Fort Lauderdale commissioners unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday to reduce lead emissions at the city-owned airport, following a year of complaints from residents who cited a South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation which found that the region’s small airports top the country in lead emissions.
The resolution requires the city to begin promoting the use and sale of unleaded fuel at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, which ranked 18th in the country for lead emissions, the investigation found, based on calculations by the Environmental Protection Agency published in its 2020 report. Currently only a few general aviation airports in Florida sell unleaded fuel, and the fuel they sell is often incompatible with many older planes.
“I’m thrilled at what they did, and I’m so happy they did the right thing,” Michael Ray, a resident who lives across from the airport, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel Wednesday. Ray has led the efforts to get answers from the city since last July, often unsure if he would see any results. He and other neighbors attended neighbor presentations and commission meetings, sent letters, and exchanged hundreds of emails with each other and the city about the issue.
“It’s about time, right?” Mayor Dean Trantalis said to Ray during Tuesday’s meeting.
“It only took a year,” Ray replied.
Leaded fuel, or avgas, was banned from cars in the 1980s due to its health dangers, particularly its effect on children’s brains, but is still used in small piston-engine planes. The general aviation airports where the planes take off and land are some of the biggest producers of lead emissions in the country.
A study at Reid-Hillview, a county-owned general aviation airport in San Jose, Calif., found that children who lived closer to the airport had higher levels of lead in their blood, a difference equal to about half the surge in childrens’ blood lead levels during the peak of the Flint Water Crisis. In the EPA estimates, Reid-Hillview produced less lead than Fort Lauderdale Executive as well as most other small South Florida airports. Broward County-run North Perry Airport topped the list of South Florida airports, ranking fifth in the country.
After Ray and other residents living at The Lofts of Palm Aire, the residential community situated directly next to the airport, began to complain, the City of Fort Lauderdale contracted two environmental studies to try to assess the problem. The initial study last October reproduced the EPA’s calculations with more specific, up-to-date data and found that the amount of lead emitted at the airport was likely greater than previously thought.
Still, it did not measure actual lead in the air or in surrounding communities. Residents demanded more.
“The report lacks a community-focused perspective on lead exposure, fails to utilize the GIS for environmental modeling, omits localized impact evaluations, and lacks long-term monitoring,” Dr. Félix Rivera-Mariani, a resident of The Lofts of Palm Aire and a scientific consultant and associate professor at Lynn University, wrote in a critique presented to the commission in March.
A second study, the results of which were attached to Tuesday’s resolution, measured the amount of lead in the soil at four locations on the airport grounds.
Consultants found that the amount of lead in the surface soil of 66 of the 152 samples taken at the airport was higher by every descriptive measurement when compared to national data. Specifically, consultants compared the 66 airport samples with “background lead soil concentration data” in Florida compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey. The maximum concentration found in the background data hit 16.3 ppm, while the maximum at the airport reached 43 ppm.
The levels of lead in the communities surrounding the airport remain unknown, but some plans are underway to test them. On June 25, residents of The Lofts of Palm Aire received a letter from Executive Airport Director Rufus James, informing them that the same consultant will soon begin testing soil in the community.
Other neighborhoods surrounding the airport will also be tested, including Twin Lakes, Palm Aire Village, Palm Aire East, as well as a church and a playground across street, according to Commissioner John Herbst, who represents the district where the airport is located.
“I understand, from what experts tell me, is lead particulate matter doesn’t carry that far,” Herbst said. “I said that may be true, I understand that from a purely scientific basis. But that doesn’t calm fears of residents in that area. So we need to go test in those specific neighborhoods.”
Fort Lauderdale’s efforts are unprecedented in South Florida; residents who border North Perry Airport have also desperately sought change, but Broward County has not passed a similar resolution or contracted studies, though the cities of Miramar and Pembroke Pines passed resolutions asking the county to fund a lead study last year. North Perry did begin selling a brand of unleaded fuel last year, though only a small percentage of aircraft used it.
Regardless of what testing finds, experts say any amount of lead is unsafe, particularly for children. Despite the initial study showing that children living near the airport had more lead exposure, a later soil study at Reid Hillview had also found that lead was within regulatory levels.
“The bottom line with soil and testing and all that, is there is no safe level of lead,” Ray said. “So stop selling it if you can and when you can.”