With so much rain these past couple of weeks in Massachusetts, walking the ramp area can be pretty slick. It’s hard to miss the rainbow – sheen from fluid drips and leaks that accumulate on the ground from all the aircraft and various types of GSE that use the airport. Some of these fluids are leaking from the equipment itself and some the result of rushed or sloppy servicing procedures.
Many people dismiss these small leaks as being “no big deal” or an unavoidable part of doing business with vehicles that consume or dispense fluids. Well, I disagree. They may not be a big deal individually, but they share can add up. These liquids eventually get washed away in rain and snow storms and end up, if the airport has them, in containment basins and if not, into the adjacent ground and even groundwater.
Cleaning storm water runoff is an expensive proposition for any airport, but it is becoming a bigger and bigger focus of concern for communities, especially when the airport runoff could wind up in a community’s drinking water. From my conversations with airport managers across the country, EPA and local state environmental agencies are getting tougher with runoff contaminants, which would include these fluids and others, such as deicing fluids.
An increase in attention to even small fluid leaks in GSE equipment and a tightening up of servicing procedures could prevent some of these leaks from occurring and ultimately creating bigger, more expensive problems.
