Both of Lori Shepler’s 5-year-old twins have had serious health problems throughout their young lives. She keeps a particularly close watch on Ayla, who’s in remission from cancer that cost her a kidney and regularly deals with respiratory issues.

So when the twins started attending Carver Elementary School — which is blocks from a runway at Long Beach Airport, with a steady stream of small planes flying overhead every few minutes — Shepler started researching the health effects of airport emissions.

Lori Shepler was shocked to learn that Long Beach Airport is ranked No. 2 in the country for lead emissions, with smaller planes still using leaded fuel. Shepler’s twins attend a school in the flight path of the smaller planes. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

She discovered lots of not great news, with studies showing higher instances of everything from asthma to heart disease to preterm births for those who live and work near airports. But one fact she found stopped her in her tracks.

Shepler learned that, while leaded gas has been fully banned in automobiles due to health concerns since 1996, it’s still widely used by many small planes and helicopters. And out of more than 20,000 airports nationwide, data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows Long Beach Airport ranks No. 2 in country for lead pollution, with planes there emitting nearly 1,600 pounds of lead each year into neighborhoods like the one where Shepler’s twins attend school.

“I was shocked at what I found and how there are no residents, no activist groups and no legislators speaking out about this serious issue in Long Beach,” Shepler said.

Three more airports in Southern California News Group’s footprint made the EPA’s list of top 25 lead polluters: Van Nuys Airport, John Wayne Airport and Chino Airport. Another three made the top 100, including airports in Torrance, Riverside and Murrieta.

While regulators haven’t yet declared lead emissions from airports at these levels dangerous, medical experts have agreed for years that there is no such thing as “safe” lead exposure. High doses can cause seizures or death. In kids, even traces of lead in the blood have been linked in study after study to irreversible developmental problems, including lower IQs and attention disorders.

One study found that children directly downwind from a San Jose airport, which emits half the lead emissions traced to Long Beach, had elevated levels of lead in their blood on par with what was found in kids during the height of the Flint, Michigan water crisis.

“It doesn’t seem to matter how the lead enters the body,” said Scott Fruin, a USC professor who studies the health effects of air pollution. “But drinking water can be filtered, and leaded paint or contaminated soil can be cleaned up. So airborne lead is a problem that needs fixing at the source.”

After decades of advocacy by environmental groups and activists, it appears change might finally be on the horizon.

On Sept. 1, the Federal Aviation Administration approved a new type of unleaded fuel that, for the first time, will work in all piston-powered aircraft.

It’s expected that the first shipments will go to California, where demand is highest, said Timothy Roehl, president of Oklahoma-based General Aviation Modifications Inc., or GAMI, which makes the unleaded gas. There are manufacturing and distribution logistics still to work out, though, so Roehl said it will likely be another two years before his product is widely available.

The EPA also announced earlier this year that by the end of next year it plans to issue an “endangerment finding,” weighing in on whether leaded aviation fuel “contributes to air pollution that harms public health and welfare.” Such a finding could pave the way for a full ban.

But some airports, local governments and aviation professionals aren’t waiting on federal mandates to start making changes, as pressure from environmental groups and concerned parents like Shepler grows.

“This shouldn’t be happening in this day and age in America,” Shepler said.

Slow to change

While doctors have warned about dangers of acute lead poisoning since the time of Ancient Greece, the United States didn’t start banning mass production of products like lead-based paint until the 1970s. Bans came as mounting research proved that chronic lead poisoning, even at extremely low levels, was causing neurological damage in kids.

As for gasoline, leaded fuel had helped solve the problem of engine knocking, caused by gas burning unevenly in an engine’s cylinders. As pressure to ban leaded gas grew — and as air standards lead to the introduction of catalytic converters, which don’t play nicely with leaded fuel — the auto industry started pivoting in the 1970s. Better engine design eased the knocking problem, and a full nationwide ban on leaded gas for cars came in 1996.

Thanks to those changes, the EPA says levels of airborne lead in the United States have declined 99% since 1980. The level of lead in most kids’ blood also plummeted during that time.

Close to 70% of airborne lead emissions remaining today come from leaded aviation fuel, which is still used by a majority of the nation’s 170,000 small planes.

So why has it taken so much longer to make the switch for planes? For starters, aviation gas accounts for a fraction of 1% of the overall fuel market, said Roehl, whose company has been working on a replacement fuel for more than 20 years. He said that means it doesn’t get the same attention from the oil and gas industry, or from regulators and the public.

Planes also have challenges, such as rapid temperature changes, that vehicles just don’t face, noted Curt Castagna, CEO of the National Air Transportation Association. And engine knocks, which can trigger engine failure, are certainly more dangerous for planes in the air than for cars on the road.

Then there are the bureaucratic hurdles.

The EPA has told environmental groups such as Earthjustice, which have been petitioning for an endangerment finding for years, that more studies are needed. But without an EPA mandate, Roehl said, there’s been no “compelling reason” for the industry to make the change.

The FAA has announced two separate initiatives to work on finding an unleaded aviation fuel replacement. But, to date, no universal fuel products have come through those pipelines. And FAA officials didn’t respond to detailed questions about why it’s taking so long, with a 2030 target date on the agency’s latest program.

Some types of unleaded aviation fuel actually have been available for several years, as companies like GAMI operated under a “if we build it, they will come” mindset. But as of last year, the FAA had only approved unleaded fuel for use in about 70% of small planes. And even that statistic is misleading, because Roehl said high-performance planes that can’t use approved unleaded fuel are responsible for burning around 70% of all gas.

A handful of airports have started offering both options for planes that can use the approved unleaded gas Swift UL94, made by Indiana-based Swift Fuels.

City-owned Santa Monica Airport was the first in Southern California to jump on board, Castagna said, when, this spring, it started offering Swift UL94 at its self-service fuel island. Last month, two companies that operate at Van Nuys Airport also started offering the product. And Castagna said he’s working with Long Beach Airport to add that option as soon as possible.

But of the 330,000 gallons of aviation gas sold at Van Nuys Airport each year, only around 40,000 gallons can be swapped out for unleaded gas now based on what the FAA has approved and what’s commercially available, according to Samantha Bricker, chief sustainability officer for Los Angeles World Airports.

That’s where GAMI’s newly approved G100UL unleaded fuel comes in.

Fearing the FAA’s traditional process be too slow and pricey, Roehl said, GAMI got approval through a special certificate system. The fuel is “drop-in ready,” which means planes don’t need modifications to start using it. And he said airports won’t have to make changes either since, per the FAA’s ruling, they can just wait until their leaded fuel tanks are running low and start phasing in the unleaded fuel.

The company is in talks now with manufacturers, refiners and distributors, Roehl said. He hopes they’ll have the supply chain set up to meet all needs in North America in the next two years.

Unleaded fuel will almost certainly be a bit more expensive. But Roehl says they believe it’ll be a wash, since unleaded fuel leads to less frequent oil changes and fewer spark plug swaps.

Some incentives still could help speed things up, Castagna and others noted.

Van Nuys Airport’s commission just voted, for example, to waive its 11 cents per gallon delivery fee on unleaded fuel through 2024. And even with only a fraction of their fuel swapped out, it’s expected to reduce lead emissions there by 168 pounds each year.

‘Under the radar’

When it comes to lead, all reductions are good. But even trace amounts pose a risk from the moment of initial exposure. And symptoms from low-level exposure, which Froin said can include troubles with learning and behavior, can be tough to pinpoint.

Roughly 5 million people live within 500 meters of an airport runway, per the EPA, while 163,000 children attend schools in that range. But there’s no state or federal requirement now for airports to issue any type of warning or notification about lead exposure to those who live or work nearby.

In 2014, companies selling leaded gas at California airports settled a lawsuit with the Center for Environmental Health requiring them to notify people within 1 kilometer of the airport about the risk. Then the parties agreed that could mean within 1 kilometer from the center of the airport — even though the EPA says the worst emissions come at the end of the runway, where pilots conduct safety checks just before takeoff. So even in places like Long Beach, where homes and schools are close to runways, notifications never reached many residents.

That explains why, when Shepler brought up the issue to area residents and school leaders, most told her they’d never heard about it. Even officials with several of the airports said they didn’t know about rankings using that EPA data.

That didn’t surprise Jonathan Smith, senior attorney with Earthjustice. Though his organization has worked on the issue for a decade, he said it has “gone under the radar for too long.”

The issue got some traction last year, after Santa Clara County commissioned a study that showed kids living downwind from the airport, which is No. 34 nationwide for lead emissions, showed a substantial spike of lead in their blood.

“This airport is not unusual,” said Fruin of USC. “So impacts are probably similar to other municipal airport of similar size and airplane traffic.”

As of Jan. 1, Santa Clara County became first in the nation to institute its own ban on leaded fuel at two of its airports. The FAA has criticized the move, telling the county it didn’t have that authority. The two still are in negotiations.

Asked if such a ban had been considered for Van Nuys Airport, Bricker said there’s concern over jeopardizing funding and of violating FAA rules. So she said they’re trying to cut emissions while working within the system.

In the meantime, Fruin said there are things families and schools can do to mitigate exposure to lead.

“Trying to have kids play sports or other activities away from the airport and airport flight paths would help. Air filters can help reduce particulate levels indoors.”

For those a half mile or less downwind from where planes take off, Fruin said a blood lead test would be justified.

Shepler hopes to get her twins tested soon.

“I am in Erin Brockovich mode now.”