Two Central New York businessmen are in line to get $10.8 million in federal money to build a small airstrip in the Oswego County town of Hastings.

The airport will be eight miles from a small, taxpayer-built airport-Michael Airfield in Cicero - that the same businessmen have bought and shut down. Essentially they'll be spending nearly $11 million in federal money to replace one generally unused airport with another airstrip.

There are some differences. The Hastings airport will have more buffer land around it and its runway will be 15 feet wider. It doesn't have the Cicero airport's close proximity to Interstate 81 and power lines. The Hastings airport would eventually have new hangars and fuel storage.

But the whole episode sheds some light into the curious way the federal government finances small airports, a system criticized by federal budget watchdogs at least as far back as 1994.

The Federal Aviation Administration has already spent $2.8 million on the project for which there is no demonstrated need, which doesn't meet the FAA's minimum quota for air traffic, which could hurt nearby airports, and which has been opposed by local planners and the airstrip's neighbors in Hastings. The FAA expects to spend another $8 million on the project.

The money comes from a fund set up to relieve air traffic congestion at major airports, a $200 million-a-year pot of money fed through taxes on tickets and aviation fuel paid by anyone who flies or sends a package via air.