Airports and environment

Seeking for new solutions to reduce emissions

The most important environmental issues in the management of airports are the prevention of skidding on runways by Finavia, ice protection and de-icing of aircraft performed by ground handling agents, and the flight operations of aircraft belonging to airlines, individuals and the defence forces.

Substances that are less harmful to the environment are used in the prevention of skidding, but they cause loading in waterways. A non-toxic glycol solution is used for ice protection; it functions by consuming oxygen in the surface water and ground water. The movement of aircraft causes both noise and exhaust gas emissions.

Due to the increased use of ice protection liquids, Finavia has studied methods of reducing the load on the water system at provincial airports. Ice protection treatments are carried out on aprons with large surface areas, so large quantities of rainwater and catchment water are collected.

Tampere-Pirkkala Airport is the first provincial airport where the collection of glycol from the apron using a vehicle equipped with brushes and a suction device has been started as is done at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.

If the experiences with the collection, temporary storage and transportation of glycol runoff to a purification plant are positive, the procedure will be introduced at other large airports, starting with Oulu and Kuopio. The new environmental solutions also mean that the users of the substances will participate in paying the costs of reducing emissions.

At Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, ground handling agents carry out almost four times as much ice protection as at all the other airports combined. In a planning project concerning the development of the activity, Finavia set as a goal that the airport’s first centralized ice protection treatment site will be taken into use in the autumn of 2007. Part of the departing jet plane traffic can be handled at the site.

At the end of the year under review, new environmental permit processes in accordance with the legislation that came into force in 2000 were under way at six airports. The Åland Islands environmental permit board reached a decision on Mariehamn Airport in accordance with the province’s sectoral legislation. Finavia has requested changes to the details of the decision due to technicalities.

The environmental permit application for Kuopio Airport was submitted as a new case. Answers were given on the statements concerning the permit applications of Oulu and Turku airports. There is a need for five new permits. During the year under review, the Lapland Regional Environment Centre set a policy according to which airports that function within its area must apply for environmental permits by June 2010 at the latest.

An old landfill and firedrill site at Pori Airport was rehabilitated in the manner directed by the regional environment centre. At Kuopio Airport, the environmental risks of a fire drill area were surveyed in association with the Finnish Defence Forces. According to the survey, the contamination is under control but as the use of the area changes it must be rehabilitated. The fire drill site located near the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is used extensively. Even though the site has an oil separator, a sufficient amount of practice fuel was released into nearby ditches that a drainage ditch located about 600 metres away in an area in between the runways was improved in the way directed by the authorities.

In December, the European Commission published a draft directive that would gradually incorporate airports within emissions trading starting in 2011. Emissions trading does not concern Finavia but will eventually affect the operations of its customers. Finavia has supported the Ministry of Transport and Communications in the preparations concerning the issue, and follows climate issues in general in order to forecast the development of the aviation sector as a whole. The Ministry and the key actors in the aviation sector in Finland prepared an information package about air traffic emissions and their effects on the climate, which is available at the Web site www.lentoliikennejailmasto.fi.

Finavia’s 2006 environmental review is published separately.