![]() It’s the day after a massive winter storm. I’m in Ada, Oklahoma, to meet a man who claims to have created the world’s first universal unleaded fuel. Image: McNair Evans The search for unleaded avgas The delay has exposed millions more children to lead pollution.Īn airplane flies overhead as students at Donald J. Why is it taking so long for the US to replace a toxic fuel dating from World War II? It’s a tale of bureaucratic obstruction, technical obstacles, and oil companies fighting to protect their profit margins. But in what appears to be an unprecedented move, the agency has halted final approval despite extensive safety testing and asked for more data and requirements-delays that could extend the approval process for years. In January, engineers at the FAA certification office in Wichita, Kansas, certified a universal unleaded fuel now awaiting the sign-off of FAA officials in Washington. That’s a microcosm of the bigger challenge: While most small aircraft could fly unleaded, the workhorses of the civil aviation fleet, which consume 70% of the gasoline and emit most of the lead, still need leaded avgas.Ī solution is within reach, though. Santa Clara County, which operates Reid-Hillview, this year became the first in the nation to ban leaded aviation fuel, or avgas.Ībout a fifth of the planes at Reid-Hillview must now fly elsewhere to refuel the rest have switched to unleaded fuel. But it stands on the frontline of an effort to get rid of the US’s last major source of lead air pollution. ![]() On that count, it ranks 34th among the country’s roughly 13,000 airports, according to EPA data. Reid-Hillview is not the largest lead emitter among general aviation airports in the US. “We should know now how criminal it is to keep lead in gasoline of any kind,” says Howard Mielke, a research professor at the Tulane School of Medicine, who has studied lead for decades. But the federal government has continued to allow the toxic additive in airplane fuel used by most of the nation’s 170,000 small, piston-engine aircraft, even though more than 3 million children like Holland and 16 million adults live within one kilometer of a general aviation airport in the US. ![]() The amount of lead in Americans’ bloodstreams has fallen more than 96% since the US began phasing out leaded gasoline in cars almost 50 years ago. “The observed increase here will have a detrimental effect on the cognitive performance of children living nearby.” ![]() “Aviation gasoline exposure is a daily, unabated barrage of lead,” says Sammy Zahran, an economist and public health researcher at Colorado State University, who conducted the study (pdf) at Reid-Hillview. ![]()
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