Just to make sure everyone is aware - this isn't a solved issue of the past. Airplanes continue to use leaded gasoline that, while much smaller relative to everyone's car running on it, contributes to higher than healthy lead in our environment.
Lead is still everywhere, not just aviation fuel. About 35% of homes in the USA still have lead paint, which creates lead dust when doors and windows open/close, and lead in the soil where kids play outside. A large fraction of homes still have lead-soldered drinking water supply pipes. Lots of toys, food cans, and vinyl window blinds also still contain and expose kids to lead.
I measured the concentration of lead in the hot water from my kitchen faucet. My plumping is copper with lead solder, so I expected some but not too much.
The result was 105 ppb. This is insane when you consider that Flint's level was 20 ppb during the crisis.
The cold water should be zero, but I installed a lead filter to ensure this.
Lead testing is pretty cheap and there are usually a lot of labs around big cities. Highly recommend water testing even if you don't think you have the risk factors.
> Lead testing is pretty cheap and there are usually a lot of labs around big cities. Highly recommend water testing even if you don't think you have the risk factors.
Could you tell me what you used to do the testing?
Here in Germany I tested twice. Once, I took one of several online providers who send you a test kit - I think it was some 20 Euros or something similar - and you follow the procedure they give you and send the test kit back. You get an email and a website with the result after a few days. This is just for your own information, you cannot use such results in court, for example.
Another time I asked my local city water lab. They had no procedure for some random guy from the public, since those other companies exist and already make it convenient, but they still did not even try to send me away and the big lab boss himself handled my case, explaining the procedure and all, and taking the water samples back from me. Price was similarly little.
By the way, that second time I tested a very commonly sold entry-level Italian portafilter machine, a Rancilio Silvia with a brass boiler that even today contains lead. Following the sampling procedure I had agreed upon with the lab boss as the correct one the lead values I got back significantly exceeded the limits. And about those limits, the medical limit is zero. That the official limit is higher is because our society is unable to get us to that desirable level.
.
By the way, a good chelator for lead is DMSA, which is produced very cheaply in China. Russians produce "Unithiol" (DMPS) which is best against mercury, and somewhat good against lead (and a lot of other stuff). I actually got Russian Unithiol even though DMPS also is produced here in Germany as "Dimaval". I never used EDTA derivatives for chelation, but I have many years of.. experience with DMSA and DMPS. See somewhere in my comment history. That is why I took lead a bit more seriously and why I tested my portafilter machines. I now have an Ascaso Steel Uno PID whhere the manufacturer took great care to eliminate anything that could be problematic in all components - plus, it's a really good portafilter machine :)
> This is just for your own information, you cannot use such results in court, for example.
Whats the point of that then? If its accuracy is not good enough for court, have you just bought an experience?
I always used to get a sore throat from being a passenger on long vehicle journeys when leaded petrol was around and I was informed some years later Pectin is good for pollutants like lead.
Never heard or seen any studies that back up this claim though, but I still bought a few bottles and necked them to see what sort of effect they had.
I think N Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) may be useful for moving metals around the body.
It's not the accuracy the court is concerned with, it's the chain of custody. They are worried you would deliberately contaminate the samples to get somebody else to pay for improvements to the plumbing that aren't necessary.
> If its accuracy is not good enough for court, have you just bought an experience?
What's court got to do with any of this? You do a lab test to find out if your water is contaminated, and then you take steps to resolve that. Either change the piping, or put in a filter.
I can imagine that many landlords would not be happy to hear they have to replace all of the pipes in a house. I'm also suspecting, given the current situation in the world with regard to housing that a lot of people on this forum rent.
The minimum threshold for accuracy in court is zero. Courts don't make admissibility decisions based on the quality of the evidence; they make the decision on other, more inscrutable criteria.
Not GP, but I found a local water testing company that offered a lead test kit. They gave me a jar with instructions. I brought back the jar full of water collected according to the instructions and they sent it in to a lab. The hardest part was not running water from any tap or toilet for 10 hours before drawing the test water.
Living in an older house it's been totally worth it to test for lead in the usual places so we can be aware of our exposure risks, and also to have our blood tested periodically for lead to make sure we've been successful avoiding it.
Thats sorta crazy for just lead solder. City water? What is the ph? Cause most of the city systems run the ph slightly basic to assure the water isn't trying to etch the pipes, and that also keeps the lead from leaching. That was actually the problem in flint, they let the water system ph get to low and it started to leach out of the pipes which is why originally they denied there was a problem (testing the water at the source).
If it's just the hot water, it could be your water heater. I would not expect soldered copper pipe, even with leaded solder, to be leaching that much lead. The vast majority of the solder is not exposed to the water, it's just sealing the lap joint of the fittings.
Running the water for a bit should flush the standing water in the pipes (which if the lead is coming from your pipes will reduce the lead). Has to be done regularly before consumption to matter of course.
Shit. I live in a VERY old building (built in 1916). No idea what type of pipe they were using. I already do have a good lead filter on my kitchen faucet.
Are you worried about exposure from things like showering and brushing your teeth?
Only piston or radial engines use 100LL. Turbine engines are sucking down jet A which is kerosene. Turbines don't require lead as an anti knock additive.
That doesn't make it any better, or less bad, because of the other additives it contains, for consistent performance over a wide temperature range, from standing on glowing tarmac/concrete, in the desert sun, to arctic cold, and much other stuff.
Search for something like "toxicologic(al) asessment/profile of jet fuel" and prepare to have your mind blown. While what pops up then mostly covers the military variants like JP-4,7,8, there is enough about the civil use Jet-A1 you are talking about.
In what sense does it contribute? Yes, putting any amount of lead into the atmosphere is bad, but it isn't so bad if it is so dilute that it is basically background levels. I'd imagine low quality lead pipes, and fruit juice, are a much bigger cause of high lead levels than small plane engines.
As somebody who grew up living under the flightpath of a busy airport and always appreciated the variety of small craft flying overhead, I happen to think that this is a pretty big deal. About two blocks away from my house was what we called "the ghetto." The correlation among lead, poverty, violence, and racialized populations is a major character in the story of american politics.
The half-life of bloodborne lead is about 28 days (according to first google hit) and I moved out many years ago; I think I'd need a bone sample or something to find a signal.
Must I prove that 100% of the problem is lead from airplanes in every single neighborhood-by-airport before I'm allowed to express concern? Can you prove that avgas is not a significant contributor to lead accumulation in the soil of these neighborhoods?
Nonsense. Urine isn’t good for drinking water, but pissing in a reservoir has no effect. Why don’t aircraft pilots and mechanics have cognitive issues since they are exposed to a lot more AvGas fumes than the average person?
For one thing Urine isn't a heavy metal that accumulates cumulatively in your bones - that analogy is just awful.
I don't think you can definitively state that aircraft pilots aren't having health issues due to AvGas exposure, I can't really find any studies about it but one of the more common health side effects of lead exposure is actually a predisposition to heart attacks due to how lead messes with your blood streams.
Lead from AvGas is extremely insignificant despite what the Santa Clara Supervisors would have you believe in their quest to ruin Reid Hillview Airport.
In a way that results in higher (or even similar?) exposure to lead compared to when everybody had cars running on it? For your average person? I'm gonna need hard numbers for that.
Okay, for the people who can't read between the lines and just resort to downvoting instead of actually being useful in a conversation.
1) The article is about childhood lead exposure on adult personalities.
2) He makes a comment about aviation and its current use of leaded gasoline ("contributes to higher than healthy lead in our environment") with the warning "this isn't a solved issue of the past".
3) This implies that the aviation industry and its use of leaded gas is in any way comparable to what we had before when everybody had daily contact with leaded gas.
4) Nobody has yet provided any evidence of the fact that aviation results in any appreciable exposure to lead for your average citizen.
5) This matters because the original article is not about environmental impact. It's about childhood exposure.
How is this so hard? I seriously question the ability of your average HNer to make logical deductions.
Just to clarify on #3 - from my original post: "while much smaller relative to everyone's car running on it". I didn't imply that the lead levels were equal or near to levels when everyone's car was running on it - I tried to state the exact opposite but, I'd clarify, the levels of lead in our environment is still well elevated from what it was prior to the introduction of leaded gasoline and lead is a heavy contaminant like mercury - it accumulates in your body and causes cumulative damage.
And to point #5 - the levels present in our environment directly contribute to how much childhood exposure you'll suffer.
No, not even close. To portray otherwise is right up there with the people screeching about radiation exposure on the order of spending a day working outside.
The lead exposure as a result of stuff your daily life (which is mostly a reflection of the history of where you live and work) contributes far more than avgas in the atmosphere. Unless you live downwind of a busy GA airport and have managed to get all other
OK, but there's still the same question. What is the "healthy" ppb level of lead in air, and what is the concentration from avgas?
Also, here's a plane flying at 4000 AGL. How much of the lead it puts out is going to affect the lead level at ground level? (I mean, it can raise the ppb of the entire atmosphere, which eventually affects everyone, but that's a huge mass to affect.)
It might matter for those living downwind and close to heavily-used private plane fields, though.
