The engine that turns the propeller that creates the thrust that moves the air over the wings that creates the lift that keeps a small airplane like a Cessna aloft is not that different from what’s likely in your car.
There are spark plugs and pistons. It burns gas and, thus, produces pollution.
But there is one important difference. While gasoline containing the toxic heavy metal lead was banned for cars in the 1970s because of its harmful environmental and health impacts, leaded gas is still commonly used in piston-engine aircraft. This means that exhaust from those aircraft contains traces of lead that falls to the ground and, potentially, into the bodies of the people those planes fly over.
This has long been a concern for communities close to airports, none more so than those surrounding Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, among the busiest general aviation airports in the country. Studies have shown that children living close to airports have higher-than-average blood lead levels.
“I couldn’t know something like that and then ignore it,” said Bri Lehman, a Lafayette resident who has been fighting against lead pollution from the airport, known as RMMA. “It was sort of an invisible public health crisis.”
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