This San Diego airport is the nation’s worst lead polluter. Its planes fly past 30 schools

It was November 2024, and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria stood on the tarmac of Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport to celebrate the introduction of unleaded aviation fuel at one of the country’s busiest general aviation airports.

“Here in San Diego, we’re not content with just following federal law. We want to exceed it, we want to be ahead of the curve, especially when it comes to protecting public health and safety,” he said. “Today it’s mission accomplished.”

Two years later, Crownair Aviation, the company that partnered with the city of San Diego to distribute a transition fuel called UL94, has sold just over 2 dozen gallons of it. Over the same time period, more than 1 million gallons of leaded fuel have been sold at the airport.

Last year, the three-runway airport in Kearny Mesa sold more leaded fuel than in any other year in over a decade. It is the highest lead-polluting general aviation airport in the U.S., according to federal data obtained via an inewsource records request.

Lead is a highly toxic substance that was banned from automobile fuels beginning in the 1970s. Commercial planes don’t use it.

Lead is known to cause permanent damage to the brain and central nervous system, and is especially dangerous to children. There is no safe level of exposure, and mere contact can lead to slowed growth, hearing loss, speech problems, decreased attention spans and a lower IQ.

“The science is clear: Exposure to lead can cause irreversible and life-long health effects in children,” Michael S. Regan, the then-administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, announced three years ago. 

He called aircraft with leaded fuel “the dominant source of lead emissions in our air.” By one estimate, leaded aviation fuel accounts for 70% of lead released into the air.

Nationally, the Federal Aviation Administration plans to phase out leaded fuel by 2030. A key step would be for the agency to authorize a replacement fuel that would work for all aircraft. But officials said publicly in July that the timeline may slip.

A large portion of all the leaded fuel at MYF — as the FAA abbreviates the city-owned Montgomery-Gibbs airfield — is used by flight schools such as Coast Air, a private company that trains pilots from all over the world in San Diego.

Planes emit about half of their exhaust taking off and landing, and trainees typically fly loops in “touch-and-go” patterns, practicing landings and take-offs without stopping their planes. 

The flight paths for this touch-and-go training pass over or within 2 miles of more than 30 schools.

Largely because of flight school activity, local non-military operations over the last decade at Montgomery-Gibbs nearly doubled from those the decade before.

A 2024 study conducted in Colorado determined emissions from leaded aviation fuel have a “small but statistically significant” impact on blood lead levels in children living within two miles of an airport. 

An earlier study commissioned by Santa Clara County found lead levels during peak hours were half those seen at the height of the Flint water crisis, in which city drinking water in Michigan was contaminated by lead, exposing and sickening many. 

Despite the prevalence of lead near the Montgomery-Gibbs airfield, the county of San Diego’s blood lead prevention program does not conduct any targeted testing of children in the surrounding communities.

State law requires targeted testing for children believed to be at “the greatest risk of lead poisoning.” 

‘If they don’t like it, don’t fly the plane’

A San Diego County spokesperson said that it has distributed fliers at health fairs that encourage parents to test their children, but it has not done anything more than leave decisions on testing to “the provider and basically the parents of the child, if they’re concerned and looking for signs and symptoms.”

Those symptoms include learning and behavioral problems. 

While the EPA collects data on flights and estimated lead emissions, the agency has yet to mandate testing or otherwise investigate the impacts of lead on communities surrounding the country’s highest emitter.

For more than a decade, residents angered by the Montgomery-Gibbs airfield’s air and noise pollution have called on officials to take action and put a halt — or at least curb — a long-known and continually expanding problem.

They point to Santa Clara County which have banned the sale of leaded fuels. 

The FAA challenged that ban in court, arguing the county’s action violated obligations it accepted upon receiving a grant from the agency.

A Santa Clara county spokesperson told inewsource it is “finalizing an agreement with the FAA that allows the county to maintain its policy of not directly selling leaded aviation fuel at its airports in the interest of protecting the public’s health from toxic emissions.”

Meanwhile, many residents living near MYF in San Diego complain that officials who understand the risks of lead exposure continue to allow operations to expand, leaving their health dependent on a moving timeline.

San Diego resident Robert Germann has spent almost 15 years fighting for clean air, and just as long expressing outrage at what he sees as local officials’ inaction involving a public health issue that is only getting worse.

For the sake of community health, he said the city should mandate the use of unleaded fuels that are already on the market, especially for businesses that profit from using the airport like the flight schools.

He said it’s the only way pilots will transition to unleaded fuel, especially since the currently available option is more expensive and less convenient.

Coast Flight Training, a major user of leaded fuels at the Montgomery-Gibbs airfield, did not respond to interview requests from inewsource. A majority of the planes used for flight training burn leaded fuel, and could be using the unleaded option.

For Germann, community health and safety matter more than any investment of time or money by pilots, business owners and other people.

“If they don’t like it, don’t fly the plane,” he said.

“It’s up to you as the owner to make sure that that plane is safe on unleaded fuel, and if it isn’t, then I guess it sits in the hangar, collects cobwebs.”

‘More decisive action is necessary’ 

Officials have been discussing and preparing for a transition away from leaded fuels for years, with initiatives dating back to the first Obama administration in 2011.

But the process has been riddled with delays, and federal officials have been obstructing local action on curbing lead pollution from airports.

In 2011, the FAA launched a task force to develop a program to replace leaded fuel. By 2016, administrator Michael Huerta said the FAA was on track to authorize an unleaded fuel in two years. But that deadline, and following ones, have lapsed.

The current program — called EAGLE, which stands for Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions — sets 2030 as a goal to ban leaded fuel.

Earlier this year, the California Air Resources Board sent a letter to the FAA recommending it streamline approval of an industry standard fuel.

In the letter, Matthew Lakin, CARB’s chief of air quality planning and science division, urged the agency to “move beyond planning and establish regulatory requirements.”

“With only about four years remaining and no clearly defined target deadlines,” he said, “more decisive action is necessary to achieve the elimination of lead from avgas by 2030.” Avgas is short for aviation gasoline.

The FAA, however, released the plan without such requirements, and also mandated that federally funded airports make leaded fuels available until the agency fully authorizes a replacement.

Some municipalities throughout the U.S. have challenged that requirement, in part because of the studies confirming that lead pollution from airports significantly impacts neighboring communities.

In response to the public health threat and warnings from healthcare professionals, some municipalities have moved to local action.

Most notably, two took action in California.

Santa Clara County banned the sale of leaded fuels at Reid-Hillview and San Martin airports. The city of Torrance banned touch-and-go landings to curb pollution.

In 2023, the EPA determined that emissions from aircraft using leaded gasoline endanger public health. In 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the nation’s first ban on leaded aviation fuel, with sales prohibited statewide starting in 2031.

Jorge Rubio, city of San Diego’s airport chief, told inewsource that bringing in unleaded fuel to Montgomery-Gibbs two years ago was the city’s attempt to be proactive about growing community concerns.

He said he supports California’s 2031 ban, but recognizes the legal challenges Santa Clara County faces with the federal government as a reason that taking further action is “a delicate balance.”

“In the end, I think it’s the FAA’s prerogative to make it happen,” he said.

Rubio attributes low sales of unleaded fuel at MYF to the fuel’s higher cost and a reluctance in the industry to transition to a new fuel with new safety and performance parameters. 

“There’s people that are willing to do it,” he said, but “some of them, they have that uncertainty about the use of the fuel.” 

He said the city is working on providing pilots with information to incentivize the transition. For example, he said, pilots need to know that unleaded fuels will ease maintenance and increase longevity of their planes.

Ray Richmond, the president of Crownair Aviation, the company that teamed up with the city and is responsible for selling the fuel at the Montgomery-Gibbs airport, said that until there is a fully compatible, affordable and easy to access alternate, he believes interim solutions such as the sale of UL94 won’t make much difference.

He also said that it’s up to the FAA to engineer the transition.

“We’re not going to move the needle on an industrywide level,” he said. “You make whatever steps you can to introduce it, but for it to really take hold, something bigger has to happen.” 

Richmond said that safety, and therefore liability, are crucial issues to bear in mind.

“Somehow, if everyone was indemnified in the chain of liability, then I think it could happen faster,” he said.

“Could they create some kind of super insurance fund that would protect all of the players in between?” he said. “They could add it to the price of the fuel.”

As the city proceeds with plans for expanding the airport, Richmond says that the fuel depot will include a spot for the fleetwide unleaded fuel the FAA greenlights.

Rubio, the city’s airport chief, agreed about the FAA, saying “The ultimate mandate will be theirs, and that’s when the ultimate transition would happen.”

City expansion plan raises questions

Despite the lack of success of the unleaded fuel program and record sales of leaded fuel, the city of San Diego is forging ahead with plans to expand Montgomery-Gibbs. 

The city’s plans contain items that deeply concern local clean air advocates.

The city’s own master plan contains lead pollution data that should have triggered obligatory monitoring by the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District that never occurred, and the data suggests the EPA’s estimates of lead pollution at MYF are significantly underreported.

Based on a 2017 study, the master plan states that the airport produced more than 1 ton of lead pollution in one year, surpassing the threshold at which the EPA typically requires local agencies to conduct air monitoring.

Local officials told inewsource they haven’t conducted lead sampling at Montgomery Airport.

The plan also notes that more than 93% of the airplane fleet at MYF is piston-powered, the type of aircraft that burns leaded fuel.

The EPA’s report assumes that 72% of a general aviation airport fleet is piston-powered. That means that MYF has significantly more piston-powered planes, which means EPA lead pollution estimates should be higher.

‘A reasonable next step’

Impacted residents and public health experts say simply waiting for the federal government to act should not be an option. 

Watching leaded fuel sales and flight operations climb as the unleaded fuel program languishes — and as the city pushes forward with an expansion at the airfield — has left many incredulous.

Planes using leaded fuel are typically small piston-engine aircraft that carry two to 10 passengers and are about 50 years old, on average, depending on the type of aircraft. The EPA has said emissions from aircraft using leaded fuel may “pose risks to nearby communities, including those with environmental justice concerns.” 

In addition to dozens of schools, planes on the touch-and-go path near Montgomery-Gibbs fly over parks, playgrounds and neighborhoods in which more than half of the area’s residents belong to racial and ethnic minority groups.

As the problem persists, many have also become increasingly engaged in pushing for change.

More than 500 people have signed a Change.org petition demanding a half dozen immediate safeguards from flight restrictions to monthly public reports.

San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air, a group that helped bring about the introduction of UL94, is seeking ways to increase community and healthcare system engagement.

Quiet Skies MYF, which hosts a private Facebook group with more than 100 members, is demanding action and accountability while gathering data to push for solutions.

The group has been using flight data to track the frequency and hours of touch-and-go operations, and many residents have been consistently submitting noise complaints through a city-run portal dedicated to Montgomery-Gibbs and Brown Field, a city-owned airport in the South Bay.

Clairemont has registered the most airport noise complaints by far, with more than 5,000 complaints logged between May and August, according to the most recent data available.

Meanwhile, public health experts say that communities deserve more guidance, information and coordination from local officials.

A spokesperson for the county said that it has done some canvassing in the past, but that its focus is on following up on reported contamination and managing those cases.

The county’s lack of targeted testing has not gone unnoticed.

San Diego State University public health researcher Paula Stigler Granados said that local officials could follow examples in Santa Clara County and Colorado and study the issue.

“Since leaded aviation gasoline is being used, a reasonable next step would be targeted air, soil, and dust monitoring in nearby downwind communities, along with blood-lead testing for children who live or attend school nearby,” Granados said. 

“In other communities, public health agencies have helped coordinate this type of investigation by linking blood-lead surveillance data with information about airport activity, fuel use, wind patterns, and environmental monitoring."

Germann, the San Diegan who is advocating for a leaded fuel ban and more responsible municipal land use, said there are ways to bring relief to residents.

He said the city could require that flight schools use unleaded fuel, or charge companies for touch-and-go training and use that revenue to carry out the environmental and public health studies researchers say would inform residents and officials of impacts.

Like residents inewsource spoke with who requested anonymity citing past retaliation for speaking out, Germann is in disbelief that taxpayer money is being used at a facility that produces a pollutant long known to be irreversibly harmful.

And he is mad about it.

“These guys are living in the ‘80s,” he said. “They want to burn leaded fuel, they don’t want to pay for shit, and you know they’re bitching. Times have changed.”