ForConstructionPros.com

Paving contractors who think they put up with challenging weather should try paving a nearly two-mile-long airport runway at the Eareckson Air Station in the outer reaches of U.S. territory without it.

Eareckson, located on Shemya in the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska, is the westernmost U.S. Air Force base in the chain and is routinely swept by high winds and enveloped in thick fog, even during the summer months when construction is actually feasible.

The tiny island covers only about five miles and straddles the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea and, lying about 1,500 miles from Anchorage, is closer to the Russian Federation's Province of Kamchatka than it is to mainland Alaska.

It primarily serves as a refueling stop for military aircraft between North America and Far East Asia and as an emergency landing area.

In early 2009, AECOM Technical Services was awarded a $33 million contract - including $16.2 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - to repair the sole runway, three taxiways and two aprons to handle anticipated heavier use following redeployment of some units from the island of Okinawa. The resurfacing is scheduled for completion by fall 2010.