A messy issue: cleaning the runway

Alex Coolman

The Orange County Board of Supervisors next week may approve

contracting with a company that has proposed an environmentally friendly

solution to a messy John Wayne Airport issue: cleaning up after the

planes.

Almost 1 million square feet of tarmac space needs to be cleaned of

rubber residue, fuel and other grime on a regular basis -- a process that

for a time was accomplished by scrubbing and rinsing off the concrete,

said Ann McCarley, a spokeswoman for the airport.

But because of stricter enforcement of water laws, such an approach is

no longer viable.

The Federal Clean Water Act prohibits discharges of contaminated water

into storm drains, and the regional water quality control boards that

administer the legislation are far more meticulous about policing than

they once were.

“We don’t want to be adding to any of the pollution,” McCarley said.

That’s where alternative methods of cleaning come in.

The Orange County Airport Commission at its Nov. 1 meeting approved

awarding a three-year contract for dealing with the messy business to a

Phoenix-based company called Cyclone Surface Cleaning, Inc.

The job, which will cost about $150,000 over its full term, must be

given a final go-ahead by the supervisors at its Nov. 21 meeting.

Cyclone proposes to clean the tarmac with methods that don’t involve

discharging any water, thereby preventing contaminated runoff from

entering storm drains.

“That’s what drives our business,” Cyclone CEO Richard Rohrbacher said

in a telephone interview. “The reason we’re here is to find a solution

for the non-point source [flows].”

Airports have the potential to be problem polluters because their big

size creates big drainage issues.

“They’re huge, flat concrete areas,” Rohrbacher said. “They really

don’t have any place to drain any of the effluent that comes off the

ramps. And in the case of John Wayne, [that runoff] would ultimately

reach the bay.”

Cyclone already has the contract to clean the main runway at John

Wayne, as well as those at Los Angeles International Airport and airports

in San Diego in San Francisco.

Its approach involves using trucks that hit the tarmac with a quick

blast of hot water. But rather than simply loosening the gunk on the

ground and then washing it into a drain, the trucks suck up the oil,

hydraulic fluid and other materials for disposal elsewhere.

The cleaning system won’t make running an airport any less messy, but

John Wayne officials hope it will at least make sure the mess doesn’t end

up in the water.

“When Cyclone will come out, whatever they scrape up off the runway

they’re going to take with them,” McCarley said.