[toomuchtodo]

I’m somewhat surprised, based on state lead disclosure laws, that this too isn’t required to be disclosed to buyers of properties within proximity to airports that provide 100LL from their FBOs. It’s worse than lead paint (typically stable if not disturbed) in that it’s in the air and on the soil.

You might expect the noise, but you’d have to be versed in general aviation to know you’re being exposed to lead from combustion pollution.

[jliptzin]

I had no idea leaded fuel was still used anywhere

[tialaramex]

It may also be used for some very old cars. "This should be in a museum" (and maybe is) level cars may have been impossible to adapt to unleaded gasoline. So, one option is you just don't run them - after all these are very old cars they're both unsafe and inefficient by modern standards with few creature comforts. But if you're exhibiting cars in working condition you've got two practical options:

1. Add a lead additive, you don't need very much, and since this isn't exactly your daily driver it's not so terribly inconvenient, you can buy this over the Internet. You just pour a measured ammount in to the tank each time you re-fuel. I don't think this is illegal in the US, but I don't know if it's common. At population scale it isn't a big nuisance.

2. Choose a substitute additive, which is likewise added to fuel. There are several, but whether they work for you is a question and of course the manufacturers are not interested in insuring your potentially unique 100+ year old car for damage from their cheap additive product. If you suffer mechanical problems that's your problem.

There's a lot more piston plane flight than there are people still driving a classic era car on any particular day.

[dreamcompiler]

It's limited to general aviation: Small piston-driven private airplanes. Lead is not used in jets.

[tialaramex]

And importantly in this context: The magic word is "piston-driven". Lots of aircraft you see look to a lay person like they don't have a jet engine, because there are propellers just like on a piston-engined plane. But a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboprop is a very efficient jet engine that just happens to be driving a propeller and so they're running on JetA fuel which never had lead in it. (There are still lots of reasons not to exhaust that into the sky either, but at least it doesn't have lead in it)

[zardo]

Also still used in (some formulations) of race gas.

[heresie-dabord]

Pertinent references:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/

https://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/Airport/News...

[refurb]

Do you have a source that’s it’s worse?

[ineedasername]

It would make sense that lead aerosolized in the air has more access to human biology than lead in undisturbed paint.

Degraded lead paint consumed by unknowing children would probably deliver high concentrations, but a lot of that will travel unabsorbed through the intestinal track. Aerosolized lead paint would be unavoidable with a higher proportion passing into the bloodstream through the lungs, and therefore on a more express route northwards where it can pass between the blood-brain barrier.

[slimsag]

Concentration could make a huge difference, though. Paint is in enclosed spaces without ventilation, often. Aeroplanes are not in the context of suburb effects.

[refurb]

Aviation 100LL is 0.56g of lead per gallon. Small Cessna 172 burn ~10 gal/hr in flight.

Presumably taxiing and take off burn a few gallons, so 1gm of lead dispersed over a pretty wide area. So at any given point in the area your overall exposure is low.

[lutorm]

Thanks for those numbers. As a contrast, the lead content in lead-based paint can be up to 50% by weight for really old paint, down to 0.5% before lead was banned. A single house full of old lead paint can easily contain many kg of lead.

It's true that as long as that paint is in good condition and isn't disturbed, it's not harmful. However, paint deteriorates and chips, is disturbed when remodeled, etc. One tiny paint chip of old paint can easily have more lead than that Cessna dispersed around the airport, and it's concentrated in a single article.

There's a crap ton of lead paint still around and sooner or later it's going to be mobilized. It's a fiction to think that an EPA-approved hazmat team will be dispatched whenever one of these old houses are torn down or remodeled. I'm much more worried about paint than a little avgas spread out evenly across the landscape.

[ineedasername]

How many planes land & take off every day though? Over the course of a decade, sitting in small quantities on literally ever outdoor surface...

Comparing it to lead paint is the wrong comparison. Take a look at what lead in the water supply, even at small concentration, can do to people. That's more comparable to air dispersal.

[lutorm]

If lead from avgas was an acute problem, literally everyone who lives near GA airports would have high lead levels. I've not heard of such a situation, though.

I think that evidence points to plenty of cases of lead poisoning from lead paint and, yes, lead in water. I have yet to hear of anyone getting lead poisoning from living near a GA airport.

Do note that lead paint also leads to contamination of surfaces and soils, as deteriorating paint turns into dust.

I don't think water contamination is similar to air dispersal at all. People consume a certain amount of water out of the tap every day, and whatever is in the water ends up in the body. There is a much less clear absorption chain from lead emitted into the air to the body.

Edit: I did the math based on the numbers above: Within 1 mile of an airport (typical pattern size) with 100 take-offs per day, each using 1 gallon of avgas so emitting 1g of lead will, over a decade, deposit ~50ug of lead per m^2.

If we say a yard is 100m^2, that's 5mg of lead. That's the equivalent lead content of < 1g of lead-based paint.

I'm not disputing that if you live in a new house, far away from a highway, but near a GA airport, avgas might be the major contribution to your lead exposure. But compared to the lead exposure risk from houses still containing lead paint, it seems completely insignificant.

[jandrese]

With hundreds of GA flights per day this will add up over time. One of the terrible things about lead is how hard it is to get out of the environment.