1 October 2009

EPA: Airports need to contain deicing chemical runoff

It is a cold, snowy winter’s day, and you are flying out to a plant. As your plane taxies out to take off, the captain says “we are just going to go over and do the deicing procedure.”

Every winter, airports across the country spray millions of gallons of deicing chemicals onto planes and allow the runoff to trickle away. Those chemicals end up in nearby waterways, and the result is those deicing fluids can turn streams bright orange and create dead zones for aquatic life.

Nothing illegal, but environmental officials want it to stop.

“We normally don’t think of airports as one of our major polluting facilities,” said Chuck Corell, water quality bureau chief with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “I think it’s safe to say that for years it was unchecked.”

Not every airport lets the chemicals drain off the tarmac uncollected, but those that do range from some of the nation’s largest, including JFK in New York and Chicago’s O’Hare, to small regional airports, such as the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids. Environmental officials said the chemicals slowly create waterways that will not support life.

Proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations would require airports to capture at least some of the deicing fluid. The agency said those rules would reduce by 22% the discharge of chemicals, which lower oxygen levels in waterways and prevent fish and other aquatic creatures from breathing.

The two main types of deicing fluids, propylene glycol and ethylene glycol, are not much of a threat to human health. Ethylene glycol, also used in antifreeze, is generally only toxic in humans if ingested. Propylene glycol is a “generally recognized as safe” additive for foods and medications, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Under the EPA’s proposed regulations, six of the nation’s 14 major airports that are the biggest users of deicing fluid—JKF, O’Hare, Cleveland-Hopkins International, Newark Liberty International in New Jersey, Boston Logan International, and LaGuardia Airport in New York—would have to install deicing “pads” or other collection systems to contain 60% of fluid sprayed.

About 200 smaller airports would be required to collect 20% of the fluid by using technologies such as a glycol recovery vehicle, which is basically a vacuum that sucks up the chemical. The proposed regulations would not affect airports with less than 1,000 annual jet departures.

For related information, go to www.isa.org/environment.