Comments on National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week

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