To build an airport runway, you need a long strip of earth that is basically flat. Right now, the place where Raleigh-Durham International Airport plans to put its new main runway is anything but.
The land on the west side of the airfield is typical of the eastern Piedmont, undulating with dips and rises. To make it level, RDU and its contractors expect to bring in 5.2 million cubic yards of dirt and crushed rock, enough to fill a half million standard-size dump trucks.
That process has begun. Travelers in RDU’s Terminal 2 can look out across the airfield and see huge Caterpillar off-road dump trucks with six-foot tires lumbering back and forth, bringing 50 tons of material at a time to low spots.
With a couple of exceptions, the site of the new runway is much lower than the existing one and needs to be raised so that they’re roughly level, said Trent Johnson, who is overseeing the work for Balfour Beatty, RDU’s general contractor…