 395 main page] All images, photographs and multimedia, unless otherwise stated, are copyright © 2004-2014 Cameron Kaiser. All rights reserved. All writeups are copyright © 2004-2014 Cameron Kaiser. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying or duplication without express consent of the copyright holder is strictly prohibited. Please contact the sitemaster to request permission if you wish to use items from this page.

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Posted On: January 28, 2009 by Shorstein & Lasnetski

Deadly Car Accident in Green Cove Springs, Florida Results in Two Deaths. Who Can Sue for a Victim Who Dies?

A driver and a passenger were killed after their car ran off the road, hit a tree and caught on fire off of County Road 315 near Highway 17 in Green Cove Springs, Clay County, Florida, according to an article on, According to the article, neither victim was wearing a seat belt. The article does not say if excessive speed or some other factor caused the crash.

This accident raises a question we often see as to who can sue as a result of a car accident. It may seem obvious, but when a person dies as a result of a car crash or some other accident, a lawsuit can still be brought on that person's behalf. In such an instance, the personal injury or wrongful death lawyer for the victim's family will open up an estate, and a lawsuit can be brought against whichever party or parties caused or contributed to the accident in the name of the estate. A personal representative will be designated to act as the representative for the estate. The issue of what damages can be recovered by a plaintiff or plaintiffs suing in a wrongful death case can be complex but generally include financial losses such as the money the deceased would have earned had he/she not died, such as income or other employment-related benefits, as well as damages for loss of companionship and guidance due to the loss of a family member.

If you have questions about an auto accident or any other kind of incident involving the death of a loved one, contact a law firm whose attorneys have experience handling these matters and understand the many complex issues involved in a wrongful death case.

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Southern Miss looks to fix running woes

11:57 PM, Sep. 10, 2013
Todd Monken wants more from Tyre Bracken, run game.
Todd Monken wants more from Tyre Bracken, run game.
  • Filed Under

Southern Miss coach Todd Monken and the Golden Eagles are still working to figure out how to fix an ineffective run game that ranks 123rd in the nation after the season's first two weeks.

But USM coaches are confident it will get done.

"I'll be darned if we're going to go through a season and not find a way to run the football," Monken said. "I liked (the run game's performance in practice Tuesday) a little bit better. I thought there was a little more sense of urgency. I thought the (offensive) line had a little bit more push."Prep for Razorbacks begins ...

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FloridaTrend.com, the Website for Florida Business

Salty Solution?

"We were trying to do something that no one in the Western Hemisphere had done on this scale. It didn't work the way anyone wanted it to."

Holed up in Key West in 1861, the 500 Union soldiers who garrisoned Fort Taylor had a problem: A lack of fresh water. But from Europe came word of a new technology, and the Army decided to test something never before tried in the U.S. -- distilling fresh water from the sea. The Army ordered a "Marine Aerated Fresh Water Apparatus" from England and had the device shipped across the
Atlantic Ocean to New York, then down to the Keys. Fueled by wood and coal, the apparatus sucked in salt water, heated it in a giant boiler and sent it into towering pipes, where it evaporated and condensed, leaving behind salt and 7,000 gallons of fresh water a day.

The soldiers, however, found the machine so unwieldy that it ultimately proved easier to ship fresh water down from Tampa in barges, which is what Keys inhabitants did for much of the rest of the century.

Over time, cost became the biggest barrier to what's now called desalination -- the enormous amount of energy it required made it practical mostly for oil-rich, water-poor nations in the Middle East. But as desal technology evolved, Florida remained at the cutting edge. In the 1950s, University of Florida chemist Charles Reid set up a primitive "reverse-osmosis" membrane system that would become the basis for modern desalination technology. Since the early '80s, Florida communities have built more desal plants than any other state in the nation. Most are small plants that desalinate brackish water.

Then, in 1999, a regional water agency called Tampa Bay Water took the most ambitious step since the Union Army's transoceanic order: It decided to build the biggest seawater desalination plant in North America -- one that was supposed to deliver the cheapest desalinated water in the world. "We were trying to do something that no one in the Western Hemisphere had done on this scale," says Jerry Maxwell, general manager at Tampa Bay Water.

And, just as with the Aerated Fresh Water Apparatus of a century earlier, "it didn't work the way anyone wanted it to," Maxwell says.

Piped in: The Apollo Beach seawater desalination plant is the biggest in North America. By April it had tested all seven of its reverse-osmosis "trains" and was running about 15 million gallons a day, meeting all Safe Drinking Water Act Requirements. Photo: Mark Wemple

Water wars

To understand why a board of locally elected leaders would risk more than $100 million of taxpayer money on an expensive technology untried in the U.S., you have to appreciate the intensity of the water wars fought by governments in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties from the 1970s through the '90s.
Pinellas County and St. Petersburg were the first places in Florida to exhaust their groundwater supplies. Their response was to buy land in sparsely populated northwest Hillsborough and central Pasco counties and build well fields from which they pumped water and piped it back to Pinellas.

That worked until the rural counties began to grow. As Pinellas increased pumping to meet its own growth, residents who settled in the rural countryside near the well fields complained of dropping lake levels, sinkholes and dried-up wells. For years, Pinellas, St. Petersburg and the area's water agencies -- the Southwest Florida Water Management District (known as Swiftmud) and the West Coast Regional Water Supply Authority -- insisted it was all just part of the hydrologic cycle and had nothing to do with groundwater pumping.

When water managers came to their senses and threatened to restrict pumping, Pinellas and St. Petersburg sued. The litigation dragged on for years. At one point, Pinellas even sued citizen activists whose wells had gone dry in Pasco. Over time, the lawyers alone cost taxpayers more than $10 million, "with not one new drop of water served to the public," observed former Swiftmud spokeswoman Honey Rand in her book "Water Wars."

Pinellas Commissioner Susan Latvala credits "divine intervention" for the eventual truce brokered by leaders including former Pinellas Commissioner Steve Seibert and former St. Pete Mayor David Fischer, who came into office about the same time. In 1998, officials in the three counties and St. Pete, Tampa and New Port Richey decided to stop competing for water resources and work together with Swiftmud to plan for new supplies and to conserve water.

"I think we will see increased interest in ocean water desalination as the cost per 1,000 gallons continues to drop. Tampa Bay has not dampened enthusiasm for desal, but I think everyone wants to go forward thoughtfully and deliberately."

The officials agreed to create a regional agency, Tampa Bay Water, to own and operate the region's water works. The agency, which charges its six member governments a uniform rate, is the largest water wholesaler in the Southeast, supplying 2.5 million people. As part of the deal, Swiftmud agreed to help the agency fund new supply as long as it met goals for weaning the region off groundwater, tapering from 192 million permitted gallons a day in 1998 to 90 million gallons by 2008.
Getting to desal

For years, Mark Farrell, an engineer who rose through Swiftmud's ranks during the water wars, had the task of responding to letters from retired Navy personnel in Tampa Bay and others who had seen desalination plants in the Mediterranean and Middle East and suggested the technology could help Tampa Bay.

By 1994, his pat response -- that cost and environmental concerns made desal impractical for Florida -- no longer made sense. Experience in the Middle East had shown that one way to hold down costs is to build desal plants next to coastal power plants, which already suck up and filter millions of gallons of seawater each day -- and which offer inexpensive electricity. Scientists at Florida Power balked at Farrell's request for a pilot desal project, but the late Roy Harrell, a St. Petersburg lawyer and longtime Swiftmud board member who helped end the water wars, made a personal appeal to Jack Critchfield, CEO of Florida Power's parent company.

Seeing promise and potential profit in desal, Critchfield paved the way for a research project, which focused on dealing with the ultra-salty concentrate that's a byproduct of desalination. The research was successful, and the water management district began pushing for desal as a "drought-proof" piece of the region's Master Water Plan. The district promised Tampa Bay Water $183 million from ad valorem taxes to help fund new water-supply infrastructure, including $85 million upon completion of a desal plant.

Maxwell, a longtime local government administrator recruited to Tampa from Tallahassee in 1995 to lead what would become Tampa Bay Water, was initially skeptical.

"If we're going to try to right a perceived wrong of 40 years of uncurtailed groundwater consumption," he says, "it wouldn't be sustainable to leap to something that would cause a greater problem."

Filter: The plant pumps seawater through 10,032 membranes so tightly woven that if unraveled they would stretch from Tampa to Tallahassee.

As it turned out, the problems that dogged the plant were not environmental. So much went wrong that almost every aspect of the process can be second-guessed, beginning with the fact that neither the water management district nor Tampa Bay Water had any experience with desalination and declined to hire anyone who did.

And while the project had more than its share of bad luck, critics say Tampa Bay Water set itself up for misfortune right from the start by letting price, environmental and legal issues take precedence over bidders' qualifications, financials and ability to deliver.

In 1997, with the water-management district's blessings and funding, Tampa Bay Water's board voted to issue a request for proposals for what would be by far the largest desalination plant in North America, producing 25 million gallons of fresh water a day.

Tampa Bay Water structured the request so that the winning bidder would design, build, own and operate the plant. The project required at least a 10% investment by the developer. Requiring that ownership stake was supposed to provide additional incentive to the developer to succeed, and also to minimize taxpayers' risk. The private contractor would be paid only if the plant worked.

Tampa Bay Water received just four bids -- a sign of how little experience existed a decade ago for building a major desal plant, at least in the U.S. regulatory environment. And the bids came in looking so different that they were impossible to compare: Between 1997 and 1998, Tampa Bay Water had to reissue its request for proposals a second and then a third time.

Tampa Bay Saltwater Desalination Plant

Original costs
Land: $3.1 million
(including 14.5-mile pipeline route)
Plant: $110 million

Additional costs since Tampa Bay Water bought the facility in 2002
Construction oversight: $4 million
Remediation and improvements: $36 million
Attorney fees for lawsuits: $6.8 million

Promised price of water
In 1999: $1.71 per 1,000 gallons
Most recent estimate:
$3.19 per 1,000 gallons

Estimate for when -- and if -- the Southwest Florida Water Management District kicks in its $85-million subsidy for an up-and-running desalination plant: $2.88 per 1,000 gallons

Source: Tampa Bay Water

One early favorite was a team made up of Ionics Inc. and Progress Energy Corp. Ionics had global desal experience, and the team proposed to locate the plant at Progress Energy's Anclote River facility in Pasco County, where the water-management district had done its pilot tests a few years before.

But in each successive round of proposals, a joint venture between engineering giant Stone & Webster and Poseidon Resources Corp., neither of which had built a major desal plant, came in with lower and lower bids. Tampa Bay Water executives were clearly focused on price. In February 1999, they issued a press release, picked up around the globe, boasting that the four competing teams "have shattered price barriers for desalination plants worldwide."

"With one proposal's first-year costs as low as $1.71 per thousand gallons," Maxwell said in the release, "our Tampa Bay desalination facility will have the attention of other coastal communities and states as well as many foreign governments."

Few, however, believed anyone could desalinate 1,000 gallons of seawater for $1.71. "Everyone in the industry was saying, 'there's no way,' " remembers Farrell, who'd left the water management district and worked for one of the competing teams, a consortium of U.S. Water and E.I. duPont de Nemours. "All the teams saw that there was no money to be made on this project -- we were doing it for the marketing position, the cachet of being first and hopefully to get into other plants. But $1.71 was simply not do-able."

Believing that the design-build-own contract would insulate it from risk, Tampa Bay Water's board chose the Poseidon/Stone & Webster proposal in April 1999. The plant would be sited at Tampa Electric Co.'s Big Bend Power Station at Apollo Beach in southern Hillsborough County.

Pipeline: The final product is pumped 14.5 miles through underground pipes to Tampa Bay Water's finishing plant in Brandon. In the background is Tampa Electric Co.'s plant.

Ken Herd, Tampa Bay Water's director of operations, says there was no way to anticipate what happened next: In May 2000, barely a year after it and Poseidon won the bid, Boston-based Stone & Webster, one of the world's largest and most respected engineering firms, declared bankruptcy. In December 2000, Poseidon hired New Jersey-based energy giant Covanta (which also had no desal experience) to take over construction. A year later, Covanta filed for bankruptcy after the energy crisis in California crippled its cash flow.

What some saw as bad luck or bad choices by Maxwell and Tampa Bay Water, Maxwell viewed as mismanagement by Poseidon. Now 63, with close-cropped white hair and a goatee to match, Maxwell has an easygoing management style that masks a determination to have things his way. Things wouldn't have gone so badly, he believed, if he'd had more control over the process.

Indeed, if there's one thing Maxwell didn't like about the contract, it was that it left too much control in the hands of the private contractor. In the wake of the bankruptcies in spring 2002, Maxwell persuaded Tampa Bay Water's board to buy the plant from Poseidon -- even though Poseidon insisted it was on track to complete it.

" I can't imagine that there's been another public works project in our generation that's drawn this much interest."

That decision left Maxwell in for heavy pummeling. Critics such as state Sen. Ronda Storms, a former board member and Hillsborough County commissioner who opposed buying the half-finished plant, say the move was about ego and control and put ratepayers at enormous risk. After the purchase, ratepayers -- not Poseidon -- were on the hook for cost overruns and other problems. And while it got rid of the solvent company, Tampa Bay Water stuck with the bankrupt company, Covanta, to finish the plant.

The board's position was that Tampa Bay Water's access to cheaper financing than the private companies would save taxpayers millions in bond fees as the plant was completed. Most important, the agency was ultimately responsible for making sure the region got the fresh water it needed. Poseidon had already jumped the most significant hurdle, environmental permitting. Maxwell and the board didn't expect that it would be hard to finish the plant.

On a spring day in 2003, the plant produced its first 3 million gallons of fresh water. Officials toasted each other with plastic cups. But their celebration was premature. The plant's key technology -- 10,000 reverse-osmosis membranes -- began to clog after a few weeks. The membranes, which cost $500 apiece, are supposed to last between five and seven years.

Under the original contract, Poseidon would have been responsible for fixing the membranes. Instead, the taxpayers were on the hook. Tampa Bay Water ultimately hired highly regarded American Water Pridesa (since acquired by Spain's Acciona Agua), which spent four years and $32 million on remediation.

Today, the plant looks very different from four years ago, when officials raised their plastic cups to toast what proved to be a misfire. Andy Shea, North American director for Acciona Agua, who was once with Poseidon, hints that the current firms won't make money on the plant either but are motivated by a sense of urgency in the global industry to get this plant online. "We're there to restore the luster originally envisioned for the Tampa Bay Saltwater Desalination Plant," Shea says.

" This is extraordinarily complex compared to other remedies such as reservoirs. "

Under the microscope

Housed in a nondescript complex of gray concrete buildings dwarfed by the Tampa Electric power plant and its smokestacks next door, Tampa Bay's saltwater desalination plant in March began to do what it is supposed to do. The American Water/Acciona Agua team had cranked up all seven of the plant's enormous reverse-osmosis "trains," banks of thousands of membranes that at full power sound like an airplane engine. For weeks, the plant has run at about 15 million gallons a day; the water has met all Safe Drinking Water Act Requirements. The all-crucial acceptance tests required in the contract should begin soon.

Estimated cost for the water, once promised at $1.71 per 1,000 gallons, has climbed to $3.19. That will fall to $2.88 when Swiftmud kicks in its $85 million -- which won't happen until district officials are sure the plant is running as it should.

Legal fees have mounted, too, to nearly $7 million -- a result of Tampa Bay Water's lawsuits against myriad insurance companies and engineering firms. At its April meeting, the board was to consider a settlement agreement in the consolidated suits. In years' worth of depositions and legal filings, Poseidon blamed exotic Asian green mussels and idiosyncrasies associated with the Tampa Electric site. Tampa Bay Water officials blamed the company for not understanding the complexity of the Bay and for building the original plant on the cheap.

The fallout extends to hopes that the Tampa plant would prove desal's promise. A decade ago, the plant was expected to jump-start a wave of ocean desal in America, particularly in the Sun Belt, where population growth and water scarcity have governments scurrying to build alternative water supplies. Instead, its troubles have likely delayed by five to 10 years what many predict will be an inevitable turn
toward desalination in America.

Herd, the operations manager whose youthful face belies his 20 years with Tampa Bay Water and its forerunner, is in demand around the country as other states, particularly Texas and California, look to learn from Tampa Bay's mistakes. "It's not just a national interest -- it's a worldwide viewing under a microscope," he says. "I can't imagine that there's been another public works project in our generation that's drawn this much interest."

The lessons Herd offers? "Require the contractor to have desalination experience," he says, without a touch of irony. Others, such as Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who serves on the water board today, warn against desal. "This is extraordinarily complex compared to other remedies such as reservoirs," Iorio says. "I would not recommend that another jurisdiction go down this road unless they have thoroughly exhausted all other remedies."

Indeed, Tampa Bay Water's experience provides a big lesson for other governments in Florida facing water wars like those that plagued Tampa Bay: Collaboration on conservation and regional water supply planning can lessen the need for expensive, high-tech solutions to water woes. As the plant's troubles dragged on, the utility built a 15-billion gallon reservoir and a 66-million-gallon-a-day surface water treatment plant and implemented an aggressive conservation component.

Tampa Bay Water managed, in fact, to reduce overall groundwater pumping in the region from 192 million to 121 million gallons a day despite population growth -- and without one drop of the desalinated water that officials once insisted they needed to meet that goal.

The Desal State

Marco Island on the southwest Florida coast, just six miles long and four miles wide, bustles with 40,000 residents and visitors during the winter. A reverse-osmosis plant provides the island's residents with 6 million gallons a day -- the water it filters is among the highest salinity water in the United States that ends up as tap water.

Among the 250 smaller-scale desal plants that filter and purify water around the nation, Florida has more than any other state, with 120 plants along both coasts. Texas has 38, and California, 33. Both of those states have significant plans for seawater desalination but are closely watching Tampa Bay's plant, the first large-scale desal plant in North America and the first to filter seawater.

Most of the Florida plants rely on reverse-osmosis filtration through membranes to remove salts, calcium and other substances from brackish water. They don't have to pretreat the brackish water as extensively as facilities that filter seawater -- one source of technical troubles that plagued the Tampa plant.

A couple of the largest include a 20-million-gallon-a-day plant in Collier County and an 18-mgd plant in Hollywood. A 40-mgd nanofiltration plant -- similar to reverse osmosis but removing slightly fewer ions -- recently went into service in Boca Raton and is the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1995, Sarasota County built a desal plant with a technology called electrodialysis reversal (EDR) that uses electricity to separate salt and other minerals. The largest EDR plant in the world, the Sarasota facility was designed to produce 20 million gallons a day.

"Perhaps you don't hear about these plants," says Steve Duranceau, an Orlando-based engineer who's helped design several of the Florida plants, "because they work so well."

Tampa "has really delayed seawater desalination projects in this country," he says, "but people have to realize that communities have been successfully desalting brackish water on the west and east coasts of Florida for 20 years."

Business: The Desalters

In 2005, South Korea engineering powerhouse Doosan built the Fujairah, one of the largest desalination plants in the world, in the United Arab Emirates. Last year, when Doosan decided to set up research and development subsidiaries on both sides of the globe to strengthen its desal capacity -- the company says it controls 40% of the worldwide market -- it chose Dubai and Tampa.

Doosan Hydro Technology is one of the first companies to make Florida a strategic base for tapping the seawater desalination market in the Sun Belt -- a market expected to boom when Tampa Bay's plant becomes fully operational. Florida, Texas and California all are considering major seawater desal efforts as an alternative source of fresh water to supply population growth.

Another company to watch is Boca Raton-based Water Standard Co., which has spent the past six years developing a Seawater Desalination Vessel and is heavily promoting its concept of ship-based mass desalination with the help of Tampa-based engineering firm PBS&J. Last fall, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District in California voted to study the vessel as a possible source of fresh water for the region.


WARC-Truncated: length

text:
Flower Delivery Express
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text: Pausing to look over the stream I took a seat on a large maple sweeper that had found the dry gravel of the summer's water its seasonal resting place. Perpendicular to the waters course it was as if nature had envisioned a need for a bench overlooking the long glide in front of me and simply placed the woeful tree in the center as a gift to fishermen. I had begun my morning at daybreak in order to escape the worst of the mid-august heat. The fish however, had only partially cooperated with my efforts. They initially seemed agreeable to rising steadily all morning which had me optimistic, yet they had refused to eat any of my offerings which resulted in a torment that most of us know all too well.


text:
Fly Fishing Forum - Search Results
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Posted By bonefish
RE:Ideas on where to go in the Bahamas?

Hi Kevin

We like Eleuthera because you don't need a boat to fish most of the flats. We are fully booked for March/April this year but have vacancies in November/December at only 695.00 UKPounds...
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Tap's Bug

A simple-to-tie, but deadly effective, bass bug. In fact, one of the best bass bugs ever designed.

  • By: Jim Bean
Wooly Bugger

I’LL BET I’M NOT THE ONLY warmwater angler whose fly boxes are crammed with new deer-hair bass bugs that will never get wet. They would catch bass, too. But, oh, how those bugs suffer for their creator’s art. Many are ungainly to cast, or so stunningly realistic and time-consuming to tie (expensive, too, if you buy them) that I hold them in reserve like traveling exhibitions in a clear, plastic museum. Alas, the occasion to use them never seems quite worthy.

Look more closely, though, and you’ll find a few compartments crammed with well-chewed bass bugs that seem very much out of place amid all that pristine glamour. These hard-fished bugs all share the same very simple design, and their beauty is apparent only when I fish them.

What makes this relatively nondescript surface pattern so special? I like to think of it as having been designed backwards—from fish to angler—a near-perfect, and wonderfully versatile, example of fly-fishing form following function. Fished with an occasional tremble, it looks like a half-drowned moth. Worked moderately, it delivers a delicious, bubble-trailing burble. Popped vigorously, it demands attention on big, wind-rippled waters. Even in large sizes, its flat bottom and streamlined shape make it easy to pick up at the end of a long cast, and it flies true to its target without sailing, buzzing, whistling, twisting your leader or landing upside down—rare qualities where utility has been sacrificed to display the tiers’ skill.

The flat bottom and wasp-waisted design also exposes a generous gap between the point of the hook and the body of the bug to ensure solid hookups and fewer lost fish—insufficient hook gap is a major flaw in many bugs. Furthermore, this deceptively simple bug is easy to tie and very durable. Best of all, no floating pattern

I’ve ever used will outfish it for largemouths or smallmouths.

What innovator has developed such a bug? His name is H.G. Tapply, and his contribution to bass bugging is nearing its 70th anniversary. If that name sounds familiar, it should. Tapply was a long-time editor, writer and originator of“The Sportsman’s Notebook” (which included“Tap’s Tips”), a monthly feature that he began writing for Field& Stream in 1950. Indeed,“Tap’s Tips” was so popular that it continued to be reprinted in the magazine for many years following Tapply’s retirement as associate editor in 1985. It was, however, in the late 1930s while he was editor of Hunting and Fishing magazine that he developed his now-classic bug.

At that time, Tapply frequently fished the wide, tranquil meanders of the Charles River between Waltham and Auburndale, Massachusetts, well upstream from where it flows into Boston Harbor. On lazy summer afternoons, he liked to scull his 12-foot, canvas-covered Penn Yann with one hand and cast with the other, his 8-foot split-cane fly rod flashing in the waning light, the greased silk line gently dropping a bug beside lily pads along the shore. When I spoke with him shortly before his passing, he recalled catching largemouths up to 4 pounds, and some nice chain pickerel, too.

“At that time,” Tapply said,“I was using Joe Messinger’s handsome deer-hair frogs, and although they caught fish, the splayed legs made them difficult to cast and they seemed almost too pretty to use. Then, Roy Yates of Toledo, Ohio, sent me some bass bugs he had developed. He called his bug the Deacon. It had a floss body and closely trimmed head of deer hair about the size of an acorn. It cast beautifully, but it didn’t create enough disturbance on the water to suit me. I began to fiddle with the pattern, and the bug I developed evolved from that.”

Tapply tied some of his first variations with four flared hackles as tails, but he didn’t like the way they buzzed past his ear, so he swapped the flared hackles for deer hair, which also improved the bug’s buoyancy. He soon abandoned the floss for a body tied entirely out of spun, tightly packed deer hair, trimming it to a triangular shape with a flat face.

The first Tapply bugs I ever saw were given to me about 25 years ago by Matthew Hodgson, at that time director of The University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill, and an old friend of Tapply’s. As an avid bass-bugging enthusiast and student of early bass-bug history, Matt had been tying and fishing with replicas of many older bug patterns, and he thought the Tapply bugs were the best of the bunch.

Late one afternoon a few days later, I launched my 12-foot johnboat on the dark waters of an ancient mill pond rimmed with arrowroot and studded with stumps. Out of habit, I began fishing with a large cork popper, but it attracted little attention beyond an occasional bulge that indicated a possible refusal.

Thinking I needed something a bit more subtle, I knotted one of the Tapply bugs to my leader and began to fish it along the edge of the arrowroot. I had made only a couple of casts when the bug simply disappeared—subtle strikes are not uncommon on calm water—and I set the hook half-heartedly thinking that a small bluegill had grabbed the tail and pulled it under. The leader sliced the water in an audible sizzle, and the line burned a groove across my index finger. At the end of a 20-foot dash, there was a massive boil, and I could see the long, pale belly of a bass. A moment later, six ponderous pounds of largemouth cleared the water. That bass towed me around the lower end of the pond for what seemed an eternity until I finally got my fingers locked on its lower lip. Before dark, I landed several more nice bass, and my appreciation for Mr. Tapply’s accomplishment began to grow.

Over the years, I’ve fished with countless patterns, both old and new, but I’ve never found another floating bass bug that incorporates so many desirable features quite so well. You can easily learn to tie your own, and that’s good because commercial versions of Tap’s Bugs that were once offered in a variety of colors are no longer available. The bug’s originator, however, had a definite favorite.

“Any color will catch bass as long as it’s yellow,” Tapply told me, perhaps with tongue in cheek.“Actually, I don’t think color makes much difference, and the only reason I tie my bugs in so many colors is to avoid boredom. I believe action is more important, and I think these bugs work best when yanked hard so they make a real loud‘glug.’ A sink-tip fly line helps the bug create even more disturbance, a trick I learned when I began using such lines so that I could quickly change to a streamer when that was more appropriate.”

One of the greatest assets of Tap’s Bug is its versatility. If you’re on a big lake or river, especially if the water is choppy or muddy, a colorful bug that can create lots of noise will often bring those smallmouths and largemouths to the top. No deer-hair bug I know of will kick up more fuss than Tapply’s creation, and his favorite tactic was to fish it in a sequence of vigorous pops with intermittent pauses.

On small lakes, millponds, farm ponds and sedate rivers, largemouths may sometimes prefer a more subtle approach, and I’ve generally had better luck working Tapply’s bugs a bit more gently—even sometimes leaving them motionless for long pauses.

Smallmouths also sometimes prefer a quieter presentation. I seem to have better luck with subdued colors on these relatively calm waters, and my favorite Tapply bugs are tied with either an all white or all-natural, grayish-brown deer body hair on a Size 2 hook. One modern variation that you may want to add is a monofilament weed guard. These work quite well, and will reduce frustration if you fish weedy waters.

If you don’t tie flies often, this is a bug for you: Simply tie in a deer-hair tail, and spin clumps of deer hair up the hook shank. Tie off, and clip the bug to Tapply’s inventive wedge shape. That’s it.

Like most bugging enthusiasts, I fish diving and sinking flies when necessary, but I prefer to catch bass when they’re eating their meals on top where I can keep an eye on their table manners. And of all the surface bugs I’ve used—classic or modern—I’ve never found a more popular snack to serve them than H.G. Tapply’s simple little deer-hair bass bug.

Jim Dean lives in North Carolina and has a passion for warmwater fly-fishing.For detail tying instructions, click here.


text:
Flight Blog

August 14, 2015

In our recent post about the slight downward trend in fares Jason Blevins offered this on Facebook:

“You (the airport) have a direct influence in fare rates. Your contracted landing fees and SKY HIGH fuel rates drive up the costs.”

Here’s how it really works. Let’s start with fuel. The airport does not sell fuel to the airlines. Each airline has its own contract with the oil company.

As for landing fees, that assertion is off base too...

The airport/airline business has a metric called “cost per enplanement.” That’s CPE for short.

CPE is the cost to the airline, at a given airport, for every passenger who gets on a plane. CPE includes landing fees, and the lease cost airlines pay for facilities at the airport.

In April the CPE at the Springfield airport was $5.70 per passenger. In 2012 a report by Moody’s Investment Services stated that the average CPE nationwide was $7.76.

Keep in mind that the Moody’s number is an average. At some airports it's much higher. Want to see for yourself? Click here to take the Google search for a CPE spin ....

You’ll find in places like Miami International the CPE was $20.39 in 2013. Cleveland: $15.37 in 2013. Dallas: $6.74 in 2012.

If you’d like to talk just about landing fees, the current landing fee at Springfield is $1.30 per thousand pounds.

Click here to check out this St. Louis Post-Dispatch story from 2011 on landing fees in St. Louis...

What you'll find in the story: in 2011 the landing fee at St. Louis was $8.96. Kansas City: $1.96.

I know a lot of you are scratching your head at this point. If CPE is lower in Springfield, why aren’t fares lower? As a matter of principle, most airports, including ours, do everything they can to keep cost low. But in the final analysis CPE doesn't have much to do with fares.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out this story from January in the Dallas Morning News...

Please note the paper's quote from the chairman of American Airlines, Doug Parker: “What we believe is that pricing is tied to demand… and that’s what we should base our pricing on and not based on our cost structure.”

The newspaper reporter put it more succinctly: "On their earnings call Tuesday, American Airlines executives said that demand, not costs, determines what they charge for fares."

Posted in: Airlines, Airports, Boloney, How the Airport Works | 0 Comment(s) ››

August 11, 2015

Here’s something you haven’t heard about …

In Springfield, and Northwest Arkansas, the airlines are charging less; fares are going down.

Yes, you read that right. Fares are down. They've been going down for the past two years. They’re not down much, but they are down. Take a look at the numbers. The cost of fare is shown as “one-way” because that’s how the industry tracks fare data:

Springfield (SGF)

Average one-way fare

Northwest Arkansas (XNA)

Average one-way fare

Fare data compiled by Boyd Group International August 10, 2015

Common wisdom says the recent airline mergers have driven up the cost of flying, but it isn’t happening here. So, what’s going on? We think it boils down to one thing: competition among the four big airlines that survived the consolidation wave. Here’s an example …

In early July American Airlines announced new service between Springfield and Charlotte, beginning November 5. The lowest introductory fare we saw American offer was $225 round-trip. The price bounced up and down for several days. Then Delta and United jumped in with their own low fare trips to Charlotte. By July 21 all three airlines matched each other for round-trip to Charlotte: $303.

This kind of competitive price matching goes on in Springfield more than people realize …

Since July 1 we’ve seen the following price wars:

  • Allegiant offered round-trip fare to Los Angeles for $322. Delta countered with $318.
  • American, Delta, and United, matched each other with round-trips fares to Cancun: $566.
  • Delta and United matched each other (again) for a round-trip to Charlotte: $278.
  • American’s fare for a round-trip to Cancun fell to $464.
  • Delta and United matched fares to Fort Lauderdale: $280.

In the past week we’ve seen:

  • American round-trip to Dallas: $170
  • American round-trip to Austin: $274
  • American round-trip to New York City - Kennedy Airport: $315
  • Allegiant round-trip to Las Vegas: $142
  • Allegiant round-trip to St. Petersburg/Tampa: $135
  • Delta round-trip to Charlotte: $224

There's more, but you get the idea — the airlines are definitely going head to head in Springfield. Ditto for Northwest Arkansas. Let's hope the trend continues.

Posted in: Airlines, Fares | 0 Comment(s) ››

June 1, 2015

The peak summer travel season is in full swing at our airport and it's promising to get even busier ......

In June, July, and August, Allegiant Air is growing its Springfield flight schedule by a total of 57% over the same three month period last year (222 flights this year, vs. 141 last summer). This growth comes after a banner 2014 when passenger numbers at the Springfield airport grew at an annual clip of 12%.

Allegiant flights to Orlando get the biggest bump. In June the airline will fly between Springfield and Orlando six days a week. That’s up from four days a week last June.

The increase in the Allegiant schedule will probably give the airport double digit passenger growth in June, July and August. It’s a strong indicator of continued improvement in the regional and national economies. People wouldn’t be buying Allegiant’s vacation packages in numbers like this if their budgets were hurting.

Not to be left out, the other Springfield airlines are bringing bigger planes to Springfield. American, Delta, and United are all shedding some of their 50-seat regional jets:

  • Delta's bringing in an Airbus 319 (126 sets) for one its four daily flights to Atlanta
  • American begins using Bombardier CRJ-900s (76 seats) for two of its seven daily flights to Dallas
  • United begins using Bombardier CRJ-700s (66 seats) for two of its four daily flights to Chicago

Here’s the bottom line: this summer the airlines will shed a total of seven 50-seat jets from their Springfield schedules. That’s good for a couple of reasons. Number one: the airlines wouldn’t bring bigger jets here if they couldn’t fill them.  It shows that demand for air travel in Springfield is high. The second reason is comfort. Many people hate 50-seat jets because they’re cramped and stuffy. So the bigger planes are a welcome relief.

Some 50-seaters will probably come back as the summer travel season winds down. But some may stick around. Airline schedules for the fall are preliminary at this point, but they all show some bigger planes in the mix.

Why does all this matter? The growth is passengers (and flights) means that airport passenger numbers are trending up. Not just month to month, but year to year. After the uncertainty of the recession, this trend is very welcome news — not just for the airport, but for the local economy and travelers.

Posted in: Airlines, Airports, How the Airport Works | 3 Comment(s) ››

February 11, 2015

Our post “You Wanna Fly Where?!” generated good questions.  The best way to start answering them is to begin with the paragraph that ended the last post:

“When an airline considers adding service from a small market, such as Springfield, to a big hub, it’s not asking how many people want to fly from Springfield to that hub airport. It’s asking how many people it can connect beyond the hub, and how much revenue will those connecting customers generate?”

Our air service consultant, Michael Boyd, puts it a bit differently:

“There are no markets, other than vacation-package markets, where Springfield has sufficient passenger demand to support non-stop service, without the support of the feed traffic that a connecting hub generates.”

“Vacation-package markets” are those destinations served at our airport by Allegiant. Allegiant considers itself a travel company. Generally speaking, it flies from small markets, such as Springfield, to vacation destinations. Besides selling a plane ride, it also sells resort packages, rental car deals, etc.

Allegiant currently flies from Springfield several times a week to Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orlando, and Tampa/St. Pete. It flies seasonally from Springfield to Los Angeles and Punta Gorda/Ft. Myers. We talk to Allegiant on a regular basis about new destinations. Myrtle Beach and New Orleans are top of mind.

When Mike Boyd talks about “feed traffic that a connecting hub generates” he’s getting back to what we wrote earlier: “... how much revenue will those connecting customers generate?”

In the current airline business environment there’s only one hub city, that we don’t have service to, where connecting customers (aka: “feed traffic”) would generate a significant amount of airline revenue: Charlotte.

Charlotte service would be a good thing for Springfield customers. Flying to the Northeast from Springfield means taking connecting flights through Atlanta or Chicago O’Hare — two of the most congested airports in the country. Flights from Springfield to those two airports are frequently sold out. The addition of Charlotte flights would provide needed relief — it's the 8th largest airport in the country with dozens of connecting flights to Eastern cities, plus international non-stop flights to Canada, Western Europe, and South America.

We’ve been pursuing Charlotte service since 2010. The conversation began with US Airways. The airline’s route planners agreed with our financial analysis. They basically said ‘yes, the route would make money, but we can’t commit right now because of a plane shortage and the general state of the economy.’

If that answer sounds evasive, it wasn’t. When the recession began all the airlines began grounding planes to save money — that trend continues to this day. Bottom line: they didn’t have any spare planes to devote to a Springfield-Charlotte route. And while they didn’t say it, the planes they had in the air could make more money flying elsewhere.

Meanwhile, US Airways and America Airlines merged. As a result, we essentially had to restart the Charlotte conversation from scratch with the new American Airlines. That conversation continues to this day.

Several of you asked about the possibility of service to specific hub airports. Here’s an overview …

What about service to Salt Lake City on Delta?

Delta is not growing its Salt Lake City hub. Departures are down 19% between 2009 and 2014 and seats are down 4%. Additionally, the distance between Springfield and Salt Lake is 1,028 miles, which means it’s too for a 50-seat jet even if Delta weren’t retiring the majority of the 50-seaters (more on retirements later). The plane that’s the next step up has 66-70 seats and that would make it even more difficult to make the passenger revenue work.

What about service to Phoenix on American?

Maybe in the future but not now — American can make more money connecting Springfield customers to points west by using the Dallas hub. Additionally, Phoenix's hub status is uncertain in the aftermath of the US Air/American merger.

What about service to Philadelphia?

From the airline perspective it’s more economical to connect Springfield passengers through Chicago O’Hare, or Atlanta. As with Phoenix, Philadelphia's hub status is uncertain in the aftermath of the US Air/American merger.

What about service to Houston on United?

It’s been talked about but it would mean that United would have to compete with American’s Dallas service for south bound traffic from Springfield.

What about service to New York City’s Kennedy Airport?

Not going to happen. New York service could be in our distant future, but it would likely be to Newark Airport, not Kennedy.

What about service to Miami and Los Angeles?

The response from the airlines: you can already get to those places by connecting though Denver, Dallas, or Atlanta. Bottom line: those routes would be money losers from Springfield.

Patrick wanted to know if bigger planes are in Springfield’s future (meaning bigger than 50-seat regional jets). They definitely are. The airlines are retiring those jets as fast as they can. We expect to see bigger planes from all three of our legacy airlines: American, Delta, and United.  You can read more about it in this blog post from last August.

Posted in: Airlines, Airports, Consolidation, How the Airport Works | 0 Comment(s) ››

February 10, 2015

It’s the question we’re asked all the time …

“Does the airport have non-stop flights to __________ ?!

You can fill in that blank with the destination of your choice. I keep a list.  There’s Ft. Wayne, Indianapolis, Little Rock, Flagstaff, Hartford, Centralia, Illinois; Muncie, Eau Claire, the list goes on and on…

I’ve gradually realized that some folk have what amounts to a fantastic vision of how the airline business works. I’m not being critical — it’s just what they think.

Here’s how the vision goes …

“The airlines offer (or should offer) dozens of flights every day from Springfield. These flights fly non-stop to dozens of destinations in all fifty states.”

There’s just one problem …

That’s not how the airlines work —if an airline tried it would be bankrupt in about five minutes. Here’s what they do instead …

Rather than flying from Springfield to a whole bunch of places, the airlines fly from Springfield to a few “hub” cities. This is called hub and spoke flying. Let’s explain how it works by using American Airlines as an example.

Suppose you want to fly from Springfield to Amarillo. To get you there American flies you from Springfield to Dallas. At Dallas you get on another flight that takes you to Amarillo. In this scenario Springfield and Amarillo are the “spokes,” and Dallas is the “hub.”

Take a look at the diagram. The “hub” is Dallas. The smaller cities are the "spokes." On any given day a handful of customers in each spoke city want to fly to Amarillo. Rather than provide a flight from each of those cities to Amarillo, American flies them to Dallas where they’re gathered up (from all those spoke cities) and then flown to Amarillo on a different flight. (Note: this diagram shows only a fraction of Dallas' spoke cities.)

I hope you noticed the bold face in the phrase, handful of customers. This is a key point. On any given day there aren’t enough people who want to fly to Amarillo, in each of those spoke cities, to justify the cost of a non-stop flight. So the airline gathers them in Dallas and then sends them on to Amarillo.

I talk to people on a regular basis who think there are tons of people who fly (or want to fly) from Springfield to places like Amarillo. The truth is surprising …

In 2013 an average of 1.2 people per day flew from Springfield to Amarillo.  That many people won’t fill the smallest plane that an airline is going to use — a 50 seat regional jet. Let’s put it another way: an airline isn’t going to fly that plane between Springfield and Amarillo if, on average, 48 seats are empty.

Now wait … there’s someone out there reading this who’s thinking, “If they had a non-stop flight to Amarillo more people would fly there!”

The airlines know from experience that “provide the service and they will come” rarely works. Just because the service is there doesn’t mean that the number of people who want to fly to Amarillo, on a daily basis, is going to change enough to make the route a money maker.

Let’s talk some more about passenger numbers and where those passengers want to go — because really, when you get right down to it, this is the nitty-gritty math that the airlines deal with …

Take a look at the top ten destinations for people flying from Springfield in 2013. The numbers represent passengers using the three airlines, serving Springfield, which have daily service: American, Delta, and United:

Non-stop flight or do you have to connect?

Dallas DFW

Los Angeles

Must connect

New York City

Must connect

Must connect

Must connect

Must connect

Must connect

See that third column?  There aren’t enough people going to any single destination to fill one regional jet in Springfield.

Here’s another way of putting it: there aren’t enough people going anywhere to justify air service in Springfield.

So how come we have service? This gets complicated, so please bear with me …

The Springfield to Dallas service is the busiest route we have — approximately 400 people a day use it, but only 38 make Dallas their final destination. The rest take a connecting flight from Dallas to go to their final destination.

Let’s go back to our Amarillo example …

If we asked an airline for non-stop service to Amarillo, we’d politely be told, “No, it’s a money loser. You can already get there by connecting through Dallas.”

And the same goes for Ft. Wayne, Indianapolis, Little Rock, Flagstaff, Hartford Centralia, Illinois; Muncie and Eau Claire … and almost anywhere else we can name …

Here’s a bottom line point: at minimum, anytime we ask an airline for new daily service, it must be for a city that is a major airline hub. And to take it a step further ….

When an airline considers adding service from a small market, such as Springfield, to a big hub, it’s not asking how many people want to fly from Springfield to that hub airport. It’s asking how many people it can connect beyond the hub, and how much revenue will those connecting customers generate?

It’s complicated. Please ask questions ....

Click Here to Visit the Rest of the Flight Blog

Posted in: Airlines, How the Airport Works | 1 Comment(s) ››


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Old 07-01-2009, 07:45 PM   #1
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Focus Fanatics ROTY-Stay tuned!

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ROTY voting will start JULY 15th and last until JULY 31st. The top 3 will then be voted on from AUGUST 1st until AUGUST 5th.

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Topic Review (Newest First)
01-11-2009 01:32 PM
Originally Posted by Sonicbluezx3 View Post
Hey Chris speaking of that... didn't you just get it back from the body shop? Or was that for somethin else? You planning on getting that fixed?
Not the door, had to replace the front fascia. I'm gettin a quote for the door tomorrow so we'll see how long until I can get that fixed.
01-11-2009 12:16 PM
Spatakula710 Name is Shawn. I don't really post on fanatics too often. Here is my pos.

01-11-2009 11:28 AM
Sonicbluezx3 Hey Chris speaking of that... didn't you just get it back from the body shop? Or was that for somethin else? You planning on getting that fixed?
01-11-2009 09:04 AM
CrysisSVT Yea Im Chris in Fuquay Varina. I'm still pretty new down here too.

I drive a mostly stock SVT but my pics are almost all from a crappy camera phone so I'll wait for the pics from Wilmington before I post mine. You cant miss it though, drivers door is messed up.
01-11-2009 12:30 AM
Sonicbluezx3 I have a 360 as well. No wii least no video game wii..... bahahaha

And the next meet was today in Wilmington... we're workin on the next one though. Just keep checkin the regional forum
01-10-2009 04:16 AM
Originally Posted by Sonicbluezx3 View Post
Hey man, don't feel bad, just means you haven't spent all kinds of money on a car :) haha. You should come out to a meet man.. and I assume you are into video games? Do you have xbox or anything?
Yeah, I have 360 and Wii haha, what about you? Oh, and when and where is the next meet?
12-26-2008 08:56 AM
Templar I've got apps out to a couple of schools, but NCState and WVU look the most promising...
12-24-2008 01:24 PM
Sonicbluezx3 Wow, well good luck man... where are you planning on getting your phd at?
12-24-2008 07:56 AM
Templar I am pretty sure I could pop out for something around the triangle. but Wilmington is pretty far...
the Economy most definitly sucks, i was making the bucks selling in the medical field and when i didn't get the numbers
But i am going back to school to get a phd in english, i always meant to be a professor, so this was just the kick in the pants i needed.
12-23-2008 10:47 PM
Originally Posted by Templar View Post
i don't know, things are tight right now.
Ive been out of work since the end of October
Ah, I hear ya man. This economy sucks! Well even if you can't go out to the meet we should get together sometime
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Topic Review (Newest First)
11-27-2012 11:37 AM
Originally Posted by freemind View Post
It is a totally different type of bearing setup.
Thank you. Will get new caps for the back wheels at my local ford dealer.
11-27-2012 11:29 AM
iminhell Looks like it's a 2" dust cover.
11-27-2012 11:05 AM
freemind It is a totally different type of bearing setup.
11-27-2012 10:07 AM
gello88 Thanks! May I ask why the front wheels don't need a dust cap?
11-27-2012 09:58 AM
freemind Your local auto parts store will have the caps and no, you do not need them for the front.
11-27-2012 09:49 AM
Mk1 Ford Focus Dust Caps

So I just had my Ford Focus repaired for the 3rd time in 6 months ... anyway, the dust caps at the rear wheels have been taken off a few times already and I think it needs replacing especially now that I'm using steel rims for my winter tyres, the bearing is exposed and a properly fitted dust cap is a must to protect it.

Are the dust caps on this model still available at ford dealers? And why don't the front wheels have dust caps on them? Can I also fit the same dust cap there?

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