About the Bluegrass Station Airport Project

THANK YOU to all the citizens in Bourbon and surrounding counties who stood up for our freedoms and private property rights and contacted our elected officials.

Because of you, the funding for the Bluegrass Station Airport/Airpark was removed from the 2024 State Budget. However, our work is not done. There are rumors this project will now be pursued from the federal level, allowing the feds to bully landowners with eminent domain. Citizens for Bourbon County plans to remain vigilant and continue working with legal and professional consultants to ensure the project remains dead.

Please consider donating today to further our cause by helping us fund our legal and consulting efforts, as well as our community partnership initiatives to help raise awareness about this issue.

In 2017 the Bourbon County Fiscal Court considered a proposal that would have expanded Bluegrass Station, a 780-acre former army depot purchased by the state in 1995. If approved by the Court, the measure would have allowed Bourbon County to use eminent domain to take private citizens' homes to develop an airport for public and private use. The measure was ultimately defeated after overwhelming opposition from the local community, and the project was thought dead.

Throughout the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, it turns out the Department of Military Affairs, Governor Beshear, and some members of the Kentucky legislature were working behind the scenes to move the project forward without the knowledge or consent of the local community.

Only after a private citizen discovered over $300 million worth of projects dedicated to the expansion of Bluegrass Airport in House Bill 6 (the state budget proposal) in the beginning of February did the resurrection of the project come to light for the local community. Elected officials through all levels of government chose to keep this project’s movement secret until this citizen discovered the project’s resurrection and brought it to light.

In a report sent to the Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue in 2022, there is extensive discussion of a state land grab of 2,000-4,000 acres using eminent domain under the guise of a military project, but will actually be used to line the pockets of international corporations. In the initial feasibility study document, which was not available for public consumption until public outcry about the lack of transparency around the project, there was a proposal for taking up to 10,000 acres for an airpark - more than double the size of the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

This project has been rejected once already by Bourbon County; this new strategy undermines local control and renders any local community, planning, zoning, or economic development efforts totally irrelevant. 

This proposal completely subverts private property rights, and sets a precedent for more government land grabbing if the campus continues to expand under the state and military’s name.

This proposal is not just a small, local airport that only serves a few military aircraft here and there - it will be the third largest runway in Kentucky and can serve aircraft such as Lockheed C-17s and Boeing 757s (and other large military aircraft such as Lockheed C5s could conceivably use the runway as well).

Besides the egregious use of eminent domain for the benefit of multi-billion dollar military contractors and the rampant government secrecy surrounding it, the project is also fraught with other major impacts for the local community. The facility will have significant environmental impacts including water, sound, light, and air pollution. These impacts extend far past the footprint of the facility and will seriously impact current land use in a miles-wide radius around the proposed project.

Join our efforts! Since our elected officials on all levels are ignoring their constituents, Citizens for Bourbon County is working hard to provide impacted citizens and those concerned about the project with accurate, up-to-date information. We are the public voice of opposition to this project; join your voice with ours and tell our elected officials to stand up for their constituents, not big-money corporations trying to steal private land.