Salinas Control Tower Only Local Closure

All of the towers in the 9 county Bay Area were saved

A Salinas air traffic control tower will be part of the Federal  Aviation Administration's shutdown of 149 towers nationwide, FAA officials announced Friday.

The tower at the Salinas Municipal Airport, located at 30  Mortensen Ave., will be part of a four-week phased closure beginning on April  7 because of federal budget sequestration cuts.

The sequestration went into effect March 1 after the congressional  Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction did not reach a compromise,  putting in place $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts that will roll out over the  next decade.

The tower closures are part of the agency's sequestration  implementation plan affecting its 47,000 employees. Originally 189 towers  were planned to close to meet budget requirements of $637 million in cuts.

Forty towers were spared that faced potential closure, including  ones in San Carlos, Napa, Santa Rosa, Concord, and Livermore.

Twenty-four towers that were part of the original closure plan  were kept open because their closure would "have a negative impact on the  national interest," FAA officials said in a statement today.  

An additional 16 towers will remain open under a federal "cost  share" program that requires funding that was cut by 5 percent but will keep  those towers operable, according to the FAA.
    In some cities where towers will close, FAA officials said there  is a non-federal program option to continue air traffic control services via  an alternate funding source.
   

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