Wednesday, February 6, 2002
|
Wednesday, February 6, 2002 |
| EPD: airport
deicing spill was 30,000 more gallons
By DAVE HAMRICK
Hartsfield Airport could be in hot water over an early January spill of deicing agents that found their way into Fayette and two other counties' water supplies. A state Environmental Protection Division official revealed this week that, contrary to earlier reports of a spill of only 250 gallons of chemical, the airport spilled "at least 30,000 gallons" directly into the Flint River. Bert Langley of EPD's Emergency Response Program said the state agency expected by today to have mailed the airport administration a proposed consent order requiring both short-term and long-term solutions to the problem ... solutions that could get very expensive, he said. Airport officials were unable to respond to The Citizen's requests for comment by deadline. The office of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin did not return phone calls on the matter. "It's a big deal," said Langley. "I don't expect the airport to just sign [the consent order]. We would require that they immediately come up with a way to not have that happen again in the short term, and then there's a long-term order for them to modify their facilities," he said. "It could be a very expensive operation," he added. The reason for the spill, he said, is a "fatal flaw" in the design of deicing facilities, adding that the design is in clear violation of both state and federal law. The system is designed so that drains under the deicing pads funnel the fluid into a sanitary sewer system for treatment before being released into the storm water system, which drains into the Flint River, a major source of drinking water for Fayette, Clayton and Spalding counties. But the drain pipes can hold only about 80,000 gallons of fluid at a time, Langley said. If more deicing agent than that is pumped into the drains, there is no reservoir to catch it, he said, so it flows directly into the storm water system and thus into the Flint. "There are quick ways to fix that, and fairly inexpensive to initiate, but expensive to operate," he said. EPD also is looking into the practice of some airlines that deice their planes at their gates rather than on the deicing pads. It's yet to be determined whether those airlines have drainage systems that connect to the sanitary sewer, Langley said. Further complicating the situation for Hartsfield, Langley said, EPD will now want to review the airport's entire pollution prevention program, giving attention to every pollutant used in operations there, from jet fuel to fire-fighting foam. "It has to be revised now. We're going to have to examine that real carefully," he said. "We're talking about everything at the airport in terms of how it's segregated from the storm water." He said the airport's storm water permit is clear. "They're allowed to discharge storm water, and that's all." Asked how the airport managed to design and build a deicing system that violated regulations, Langley said EPD is looking into that, too. But he said it's not EPD's general practice to inspect such systems when they are built. With licensed engineers designing the systems, he said, they're supposed to done correctly. EPD is not asking for any punitive fines in the consent order, Langley said. "We would rather not argue over money, but get this problem fixed," he said. "At a point where Atlanta has already got some fiscal problems, we decided to ask for no monetary settlement. "If we can't come to an amicable agreement, then we may have to take other routes including possible fines," he added. Meanwhile, testing of water from Fayette homes where residents complained of a "sickeningly sweet" odor in the weeks following the snow storm continues to indicate that the water is safe, Langley stressed. He said he is "almost certain" that the odor is the result of the deicing spill, even though detectable levels of glycol, the main chemical in the deicing process, have not showed up in the water. "Everything we have seen inidicates that there just is no health issue," said Langley. "Our toxicologist looked at it real carefully." Tony Parrott, director of Fayette's water system, said continual flushing of fire hydrants seems to be slowly succeeding in getting the smell out of the water. With 460 miles of pipe, it's taking some time to flush the entire sytem, he said. "It's down to just a few calls," he told The Citizen Friday. Parrott said in addition to testing that EPD has done, he sent some samples to a private lab as well with the same results - no detectable levels of glycol. The problem cropped up when about 50 residents of south Peachtree City phoned the Water System to complain of the smell about a week and a half after the snow storm. The system shut down its South Fayette Treatment Plant, which draws water from the Flint, called in the EPD and asked that the water be tested for that and other contaminants. The system also added activated carbon to remove chemicals from the water. The plant was reopened two weeks ago, after its equipment and holding ponds were flushed.
|
||