Ground Support Worldwide - 33

Photo courtesy of Safe Drain

GROUND SUPPORT
EQUIPMENT

During this deicing operation,
Safe Drain (bottom right) stopped
100 percent of the deicing fluid
from entering the storm water
system allowing the plane to
be deiced where it was and not
moving it to a deicing operation
area saving time and fuel.
for the winter of 2020 into 2021. The entire
program aims to be complete for the winter of 2022 into 2023," says Blue. "Safety
is paramount always, as is environmental
conservation, this pad has been designed
with both of those considerations in mind."

A Safe Alternative
For airports without the funds or real estate
to construct state of the art deicing pads or
recycling centers, there remain effective
ways to capture and collect spent ADF; such
as storm drain blockers like those manufactured by Safe Drain.
"Deicing, that's one of the no-brainers for
us," says John Deming, Founder and CEO of
Safe Drain. "We talked to an airport recently
at a trade show and they said, 'you're kidding
me, right?' And I said, 'what do you mean?'
They said, 'I could have done this? I just
spent 1 million dollars on a deicing pad.'
"Here's the thing, when you build a deicing pad, you've got to take the planes to the
deicing pad. If you put Safe Drains on your
whole ramp, you could deice the plane wherever you wanted," continues Deming. "Sure,
it's contained, but you could do the same
thing with Safe Drain and a vacuum truck,
and most airports have vacuum trucks or
sweepers. Just vacuum up the glycol."

Considering themselves an environmental company, Safe Drain works by effectively
sealing off a storm drain with the turn of
a key to keep pollutants contained at the
source.
"It happens in seconds. The key is operated through the grate, so there's no reason
to lift the grate. You can close that valve
in three seconds. Even if you had a spill
emergency response wise... you can have one
key that closes that drain off and gets you
100 percent spill containment in seconds,"
Deming says.
Originally getting into the aviation industry by containing fuel spills, deicing became
the logical next step, helping airports on the
east coast contain there ADF - and then the
world.
"We got a job in Europe many years ago
and what I didn't realize was that there was
so much glycol going down the storm drain

that it was getting into a nearby lake below
and for however long the locals had been ice
skating on this rink, one year it never froze.
They followed it back up to the airport and
realized it was the deicing fluid. So, they
immediately ordered over 300 units to make
sure the deicing fluid never went down the
drain again," Deming says.
Deming says each Safe Drain is custom
made for the storm drain it's been ordered
for and Safe Drain can pool thousands of
gallons, so as long as an airport vacuums
their ADF, there remains little chance of it
escaping into water supplies.
"Our biggest worry is that it gets to the
next drain and you can't close that valve,"
says Deming. "The gateway to your liability is that manhole. It's the storm drain. If
there's where your pollution is going to be
introduced into the environment, then that's
where your liability is."

CUSTOM FABRICATED
GROUND SUPPORT SOLUTIONS

WWW.WILCOXGS.COM
INFO@WILCOXGS.COM
888-294-5269
AviationPros.com/12390248

MAY 2019

AviationPros.com

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Ground Support Worldwide

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