Piston-engine aircraft will be left without a fuel option in Santa Clara County, increasing the risk of aircraft misfuelling.
Particularly, locals were calling for the ban of 100LL fuel at two Santa Clara County Airports: Reid-Hillview and San Martin.
The root of the ban comes from a new study of lead levels in children living near the Santa Clara, California airports. As reported by AvWeb, a coalition of environmental groups renewed an effort to get the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue an “endangerment finding” on the use of leaded gasoline in light aircraft.
The petition, which was filed in August, noted, “To date, EPA has failed to regulate this significant source of lead exposures, even though emissions from these aircraft collectively represent the single largest source of air emissions of lead in the United States, accounting for 70 percent of lead released domestically into the environment.”
The Santa Clara study saw those children living near the airport did have slight elevated lead levels in their blood, but the levels were in line with those seen in kids from around the state.
Santa Clara County made the unanimous decision to close the Reid-Hillview airport entirely by 2031 and instead use the land for affordable housing.
Piston aircraft with high-compression engines consume 75% of the 100LL sold in the United States, with many of these engines not yet approved to use unleaded fuels available on the market, said the letter. “Those that are approved to use a lower-octane unleaded fuel must still obtain a supplemental type certificate to legally use the fuel. This can create a dilemma and risk to pilots who land at an airport at which only a lower-octane fuel is available than what they require to fly safely.”
And when Medical Transport Plaines and Helicopters cannot fly people will die because of non thinking liberals.
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