ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- The 40-year-old runway system at St. Cloud Regional Airport will be replaced thanks to some state bonding money.

Monday night the Minnesota State Legislature included $3.9 million for the airport in the bonding bill.

Airport Director Bill Towle says the Precision Instrument Landing System (ILS) and the Approach Lighting System need to be replaced and relocated.

It's been challenging to keep them running, the manufacturer doesn't make them anymore, no do they make replacement parts for them.  So we go out and look for used ILS and used Approach Lighting Systems that have been decommissioned.

Those systems are especially important during inclement weather and low visibility.

And the reason we're going to move this is we have a runway extension that was completed several years ago and we couldn't get this piece of that project done at the time. So, we have 500 feet of runway that can be used for takeoffs but not landings.

The total cost for the project is about $6 million with another $1.1 million coming from the Federal Aviation Administration and $1 million from MnDOT Aeronautics.

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Towle says the work will likely be done next year.

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