As the year winds down, the San Diego International Airport is adding up some of the projects that went online this year.
“We have a brand new parking structure, just opened in May," said Richard Gilb, environmental affairs manager for the airport. "Then about in October, our system went live. It’s a rainwater capture system."
The new filtration system allows the airport to collect and re-use up to 300,000 gallons of rainwater.
“Everyone likes a clean bay, just like us, swimming and fishing. So it keeps dirty water out of the bay,” Gilb said.
The rainwater, which is used to run a cooling system at the airport, comes from the new Terminal 2 parking garage. The garage has 2,900 parking spaces, includes charging stations for electric vehicles and an online reservation system.
The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority is in the middle of planning the rebuild of Terminal 1.
RELATED: Critics: San Diego International Airport Needs Local Transit Connections
“We went out with an environmental document this summer," said Brendan Reed, the Airport Authority's planning director. "We’ve received comments. Now we’re working with our partner agencies on the next steps of that.”
Terminal 1 was built in 1967. The airport hopes to have a plan ready for the California Coastal Commission to approve in 2019 to stay on track with opening the first 22 gates by 2023.
