Stealthful: State of Michigan NMC and WMU Flight School Aircraft Release Lead over Michigan Communities
Oregon Aviation Watch welcomes guest author Charlie Schlinger's contribution to the nation-wide battle against aviation-generated lead pollution. The following is the author's summary of his longer paper, which is available in full on the Oregon Aviation Watch website (13 pages, PDF format). A brief review of Mr. Schlinger's professional credentials is presented at the end of this summary.
Public concern about toxic lead has focused on lead-based paint and lead in drinking water, but another source of lead – aviation-sourced lead – has gone under the radar. In Michigan, Traverse City area and Battle Creek area residents are gradually learning that the State of Michigan flight schools based in their communities have been surreptitiously emitting lead (Pb) over areas of these communities for nearly a half century, and continue to do so. One flight school is run by Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) and the other is run by Western Michigan University (WMU). Elsewhere across the U.S., other communities have found themselves in similar straits. Clearly, we are not yet done dealing with the environmental and public health impacts and legacy of lead.
Piston-engine aircraft, the plane of choice for the General Aviation (GA) sector that encompasses the vast majority of small planes and flight school aircraft, were long ago exempted from the 1970's-era phase out of leaded gasoline. The vast majority of piston-engine aircraft use leaded aviation gas. Thus, for the vast majority of the GA fleet in the U.S. the noise of these aircraft in operation is the sound of lead being emitted into the environment. These surreptitious lead emissions have been and remain a closely-guarded secret of the GA sector in our country and elsewhere around the world.
The predominant flight pattern used by almost all flight schools is known as a touch-and-go loop or circuit, which is used to maximize the number of takeoff and landing operations conducted by pilots training in these schools. During each circuit, neurotoxic nanoparticulate lead (Pb) is typically being emitted by each aircraft involved, and typically NMC and WMU have multiple aircraft aloft at any given time. That is, these are moving sources of lead (Pb) emissions. It is estimated that roughly 250 lbs of lead (Pb) particulates are emitted each year (lbs per yr) by NMC and roughly 1250 lbs per yr for WMU, in both cases in the near-airport and immediate airport settings. Over the roughly half-century record of these two flight schools, approximately 12,500 lbs of lead for NMC and 63,000 lbs for WMU have been emitted. While these flight schools in the past were smaller, the lead content of aviation gas was higher – nearly twice as high as it is now. Further, these programs are in expansion mode and the emissions are only increasing over time.
Lead emissions from NMC and WMU flight school piston engine aircraft are problematic for children and others who live beneath and downwind of the flight school flight paths for a number of factual reasons.
- Depending on the flight school and on other factors, but especially up until the present time, flight school aircraft generally repeat the same flight paths, upwards of thousands or tens of thousands or more times each year.
- Lead emissions from flight school piston-engine aircraft are particulates, and they are primarily nanoparticulates.
- Aircraft lead emissions are tasteless, invisible to the human eye, and odorless.
- Lead is a heavy element and lead particulates are heavier than air, settling from higher to lower elevation over time – through a process known as dispersion, which depends on wind speed, atmospheric conditions and other factors.
- Nanoparticulate lead emissions from flight school piston-engine aircraft and ground level exposures to lead by inhalation generally occur under fair-weather low-windspeed conditions and at relatively low elevation.
- Aviation-sourced lead emissions result in ground level concentrations of lead that result in lead exposure, for example, via inhalation.
- Lead is a potent neurotoxin, especially for children; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, indicate that there is no safe level for lead exposure in children; even low levels of lead in blood are associated with developmental delays, difficulty learning, and behavioral issues; the effects of lead poisoning can be permanent and disabling.
- Like other nanoparticulates, nanoparticulate lead is readily taken up in children's lungs and transported by blood to tissues and bone as part of normal growth.
- The medical effects of lead are numerous, and lead has been found to have epigenetic effects (changes to chromosomal DNA functioning with altered gene expression) that are heritable.
- The aviation industry and particularly these two flight schools have had remarkable success at covering up their historic and ongoing surreptitious neurotoxic lead emissions from their touch-and-go flight school piston-engine aircraft operations.
It is past time for the State of Michigan, together with NMC and WMU administrators, to inform the residents of the Traverse City and Battle Creek communities of what the State and these two institutions are doing and have been doing as concerns lead emissions and lead exposures during the past half century. As part of conversations facilitated by an impartial third party, the State, NMC and WMU should solicit community input on what the State and these institutions need to be doing going forward as concerns their present and historic emissions of neurotoxic lead nanoparticulates over the communities where the two flight schools operate, and as concerns individual and public health impacts of the associated ongoing and historic exposures.
Charlie Schlinger, Professional Engineer, Registered Geologist, Certified Professional Geologist, is a Michigan resident and Flint native. He has spent most of his adult life and professional career in the west and southwest. Charlie earned his B.S. degree at the University of Michigan in Flint, and received his Ph.D. from The John Hopkins University. Later in his career, he went on to earn a Master's Degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Utah State University. Early on, he was a professor at the University of Utah and subsequently was an engineering professor at Northern Arizona University (NAU), where he has emeritus standing. At Utah he managed or led geophysics and geomagnetism research funded by the National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, NASA, and others. At NAU he covered water resources and geotechnical engineering along with surveying. For the past 27 years much of his professional focus has been on civil and environmental engineering in support of tribal communities, schools & organizations, principally in the areas of water resources, water quality and water infrastructure. You can contact Charlie via email at lastgoodcountry@gmail.com.
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