The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is proposing a new rule that would make deicing practices on aircraft and at airport runways more environmentally friendly.
Discharges from deicing operations at airports can have major impacts on water quality, causing reductions in wildlife, contamination of drinking water sources, and impacts in residential areas and parkland. EPA is proposing requirements for control of the wastewater associated with the deicing of aircraft and pavement at more than 200 commercial airports nationwide.
EPA estimates that six major airports, which are among the largest users of aircraft deicing fluid, would likely install centralized deicing pads to comply with the proposed requirements. Airports using lesser amounts of deicing fluid would collect 20% of the spent fluid with technologies such as glycol recovery vehicles. The estimated 50 airports that currently use urea to deice runways would use more environmentally friendly deicers, or reduce the discharges of ammonia from continued use of urea.
A number of airports in the country already comply with the proposed requirements, EPA said.
EPA and states would incorporate the proposed requirements into stormwater permits.
The proposed rule is open for public comment for 120 days following publication in the Federal Register.
The two main types of deicing fluids–propylene glycol and ethylene glycol–are not generally seen as a threat to human health, according to the Associated Press. However, as they drain into waterways, they contribute to oxygen-deprived dead zones.
"Here you have millions of gallons a year of this deicing chemical running off untreated directly into that bay," said Larry Levine, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued New York over deicing chemicals that flow from JFK International Airport into the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. "Anything that can’t swim away is going to die."
Read Associated Press coverage at the link below.
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