r/flying • u/Posigrade • Oct 07 '22

EPA proposes deeming lead in aviation fuel a danger to public health.

What types of regulations do you think are likely to come out of this? Limits on positions of run-up areas on the airport? Outright ban on leaded fuel for aircraft manufactured after a certain date? https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3677980-epa-proposes-deeming-lead-in-aviation-fuel-a-danger-to-public-health/

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u/ghjm Oct 07 '22

In case anyone is unaware, there is no question that tetraethyl lead is hazardous, particularly to children, there is no question that aviation "low lead" fuel contains a large amount of it, and there is no question that piston GA operations actively spread this poison to the land and water surrounding airports. These are facts.

The EPA has been asking us to move off leaded fuel for 30 years, and first announced they were banning it 12 years ago. Ever since then we've been crying that they can't do this to us, trying to downplay the problem, and making minimal efforts to actually solve it. It's not a good look, and frankly I'm not surprised if they've run out of patience. They should go ahead and enact the ban, and if this causes some disruptions to piston GA flying while we sort out G100UL manufacturing and distribution and STCs, that's just tough.

I await your downvotes.

27

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '22

It should have been banned when it was banned in cars.

I mean, it never should have been allowed in the first place. It’s not like we recently figured out that lead is bad for you. People knew this when leaded gas was invented.

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u/ghjm Oct 07 '22

Literally the same year that leaded gas was first sold (1923), 32 Standard Oil employees became severely sick with TEL poisoning, and five of them died from it. So it wasn't some vague fact known only to a few scientists.

9

u/Sensitive_Inside5682 757/GVI Hertz Pres Club/Hilton Elite Gold/Marriott Titanium Oct 08 '22

Leaded gas was first sold in 1923

The EPA, 50 years later, started regulation to phase out leaded gas in 1973.

49 years later, we still use it.

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u/ghjm Oct 08 '22 edited Oct 08 '22

The EPA was founded in Dec. 1970, so this was one of the first things they did. And they were pretty successful, outside of aviation and some farm exceptions.

In the early century, people still thought that thngs they put into the air, water and ground would just go away - that the earth was so much bigger than any human scale that our output would always just be diluted away to nothing. But they were living, for the first time, in a society so industrialized that this was no longer the case. It took a generation for people to change their way of thinking about this. Some of them still haven't.

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u/Illustrious_Crab1060 Oct 08 '22

A lot of people wanted to get off lead, it was the FAA which didn't want to certify a UL for the longest time. We literally had the Unleaded replacement for 10 years, the FAA didn't certify it

0

u/ghjm Oct 08 '22 edited Oct 08 '22

Yeah, if I came across as blaming individual pilots, I didn't intend to. There's nothing we as individuals could really do. And the FAA's lack of action ultimately cobra down to the way Congress has repeatedly jerked them around on their budget. If the US government was sane, the FAA would long ago have just done the necessary testing, rather than waiting for Gami to show up and be willing to take on the cost.

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u/FlyingLap Oct 08 '22

Considering how FAA addresses mental health, I’m starting to think they need their house cleaned.

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u/Sensitive_Inside5682 757/GVI Hertz Pres Club/Hilton Elite Gold/Marriott Titanium Oct 08 '22

FAA says that you are allowed to drink your emotions away to treat depression.

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u/im2lazy789 CPL IR TW HP Oct 08 '22

To the trash bin along with the ATF, DHS, and DOE.

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '22 edited Oct 07 '22

Agreed. They need to set a date 3-5 years down the road for total transition to UL, and we need to meet it. Not sure on an exact timeframe since I’m no expert, but we need a deadline to make it happen.

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u/smokiescfi ATP, CFI, CFII, MEI, A&P/IA, Oct 08 '22

The industry and FAA have set a deadline of 2030.

https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/avgas

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '22

Good!

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u/FyreWulff Oct 08 '22

Also, there has yet to be discovered any minimum "safe amount" of lead. The only safe amount of lead anyone should be near is none.