The university’s highest governing body will meet via teleconference Wednesday to consider proposals to turn over land to the airport and relocate parts of a research orchard.

The Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport has been seeking to build a bigger runway to accommodate bigger planes for more than a decade. One issue with the project was that parts of WSU animal and horticulture research facilities were located in the proposed runway’s Runway Protection Zone, a plot of land off the end of the tarmac that is supposed to remain clear in case a plane overshoots a landing or does not take off properly.

The airport will propose to purchase the land from the university for $15.3 million, about the same amount it will cost to relocate the facility.

Affected research programs include United States Department of Agriculture studies, College of Veterinary Medicine research and projects associated with the Tukey Horticulture Orchard and some College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences’ animal facilities.

The university plans to relocate the affected programs and facilities to the Tula Young Hastings Farm southwest of Pullman and the Spillman Farm south of Pullman, both of which WSU owns.