"New York airport neighbors want more info about de-icing facility"

Friday, September 27, 2002

Airport neighbors want more info 
Say de-icing facility would lead to new noise problems
By Martin B. Cassidy
The Greenwich (CT) Time


Greenwich residents concerned by a proposal to build a new aircraft
de-icing facility at Westchester County Airport in New York said
Westchester officials need to explain the size and potential risks
related to the plan.

The proposed five-bay facility with two 2-million-gallon holding tanks
opens the door for expansion at the airport, said Allen Williams, vice
president of the Northwest Greenwich Association, which represents about
640 Greenwich households on the western part of town.

Westchester County officials presented details of the plan to the Rye
Brook Board of Trustees on Tuesday night, drawing more than 100
concerned area residents.

"This is not a major metropolitan airport, nor does anybody want it to
be," Williams said. "This project provides the capability for that to
happen."

Neighbors also are concerned that the loss of forest caused by the
project would worsen noise problems for surrounding residents, said
Robert J. Richardson, chairman of the King Merritt Community Inc., a
private homeowners association comprised of 220 Greenwich households off
King Street.

"The woodlands are a buffer for the surrounding community," Richardson
said.

Peter Ryan, chairman of the First Selectman's Airport Advisory
Committee, said his committee would analyze information from Westchester
officials regarding the appropriateness of the 15-acre, $30 million
facility. First Selectman Richard Bergstresser formed the committee
after his election last year to monitor issues related to the airport.

"The size and the scope of the project need to be addressed by the
county," Ryan said. "It seems like a large facility, and they need to
explain that."

Four of the proposed facility's five bays would use liquid polypropylene
glycol to de-ice planes, and one would use infrared technology to melt
ice.

The new facility would reduce the environmental impact of the airport's
de-icing operations because the two holding tanks would improve the
collection of used glycol for disposal or reuse, said Lawrence Salley,
commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Transportation,
which is proposing the facility.

"The essence of the project is we are very concerned with water
quality," Salley said. "A major point of the project is to be able to
recycle and control the release of the fluid we use."

The county's consultant, Camp, Dress, & McKee, will complete an
environmental impact statement on the project in early November, he
said. Public hearings will follow.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation has identified
high levels of glycol in the nearby Blind Brook, Salley said. At high
levels, glycol can cause hypoxia, a condition that depletes dissolved
oxygen in water and kills wildlife.

In addition to the airport's de-icing effort, individual corporations
and airlines have de-icing operations, which are hard to regulate,
Salley said.

With the new plan, "all other de-icing operations would cease, giving us
better control," he said.

Westchester residents who formed a coalition opposed to the project
believe county officials are trying to sneak the project through the
approval process, said Bradley Hamburger, co-chairman of the Belle Fair
Homeowners Association Deicing Task Force, which was formed in late
August.

Belle Fair residents think the possible water quality problem in Blind
Brook is being used as an excuse to build the facility.

"I think they want to build a world class de-icing facility, but they
haven't proved there is a serious environmental problem," Hamburger
said.

But Michael Mason, a Greenwich resident and a co-owner of Westair, a
private charter company based at the airport, said a newer, state-of-the
art facility could reduce the amount of de-icing fluid used by reducing
the number of times planes need to be de-iced.

With the current system, planes sometimes need to be de-iced twice
before take-off because of delays, Mason said. Westair operates its own,
small de-icing operation so that its planes do not have to wait to use
the airport's facility, he said.

"The gist of the project is they can stop all the other operators and
only have it in one location," Mason said.


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