Ford Airport de-icer dump plan unclear

CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) - A proposal to dump aircraft de-icer into the Thornapple River is drawing criticism from environmentalists -- and leading to confusion among some Gerald R. Ford International Airport officials.

Airport Executive James Koslosky today told 24 Hour News 8 on Friday that the airport is not proposing a one-mile pipeline directly to the river, as his facilities director said on Thursday.

Instead, he said, the airport hopes to build an open channel from the airport to the river, with pipes beneath roads and into the river.

"We're essentially building the stream, a new stream, on airport property," he said.

That, he said, would allow the de-icer, called glycol, to naturally break down before reaching the Thornapple.

"I apologize, but our engineer did not properly describe the project," Koslosky said. "There's people who think we're flushing the toilet right into the river, and that's not what's occuring here."

However, two members of the airport's citizen advisory committee, which meets monthly to discuss the issue, told 24 Hour News 8 that airport officials were discussing a pipeline.

They say an open channel was discussed, but that they believed the airport opposed that idea because it could attract geese and ducks, which could endanger aircraft.

"My understanding was a pipeline directly into the Thornapple," said Erv Gambee, president of the Thornapple River Watershed Council.

And the airport's proposal, submitted to the state Department of Environmental Quality on Sept. 1, includes references to a 108-inch diameter pipe.

"Time to construct a conveyance system was developed using the assumption that the route would consist of a large diameter enclosed pipe network," the document states. "Fifteen months of construction is anticipated to be necessary to construct a pipe from the North Detention Basin (within the airport) to the Thornapple River."

Koslosky said that part of the proposal has been taken out of context, leading to the confusion.

The problem is that de-icing fluid runs off the airport runway during winters and springs and into a creek that leads to the Thornapple. Neighbors say it has killed the stream, known to them as Trout Creek.

"There's no aquatic life," Gambee said. "There's no aquatic life. It's all dead."

The DEQ in December 2010 ordered the airport to come up with a plan to keep glycol out of that creek.

The airport's facilities director on Thursday told 24 Hour News 8 that the solution was a $15-million, mile-long pipeline, and that the river had enough fast-moving water to disperse the glycol.

No matter how it reaches the Thornapple, some local environmentalists plan to oppose the plan.

"$15 million is too much to spend for a solution that people are not bought into, that doesn't make anybody happy," said Rachel Hood, executive director of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, which had a representative on the airport advisory committee.

"We need to do all that we can to protect our water resources in this region and in this state."

DEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel said the agency is studying the airport's proposal and looking at how other airports treat de-icer. He said the DEQ, which must approve any plan, could come up with a counter-proposal.

The goal, he said, is to protect Trout Creek and the Thornapple from .

Propylene glycol lowers oxygen levels in water and creates a bacteria "slime mat," though, he said, it's "not an imminent threat to humans or to aquatic life."

"It's not acceptable in that tributary and it might not be acceptable in the Thornapple River," Wurfel said.