The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Aug. 28 proposed a rule that would affect deicing practices on aircraft and runways. The Proposed Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELG) for Airport Deicing Rule allows EPA to set numeric limitations on facilities and will, in many instances, require significant financial obligations and operational changes for airports.
Specifically, the proposed rule would apply to airports that have greater than 1,000 annual departures of scheduled commercial jet aircraft and greater than or equal to 10,000 total annual departures. A 60 percent collection of deicing fluid is required for airports that are applying greater than or equal to 460,000 gallons of concentrated fluid (before any water has been added by the manufacturer or user before application and after it is sprayed on aircraft); airports applying less than this amount must collect 20 percent of the fluid. Specific numeric effluent limits for chemical oxygen demand also must be met.
Most of the airports, which are to gather 60 percent of deicing fluid, would likely be required to install centralized deicing pads to comply with the proposed requirement while those who are required to collect at least 20 percent of the spent fluid would need to use technologies such as glycol recovery vehicles. Also, airports that currently use urea to deice runways would be required to switch to more environmentally friendly and more costly deicers or must reduce the discharges of ammonia from continued use of urea.
Once promulgated, the ELG rule will be incorporated into the existing National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits issued by EPA, states or tribes. EPA projects regulatory compliance will reduce the discharge of deicing-related pollutants by at least 44.6 million pounds per year at a total annualized cost to the industry of $91.3 million.
This cost is believed to be understated in many instances, and AAAE urges all airports to view the proposal and try to determine what the impact would be economically, as well as operationally, on their facilities. AAAE and ACI-NA are working to provide collaborative comments to EPA on this rule. Please provide any written statements you may have that would help improve the proposal to Leslie Riegle by Nov. 24 at leslie.riegle@aaae.org.
To view the proposed rule and supporting documentation, go to http://www.epa.gov/guide/airport/airport_ea_proposed_2009.pdf.
