4 ms·

Alright, here we go yet again with the "leaded gas from GA is going to kill us all!" scare mongering. First, the GA fleet worldwide uses 500 tons of lead per y

by S201 3y ago

Alright, here we go yet again with the "leaded gas from GA is going to kill us all!" scare mongering. First, the GA fleet worldwide uses 500 tons of lead per year. Compared to 5,000,000 tons when leaded car gas was in use. That's a 99% reduction in lead pollution, so let's not be so dramatic and claim that flying a piston GA plane is "evil" and that we're all going to die from it and how it's poisoning low income communities in particular. Last I checked there are many middle and upper middle class neighborhoods that exist near regional airports. I know this all too well because those are the same NIMBYs that move in next to an airport that has existed there for the past century and then try to close it because of noise complaints. Second, since I'm sure you don't know, most GA planes can fly perfectly fine on unleaded gas. Some engines are diesel and some burn Jet A (the same as airliners), none of which have lead. Some small trainer aircraft are electric now too. Third, unleaded G100UL exists, is certified, and is actively being rolled out. If only we could get the FAA to stop doing what they always do, which is move as slow as glaciers about anything related to GA. I'm not going to defend leaded gas, we all want to see it gone if for nothing else than to take away this ridiculous talking point from the ignorant. It should have been done 50 years ago if the FAA wasn't boneheaded, but I'm also not going to loose sleep over burning a minuscule amount of lead when natural lead sources and lead pipes/paint still exist in the world. By the way, my home water source is a well 250ft from the end of a runway. I've had lab tests run on it for lead and it's well below the EPA limit. I put my health where my mouth is, I look forward to the day when it's all unleaded fuel being burned but until then it's not something that concerns me.

hgomersall 3y ago
I feel your position should not be universal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/
- S201 3y ago
  Maybe you should read a study before citing it: > On the basis of distance to airport coefficients, children living within 500 m, 1,000 m, or 1,500 m of an airport had average blood lead levels that were 4.4, 3.8, or 2.1% higher, respectively, than other children. > Based on the geospatial and statistical analysis presented above, lead from avgas may have a small (2.1–4.4%) but significant impact on blood lead levels in children who live in proximity to airports where avgas is used. The magnitude of the estimated effect of living near airports was largest for those children living within 500 m and decreased in a monotonic fashion out to 1,500 m. 2-4% higher doesn't exactly scream environmental crisis to me. Especially when it's limited to an area under a mile from known locations and can be easily avoided if one wishes. > Although controlling for individual- and group-level confounders attenuated the association between logged blood lead levels and residential proximity to an airport, evidence of a deleterious relationship remained. In the adjusted models, control variables behaved as expected: Relative to being screened in the winter season, children tested in the spring, summer, or fall had increased blood lead levels, on average. Residence in poor and minority neighborhoods was also associated with elevated lead levels. In contrast, recently constructed housing units were associated with decreased mean lead levels. Interesting how the correlation isn't as strong as one would imply and there's other factors at play too. If you close all of the airports it's not going to drop lead exposure to zero. So let me re-iterate my original point again: Obviously 4.4% elevated lead levels (in the worst case, ~1,500ft from an airport) isn't something to accept as "this is fine." Instead of taking the burn it down approach, close all airports, ground the GA fleet, and destroy an entire industry, let's get the FAA off their butts and get G100UL rolled out across the board so we can stop this silly argument about a tiny percentage of lead exposure. Which, mind you, is peanuts compared to lead pipes still in use.
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    There are more recent papers than that. In any case, I've read enough medical papers to realise that they generally assume a unimodal distribution and force everything into that. Getting a measurable increase in blood lead level would be enough for me to never take my family to live near an airport. So the poor get stuck with such choices, which was the point of the GP.
    - S201 3y ago
      There are also many studies demonstrating the negative health effects of living within a similar radius to a highway or any other major road, which encompasses most land in every major city. It's not like car emissions are perfectly clean because of unleaded gas and catalytic converters. They're cleaner than before the introduction of those things, but any emissions still carry health impacts so why are we demonizing the comparatively tiny GA fleet here? The only escape from any form of human pollution is to live far out in a rural area, but I'm willing to bet you've made a tradeoff of the convenience and economical benefits of being near a city/some town in exchange for exposure to some degree of pollution.
      - hgomersall 3y ago
        Indeed, that's why those that live near busy roads tend to be poor.

by S201 3y ago

hgomersall 3y ago

I feel your position should not be universal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/

S201 3y ago
Maybe you should read a study before citing it: > On the basis of distance to airport coefficients, children living within 500 m, 1,000 m, or 1,500 m of an airport had average blood lead levels that were 4.4, 3.8, or 2.1% higher, respectively, than other children. > Based on the geospatial and statistical analysis presented above, lead from avgas may have a small (2.1–4.4%) but significant impact on blood lead levels in children who live in proximity to airports where avgas is used. The magnitude of the estimated effect of living near airports was largest for those children living within 500 m and decreased in a monotonic fashion out to 1,500 m. 2-4% higher doesn't exactly scream environmental crisis to me. Especially when it's limited to an area under a mile from known locations and can be easily avoided if one wishes. > Although controlling for individual- and group-level confounders attenuated the association between logged blood lead levels and residential proximity to an airport, evidence of a deleterious relationship remained. In the adjusted models, control variables behaved as expected: Relative to being screened in the winter season, children tested in the spring, summer, or fall had increased blood lead levels, on average. Residence in poor and minority neighborhoods was also associated with elevated lead levels. In contrast, recently constructed housing units were associated with decreased mean lead levels. Interesting how the correlation isn't as strong as one would imply and there's other factors at play too. If you close all of the airports it's not going to drop lead exposure to zero. So let me re-iterate my original point again: Obviously 4.4% elevated lead levels (in the worst case, ~1,500ft from an airport) isn't something to accept as "this is fine." Instead of taking the burn it down approach, close all airports, ground the GA fleet, and destroy an entire industry, let's get the FAA off their butts and get G100UL rolled out across the board so we can stop this silly argument about a tiny percentage of lead exposure. Which, mind you, is peanuts compared to lead pipes still in use.
- hgomersall 3y ago
  There are more recent papers than that. In any case, I've read enough medical papers to realise that they generally assume a unimodal distribution and force everything into that. Getting a measurable increase in blood lead level would be enough for me to never take my family to live near an airport. So the poor get stuck with such choices, which was the point of the GP.
  - S201 3y ago
    There are also many studies demonstrating the negative health effects of living within a similar radius to a highway or any other major road, which encompasses most land in every major city. It's not like car emissions are perfectly clean because of unleaded gas and catalytic converters. They're cleaner than before the introduction of those things, but any emissions still carry health impacts so why are we demonizing the comparatively tiny GA fleet here? The only escape from any form of human pollution is to live far out in a rural area, but I'm willing to bet you've made a tradeoff of the convenience and economical benefits of being near a city/some town in exchange for exposure to some degree of pollution.
    - hgomersall 3y ago
      Indeed, that's why those that live near busy roads tend to be poor.