Bob Hope Airport seeks to conserve water
That puff of smoke that comes off the wheels of an airplane’s landing gear when it hits the runway is caused by the wheels skidding.
The skid marks build up over time and need to be removed to ensure safe braking conditions. Officials at Bob Hope Airport say that’s typically done by a contractor using high-pressure water sprayers.
It’s a necessary use of water, said Dan Feger, the airport’s executive director, “like flushing a toilet.” However, in light of the ongoing drought, officials at a special meeting of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority’s operations committee discussed using recycled water for such purposes, if possible.
That’s in addition to measures underway at the airfield to comply with stage three of Burbank’s water sustainability ordinance, which went into effect Monday. The Burbank City Council enacted the tightened water restrictions last month after state officials mandated the city cut its water consumption by 28% compared to a September 2014 baseline.
Airport officials have responded by reducing the washing schedule for airport vehicles to once every two weeks, modifying toilets to use only half a gallon of water per flush and where possible, irrigating landscaping with recycled water.
The airport is at the end of the city’s recycled water-supply lines, and has limited pressure and quantities of water, so in some areas where they use potable, or drinking water, they have set the irrigation systems to operate on Tuesdays and Saturdays, in accordance with the city’s ordinance, said Mark Hardyment, the airport’s director of transportation and environmental programs.
For example, the landscaping around the new transportation center can be watered with recycled water and the car-wash stations that the rental-car vendors use is also supplied with the treated waste water that’s deemed suitable for all purposes except human consumption. The car-wash water is also reused throughout the day, Hardyment added.
Airport staffers are also applying to have additional connections to the city’s reclaimed water supply installed to expand the areas of the airport’s landscaping that can be irrigated with the recycled water, though that still won’t cover the entire footprint of the airport’s landscaping.
Feger said the cost of installing the additional connection points may cost between $10,000 and $20,000.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the recycled water could be used in the pressure washing of the runways, but commissioner Don Brown of Burbank urged officials to look into it, noting that it is important for the public to know that airport officials are trying to do their part to meet stringent water-conservation requirements.
Hardyment said airport officials are looking into other ways to reduce water consumption, but do not yet have a recommendation for the airport authority to consider. He said additional proposals could include changing over the irrigation in planting beds to drip systems or removing turf and replacing landscaping with drought-tolerant plants.
“At this point, we’re still researching those,” he said.
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Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com
Twitter: @chadgarland
