Comments provided by MSY activists provided below, and attachments can be found here.

Thank you for taking my non-agenda comments as we once again have reached National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.

October is also Children’s Health Month, a time to raise awareness about children’s environmental health, including the dangers and potential health impacts of lead. 

Here is some awareness:

While the largest source of lead emissions in the US (over 70%) for the last quarter century has been due to general aviation (GA) planes, you will not find that factual statistic on any Health Department Website.

It gets much worse in California where 88% of all NEW lead emissions each year are from GA planes.

And the airport that is now at the top of the heap for these emissions in California is Montgomery-Gibbs Executive (MYF) Airport. The operation numbers and fuel sold for FY 2024 are attached.

The 727,641 gallons of AvGas sold during this time and the 385,806 operations, representing an 80% increase in a 7 year period, put MYF into a category all by itself.

Calculated lead from these emissions amounts to 3,398 pounds or 1.7 tons of lead emitted from these planes into the San Diego breathable air in that period – and it is going up.

Attached is also a study performed by Dr. Sammy Zahran at Reid-Hillview (RHV) airport in San Jose, California. This resulted in the banning of leaded fuel at that airport and an Endangerment Finding on leaded AvGas by the EPA. You needn’t read the whole study, just the “Significant Statement” found on page one.

Dr. Zahran tested the blood samples of children living near that airport over a 10 year period.

MYF airport has about 4X the amount of lead coming from it as RHV when the study was done.

I invite each of you to go to the end of the runway at MYF, get a cup of coffee at the Starbucks across the street and look up and to the East. You will witness what over 1000 operations of flight school activity every day can do to a community. Of course, you won’t be able to see the lead – but you may be able to see one of the Prop 65 signs warning the people of the lead and how dangerous it is – especially to children.

MYF will celebrate National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week by spewing out about 65 pounds of lead. Please hold your breath.

The fanfare and hoopla that came with introducing Swift unleaded (UL94) fuel to MYF last November was a flop. 605 gallons.

Swift is not the only unleaded fuel to be considered. There really is another unleaded fuel and you, not the airport people, should interview them. It is known as GAMI G100UL. Doesn’t matter if you accept them or not, you should hear them out and make an informed decision.

Also, have the same scientists who studied the TJ sewage do the same at MYF. Both tragedies are defining San Diego.

And why aren’t the children living around MYF getting blood tests for lead?

Gary Keller

This letter was provided on behalf of MYF activists and is reproduced below.

On Tuesday, January 28 of this year, the Chief of the Monitoring and Technical Services Division of the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District (SDAPCD) was notified that San Diego City Public Records suggest that the amount of lead emissions due to the continued use of 100LL fuel at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF) has now exceeded the 1.0 ton per year mark.
 
Prior to their notification, the U.S. EPA Region 9 and the California Air Resources Board were also alerted to this development.
 
Since 2017 MYF has increased their operations by over 79%. That would be from 207,000 operations in 2017 to 385,000 in 2024. Fiscal year 2025 has already shown a 15% increase over last year. In 2017, the EPA's National Emissions Inventory data base listed MYF as having 0.588 tons of lead emissions per year. Fuel amounts for 2017 were made available, but the airport has been less than forthcoming with100LL fuel amounts for 2024. According to the airport, the addition of Swift UL94 unleaded in November of 2024 has amounted to a mere 28 gallons sold to date (2/8/2025), despite the fanfare of them providing unleaded fuel to save the environment.
 
Although other industries would be monitored for lead on a daily basis if they go over 0.5 tons per year, the industry with the largest source of lead emissions in the US, general aviation airports, are not monitored for lead until they reach 1.0 ton. In spite of that glaring unfairness to mostly people of color that live closer to these airports, MYF airport in San Diego County seems to have exceeded that mark.
 
Should these statistics prove to be true, then the SDAPCD would have the responsibility to monitor MYF daily for the next year for lead – regardless to any changes they quickly decide to make. One would think that they owe that diligence to the parents of the children who live near Montgomery airport. Even airports need to embrace the fact that there is no safe level of lead in our blood.
 
 
Thank you,
Gary J. Keller
Robert Germann