WASHINGTON — Crews at Reagan National Airport spent the weekend working to get the runways, taxiways and gate areas clear, so flights could get going. Despite their round-the-clock efforts, about 20 percent of Monday’s flights are canceled.
But as the crews push snow around to clear the paths, a question arises: Why not just dump the snow into the Potomac?
“You cannot,” says David Mould, with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Reagan National.
The snow retains chemicals from the runway treatments and the airplane deicing, “so there are environmental restrictions against putting the snow in the river.”
Instead, some of it is melted, some is trucked away and a lot of it is simply piled up.
“There’s a pile at the north end of the airport,” Mould says. “It’s not hard to spot.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to change the spelling of David Mould’s name.
