Urban Helps Buffalo's Airport Deal With Deicing Fluid Disposal

Buffalo Niagara International Airport is now employing an environmental friendly approach to collecting and treating propylene glycol used for deicing aircraft.  Limits on propylene glycol discharge by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation meant that the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) had to take action to reduce the level of contamination in airport runoff discharges.  A study by the firm of Jaques-Whitford (now part of Stantec) showed that propylene glycol could be reduced by 95% through the use of engineered wetlands.

Urban Engineers of New York designed a stormwater system to collect the glycol-contaminated runoff  and send it to the engineered wetlands. The new system captures concentrated deicing flows from all airport gates as well as the first flush flows from the remainder of the drainage basin and stores them at a low point on the airport property.  The contaminated water is then pumped to the engineered wetlands for treatment.   The system was designed to handle average daily flows of up to two million gallons per day.

Engineered wetlands are an emerging technology for use on airports in the treatment of the deicing fluids.  Though the system uses wetland processes, the treatment actually occurs with aerated gravel beds topped with mulch and plantings.  The top of the beds remain dry and appear simply as a mowed/maintained field.  These cells, four in all, are each about the size of a football field, 1.5 meters deep, and lined with high-density polyethylene (DPE) material.  Here, the glycol is broken down in two or three days as it travels through the engineered wetland treatment system.

The use of engineered wetlands is more common in wastewater treatment and in Europe, but the Buffalo installation is believed to be one of the first projects in the United States to use this technology for on-site treatment of de-icing fluids.