BROOMFIELD — Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport said Wednesday it will fully shift from the use of toxic leaded aviation gasoline to unleaded fuel at its facility within four years.
The Jefferson County airport, with nearly 300,000 takeoffs and landings last year and even more expected by the end of 2023, will beat by three years the federal mandate that piston engine aircraft switch, by 2030, to unleaded-only fuel.
The announcement comes as neighbors living around the general aviation airport have in recent years decried contamination from lead particles that descend from overhead propeller plane emissions — many of which are flight-school aircraft. They have also complained of continuing noise overhead from all the flights at the airport, though that’s a problem that changing to unleaded fuel won’t mitigate.
“The majority of flight schools can switch to the 94UL,” airport director Paul Anslow said Wednesday, as airplanes buzzed the skies above the tarmac at the county-owned airport near Wadsworth Parkway and U.S. 36 in Broomfield.
The 94UL fuel is essentially a transition unleaded gasoline. It works with most, but not all, of the 350 prop aircraft that are based at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, Anslow said.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved the use of unleaded 100UL fuel for all aviation piston engines a year ago, but the infrastructure to deliver that higher-octane — and more resilient — fuel is still being rolled out nationwide.
“Just the success story of the airport switching to 94UL fuel is a huge win,” said Superior Trustee Jason Serbu, who serves as the town’s liaison to the airport’s Community Noise Roundtable. He’s received a barrage of complaints from residents about lead exposure in the Rock Creek neighborhood just north of the airport.
Lead is particularly hazardous to children and there is no accepted safe level of exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA says lead can cause slow development, behavior and learning problems, low IQ, and hyperactivity and hearing problems in children.
Centennial Airport, Colorado’s largest general aviation airport, became the first in the state to offer unleaded fuel in the spring. It already accounts for nearly 20% of the fuel used by prop planes at the airport, according to airport data provided to The Denver Post.
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