Introduction

Throughout many areas of the country, airport operations managers are finding themselves faced with the challenge of responding to the increasingly stringent regulatory controls that are being levied by both state and federal environmental agencies to reduce noise levels, air pollution, and water contamination at their airports. Over the past several years, a growing number of airport managers have been actively examining the available technology based solutions which can be used to mitigate these issues and which can be reliably and cost effectively deployed to help assure conformance with environmental laws and to solve their pollution problem. BIFS Technologies Corporation would like to take this opportunity to invite you to explore the possibilities that exist, through the deployment of our patented remediation products, to help achieve conformance with environmental regulations and to alleviate any future concerns about such critical issues.

The Need

Deicing is a major source of water contamination at airports, but is required for the safe operation of aircraft during inclement weather conditions. Generally, ethylene glycol or propylene glycol based aircraft deicing fluids (ADF) are used for these deicing operations. Excess ADF applied to aircraft during such operations, falls to the ground in the deicing area, and along the taxiways and runways of the airport, thereby resulting in a major source of contamination. Rainfall run-off within these areas is mixed with ADF, which then flows to receiving water bodies and pollutes the environment that surrounds the airport and the prevailing watershed. This situation presents many airports with a complex environmental hazard and a major cleanup challenge so as to avoid fines and punitive damages as a result of litigation.

Un-reclaimed deicing operations typically result in highly contaminated "storm-event" run-off, which has an immediately adverse effect on local drainage and eco-systems, while normal absorption processes create an even more dramatic and potentially harmful impact to local residents by leaching hazardous chemicals into ground water wells and drinking water reservoirs. To avoid these harmful effects, the contaminated run-off must be collected and properly disposed of as part of the normal operational activities. BIFS Technologies Corporation has years of experience in building and managing such capture and treatment systems.

State and federal environmental agencies continue to add new and even more stringent regulations governing airport pollution. Pretreatment of stored contaminated run-off is now required at airports to meet the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) discharge criteria and to conform to the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) requirements for receiving rivers and lakes. Pretreatment is also required at airports where the Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) are not designed to receive the run-off from storm events or to treat high organic loaded run-off generated at the airport. Pretreatment is the solution for airports with ADF in their runoff.

The Anaerobic Solution

The BIFS High Performance Fixed-Film Bioreactor is designed specifically for the pretreatment of contaminated run-off for discharge via NPDES permit or to a POTW. The system is a patented two-stage process designed to treat ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, and any combination of these two ADF sources. Stage one is a controlled anaerobic filtration process that converts organic compounds, such as glycol contained in runoff, into carbon dioxide and methane gas. This methanogenic process reduces the high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) associated with these wastewaters. The resulting biogas is recycled into the system as the primary fuel for the boiler and heated water is then run through a heat exchange mechanism that raises the temperature of the run-off being pumped into the system to the optimal treatment temperature. Remaining biogases can be used to fuel heating and electrical generation systems, thus creating a novel form of recycling which is harmless to the environment and cost-effective to deploy.

The second stage of the patented treatment process is an aerobic stage designed to polish the water treated in the anaerobic stage, thereby reducing the COD by over 99% percent. Our system is designed to meet NPDES or POTW discharge specifications for COD, BOD, TSS, O&G, total glycol, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, DO, pH, and temperature limits. The system is most efficient during continuous operation. However, the system can remain idle for extended periods of time and restarted as needed.

An average system is designed to fit within a 50’ by 50’ spatial footprint of the airport grounds and the equipment capacity can be continually expanded as the use of ADF at the airport increases and the need to process greater amounts of contaminates grows. The BIFS system can also be expanded and modified to meet even more stringent discharge criteria, should local regulations governing the handling of contaminates necessitate.