The Environmental Protection Agency recently published a proposed endangerment finding that could eliminate the use of leaded gasoline in small airports like Vance Brand Airport in Longmont. Airport Director Levi Brown said the change is a long time coming.
The Boulder County Commissioners announced in January that they — along with Santa Clara County, California and other local governments — support the “EPA’s proposed findings that leaded aviation gas endangers public health and welfare,” according to a news release.
“We regularly hear from residents about air pollution from aviation and its dangerous impact on our community and specifically children’s health. Leaded aviation gas is a major source of air pollution in Boulder County and in communities across the United States. We applaud this move by the EPA and ask that they move quickly to regulate and ultimately phase out the use of leaded gas in aviation,” said Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann.
Around 79,000 gallons of leaded gas is used by the estimated 270 small airplanes at Vance Brand Airport in 2022, Brown said, adding over 90% of the planes that take off or land at the airport use leaded fuel.
Brown said the idea of getting rid of leaded fuel for planes has been something the FAA, or Federal Aviation Administration, has been pushing for many years. The problem, Brown said, is that aviation regulations are so precise it has taken time for the FAA to conduct its research.
“The use of leaded fuels is an operational safety issue, because without the additive TEL, the octane levels would be too low for some engines, and use of a lower-octane fuel than required could lead to engine failure,” the FAA told FlightGlobal, a website devoted aviation topics. “As a result, the additive TEL has not been banned from avgas.”
In Feb. 2022, the FAA announced an initiative to safely eliminate the use of leaded aviation fuel by the end of 2030, according to its website.
The project has been labeled EAGLE, or Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions, and will focus on developing fuel infrastructure and access viability, supporting research, development and innovation, evaluating and authorizing safe fuels and establishing necessary policies, according to the website.
Some pilots have already begun the process of moving over to unleaded fuel but it isn’t as easy as just filling up with whatever fuel a pilot chooses, Brown said. In order for pilots to change anything on their planes, they must first seek a Supplemental Type Certificate from the FAA.
The Supplemental Type Certificate “approves not only the modification but also how that modification affects the original design,” the FAA website states.
If the FAA required every pilot to go through this process the costs would be heavy for pilots, however, Brown said, if the FAA regulated the modifications across the board, pilots would more easily be able to discontinue the use of leaded fuel.
Another challenge for conversion to unleaded gasoline for aviation is the lack of type. According to Brown, the fuel isn’t the same as that used in automobiles and there aren’t many options on the market.
That is changing, Brown said.
In September, the FAA approved a 100-octane unleaded fuel, G100UL, that can be used in all spark-ignition aviation engines. The fuel was designed by Oklahoma company General Aviation Modifications.
Dr. Detliv Helmig, operates the air quality monitoring system that sits to the east of Vance Brand Airport. He said while he monitors several pollutants near the airport, lead is not one of them.
He said to measure for lead around the airport he would need specialized and expensive equipment. As a result, the concentration of lead around Vance Brand is currently unknown.
For years, people in the aviation industry have said unleaded aviation fuel would be a thing of the past, Brown said.
“It is one of those things that everyone has always appreciated isn’t going to be around forever. I think that there just needs to be some serious direction towards moving that way,” Brown said. “It’s hard to put a timeline on stuff like that, but if I was to give my honest opinion I would say that (leaded gas will be removed) … because for the first time, we have companies who are actually developing unleaded aviation fuel.”
