Hillsboro Airport Lead Emissions Featured in Natural Resources Defense Council's OnEarth Magazine

September 23, 2013

Oregon Aviation Watch (OAW) extends our sincere appreciation to Michael Behar, OnEarth magazine, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) for this excellent and highly informative article on leaded aviation fuel. We owe Michael a debt of gratitude for in depth research on this issue, for taking the time to visit Hillsboro and for profiling the negative impacts of the Hillsboro Airport on the surrounding community.

According to the biographical information available on his website, "Michael is a freelance writer and editor based in Boulder, Colorado and a contributing writer for OnEarth and Mother Jones magazines. As a writer Michael has been covering adventure travel and extreme sports, renewable energy and the environment, aviation and aerospace, health and medicine, and innovations in science and technology since he began his journalism career in 1991, with his first paying gig at Alaska Airlines Magazine followed by a stint at Outside. He is the former science editor for National Geographic. He was also a senior editor at Wired from 1995 - 2000 and most recently an editor-at-large for TED Books."

Something in the Air

The health risks of leaded gasoline are a thing of the past, right? Wrong.

by Michael Behar

It's impossible to have an uninterrupted conversation with Kelly Kittleson in her home. Kittleson, who lives in Hillsboro, Oregon, is a single mom with four kids. But her children are not the distraction. The two youngest—a boy, age 2, and a girl, age 4—sat quietly with us at the kitchen table. They hardly made a peep while we chatted. Instead, about every five minutes, a low-flying plane screamed above the rooftop. "They are constantly going over all the time," Kittleson complained. "It's crazy. When I first moved here, it felt like they were going to crash into our house."

TO READ MORE: Something in the Air [pdf].