From Chicago’s Journal & Topics
“The old standard for tracking noise impacts was the Schultz Curve, developed 40 years ago, which tends to consider the irritations from airport noise rise slowly in a shallow curve. It predicted that at 50 DNL hardly anyone was bothered by noise, and by the time noise reached 70 DNL, only 40% of neighbors would be annoyed.”
“
NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission is developing design tools that manufacturers can use to reduce noise impacts. The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) project and Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology project work together to conduct testing with industry partners. The data NASA collects and analyzes from these tests with electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) will ensure that the agency’s aircraft design tools correctly predict noise levels for these types of vehicles. With tools that predict noise correctly, manufacturers can design vehicles for quiet operation in urban and rural areas.
The data will also help define and optimize AAM routes and low-noise flight paths for community needs and assist the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in creating policy. Lessons learned through these tests will inform the FAA’s ongoing work with operations and airspace integration.”
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasas-advanced-air-mobility-researches-noise.html
By Bloomberg…
“Airport noise is a global issue, though the Netherlands may be a special case given that it’s one of the world’s most densely populated countries. Neighbors of Schiphol have recently found that their years of complaints finally paid off: the airport recently announced a series of measures that it hopes will lead to “quieter, cleaner and better aviation.”
The airport plans to ban private planes and cancel all night flights, moves that it estimates would reduce the number of residents experiencing severe sleep disturbance by 54%.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-06-09/airport-noise-and-its-discontents
From CNET
“
While it may be obvious to the people it affects most, research now confirms that living next to an airport can seriously curtail how much sleep you get.
Researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and Oregon State University published a study last month linking increased airplane noise with getting fewer than seven hours of sleep a night, the benchmark of a decent night’s rest for most adults. Shorter sleep duration or low-quality sleep over time can lead to a variety of health problems and affect your overall well-being. “
https://www.cnet.com/health/sleep/living-near-an-airport-affects-your-sleep-new-study-shows/
“Dispersing jet noise and particle emissions is an acknowledged antidote to concentration and is defined as “the process of introducing track variability by changing aircraft lateral position enough to spread out repetitive and intrusive noise events experienced by people living under highly concentrated flight paths” (UC Davis Aviation Noise and Emissions Symposium, February 2021).”
FAA PRESS RELEASE
Highlights…
Noise and Advance Air Mobility Aircraft, Drones and Rotorcraft
Develop noise models for different types of Advanced Air Mobility vehicles:
$315,000 to Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Develop acoustic modeling for Urban Air Mobility vehicles with low noise operations:
$280,000 to Pennsylvania State University.
Evaluate the noise exposure that could result from large numbers of commercial and private UAS vehicles:
$300,000 to Georgia Institute of Technology.
Develop noise abatement procedures for helicopters in various phases of flight through computer modeling:
$170,000 to Pennsylvania State University.
Noise and Communities
Assess and quantify if any correlation exists between aircraft noise, sleep, cardiovascular health and mental health: $1,999,608 to Boston University.
Investigate the effects of aviation noise on sleep disturbance: $1,077,621 to University of Pennsylvania.
Estimate if any housing value loss has occurred due to aircraft noise exposure: $300,000 to Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From Flying magazine…
“The airport’s closure is set to begin by 2028.”
By Politico…
“Lead was removed from gasoline decades ago. So why is aviation fuel still laced with the metal — a neurotoxin tied to developmental problems in children?
….
Today, toddlers in East San Jose have concentrations of lead in their blood on par with children tested at the height of the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., according to a recent study done in coordination with the California Department of Public Health. Meanwhile, aircraft in and out of the airport are flying on leaded gasoline three decades after the U.S. banned the fuel for cars.
Efforts since then to develop unleaded, or even less heavily leaded fuel for small airplanes, have been dependent on the approval of oil and aviation experts who meet through the nonprofit standards organization ASTM International.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/20/aviation-lead-fuel-00081641
By the State Attorney General’s Office
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
Contact: (916) 210-6000, agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov
OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta, leading a multistate coalition of 12 attorneys general, today submitted a comment letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supporting its proposed finding that emissions from the combustion of leaded aviation gasoline (avgas) in piston-engine planes cause or contribute to air pollution that endangers public health and welfare. If finalized, the long-overdue finding will require the EPA to promulgate lead emission standards and regulations for piston-engine planes under the Clean Air Act, and require the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish aircraft fuel standards that are consistent with these aircraft lead emission standards. In the comment letter, the attorneys general urge EPA to swiftly finalize its proposed finding and commence its rulemaking process to protect the public – especially environmental justice communities situated near airports for piston-engine planes – from exposure to lead air pollution.
“Piston-engine airplanes are the largest source of lead air pollution in the nation, and consequently, communities living, working, and going to school near airports are bearing the brunt of their toxic emissions,” said Attorney General Bonta. “We’re encouraged that the EPA is taking this first important step toward protecting the public from lead pollution from these airplanes. But in order to protect our residents from lead pollution, we urge the EPA to swiftly finalize its proposal and move forward with a rulemaking to set emission standards that do right by our communities and protect public health.”
The negative health impacts of lead exposure are well-documented. Short-term and prolonged lead exposure can cause memory loss, nausea, fatigue, and increase the risk of developing hypertension, heart disease, kidney disease, and infertility. Lead exposure is particularly dangerous for children, whose developing brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to its damaging effects. The impacts of lead exposure in children include behavioral issues, reduced IQ, slowed body growth, and a predisposition to depression, anxiety, or high-risk behavior. There is widespread scientific consensus that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children.
The coalition has a vested interest in protecting their residents from lead emissions from piston-engine airplanes. Leaded avgas is the only remaining lead-containing transportation fuel, and its combustion is the single largest contributor of airborne lead emissions in the United States. Piston-engine planes powered by leaded avgas released more than 930,000 pounds of lead in 2017 and are responsible for nearly three-quarters of total lead emissions nationwide.
General aviation airports that service these planes are often located near densely populated metropolitan areas, communities impacted by environmental hazards and risks, and residential areas near homes and schools. These emissions are a significant health risk for the more than 16 million people living and 3 million children going to school within one kilometer of an airport. California has 452 general aviation airports that service piston-engine aircraft, which are responsible for 83 percent of the state’s lead emissions. Of these, 111 lead-emitting airports are located in environmental justice communities, where residents are already exposed to excessive levels of ozone, fine particulate matter, and other pollution sources.
Much, if not all, of the lead emissions from piston-engine planes could be avoided. In 2014, the FAA launched the Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative (PAFI) to speed up the “deployment of the most promising unleaded replacements,” but despite FAA’s certification of various unleaded fuels, including two recent fuel replacements suitable for nearly all piston-engine planes, these unleaded aviation fuels have not successfully penetrated the market. Less than three percent of U.S. airports that service piston-engine planes sell unleaded alternatives.
In the comment letter, the attorneys general support EPA’s proposed finding and urge the agency to swiftly issue a final endangerment determination and initiate a rulemaking to regulate lead emissions from avgas. In the comment letter, the attorneys general argue:
Attorney General Bonta and the California Air Resources Board are currently leading multistate litigation challenging the EPA’s ineffective standards regulating greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes.
Attorney General Bonta is joined by the attorneys general of Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin in filing the comments.
A copy of the letter can be found here.
From Seattle Times op-ed…
By Nathan Donley
Special to The Times
“Even small amounts of lead pollution can cause nervous system damage, reduced intelligence, behavioral changes and developmental harms that are often irreversible, especially in children.
Given those well-documented risks, the millions of Americans who live or work in neighborhoods bumping up against the nation’s airstrips have no reason to suspect that the small propeller planes routinely humming overhead are spewing dangerous levels of lead pollution.
But they are. The reality is that leaded aviation fuel, still used in the majority of small propeller planes, is the nation’s largest remaining source of lead emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/epa-knows-what-it-must-do-end-the-use-of-leaded-aviation-fuels/
Hawthorne Quiet Skies