Water Quality

We recognise that our activities have the potential to impact upon local watercourses and our attention to environmental management is particularly important.

All surface water from the airport site is managed and discharged in accordance with Consents to Discharge issued by the Environment Agency.

Policy

Through our environmental policy we are committed to:

• Minimising the load placed on the environment by ensuring the sensitive storage and use of chemicals
  
  
• Adopting rigorous programmes of monitoring and control to ensure that all drainage discharges are controlled in accordance with regulatory consents.

Programme

We recognise that our activities have the potential to impact upon local watercourses and to control these impacts we operate a number of programmes.

As the vast majority of the airport site drains into our ‘surface water system’ (i.e. not sewer) we operate a complex water management system. This system continuously monitors and reacts to water quality at five key locations in real time. This ensures that de-icing materials are prevented from entering local brooks. The system also monitors the depth of water in our reservoirs and automatically pumps water around the site to prevent flooding during storm events.