Hoping to put the brakes on an organized effort by local leaders to permanently shut down the Reid-Hillview Airport in East San Jose, aviation business owners and enthusiasts will begin pumping their planes with unleaded fuel.
The Community and Airport Partnership for Safe Operation — an organization intent on keeping Reid-Hillview open — reportedly received the airport’s first shipment of unleaded fuel over the weekend. The group is holding a press conference at 10 a.m. Monday to officially showcase the new product.
The announcement comes after years of complaints regarding the dangers that leaded fuel was having on the nearby communities and just two weeks after the county released a new study validating those concerns.
“I don’t think that anyone in aviation wants to deal with petrolic lead,” said Dan DeMeo, the owner of Rabbit Aviation Services. “I’ve always been under the impression that if you offer a better product, people will just switch to it.”
Still, it is unlikely to quell the increasingly loud calls for closure of the 180-acre airport, which is surrounded by predominantly lower-income communities of color that have been under-resourced and subjected to government-sanctioned segregation for generations.
Later on Monday, Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez is holding her own rally and dropping off more than 2,000 signatures in support of terminating operations at the airport to the county administration. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday night will discuss the county’s recently released lead level study and Chavez’s request to speed up the airport’s closure.
Chavez hopes that county officials can use the new study to convince the Federal Aviation Administration to shut the airport down sooner than 2031 — currently the earliest potential closure date due to federal grant obligations — and redevelop the land for affordable housing and other community needs.
At the center of the Reid-Hillview controversy is the fact that the piston-engine planes that fly in and out of the airport run almost exclusively on leaded aviation fuel — the last remaining type of gas permitted to contain lead in the U.S. Lead has been banned from automobile gasoline for decades and larger jets run on unleaded Kerosene-based fuel.
Lead is a neurotoxin that — even at low levels in the blood — can stunt a child’s physical and cognitive development, including lowered IQ, decreased attention span and academic underperformance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no safe blood lead level in children has been identified.
Because of such, the county commissioned a study last year to analyze the blood samples of 17,000 children under the age of 18 who lived within a mile and a half of the county-owned airport from 2011-2020. The results, which were released less than two weeks ago, found that children who lived within a half-mile of Reid-Hillview had significantly higher levels of lead in their blood than those who lived farther away — a difference of about .40 micrograms per deciliter, or one-tenth of a liter.
Although the elevated blood levels of children living around the airport appear to be on par with California’s statewide average and the elevated blood levels of neighboring counties, experts say there is still reason to be alarmed.
Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a pediatric epidemiologist and professor at Simon Fraser University who was tasked with reviewing the study, said the key takeaway of the Reid-Hillview study was that it was able to identify the true source of the children’s lead exposure after controlling for leaded paint in homes and other potential sources in the area.
“The question is not does the airport put these children at a greater risk than children in other communities, the real question is does leaded aviation fuel put children in this community at a greater risk for having lead poisoning — and the answer from this report says yes, absolutely,” Lanphear said.
The 180-acre Reid-Hillview first opened in 1939 and was purchased by the county in 1961. What was once surrounded by sprawling farms and orchards is now sandwiched between thousands of homes, neighboring parks and nearly two dozen schools and child care centers.
As airport operations have increased over the years, so have the demands for Reid-Hillview closure, especially in light of the potential for lead exposure.
But flight schools and pilot hobbyists that use the airport say the solution is simple — a transition over to leaded fuel.
DeMeo, the owner of Rabbit Aviation Services, has been selling unleaded fuel to pilots at the San Carlos Airport for the past five years. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors began requiring that airport fuel providers stock and sell an unleaded fuel option in late 2014 after a study from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that the San Carlos Airport had the highest concentration of airborne lead particles out of 17 small airports surveyed.
Since then, DeMeo said the product has become more available and the price of unleaded fuel has dropped by nearly two dollars. Today, he is selling unleaded fuel at the airport for about ten cents cheaper than leaded fuel.
“Price has been a barrier for sure, but the interest in unleaded fuel is sincere,” he said. “I think we’re about 2-3 years away from making this transition fully and then lead is not going to be an issue anymore.”
Despite the optimism from DeMeo and the aviation community, Deputy County Manager Sylvia Gallegos said that it is “not possible to ensure lead-free airplane operations at Reid-Hillview.”
Nationally, only one type of unleaded aviation gasoline has been approved by the federal government, and it’s only able to be used in an estimated 57% of piston-engine aircraft. A higher octane level unleaded fuel option, which would be able to serve the remaining higher-end aircraft, has been created but is not yet on the market, pending additional testing.
In the meantime, elected officials are forging ahead with plans to expedite the closure of the airport.
“What we need to do is close this (airport),” San Jose Councilwoman Sylvia Arenas said at a recent news briefing. “… Knowing the results of this study, this is an absolute crime.”
Check back for updates.