Drinking lead can damage people’s brains, but Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach opposes a plan to remove lead water pipes.
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In their letter, the attorneys general wrote, “[The plan] sets an almost impossible timeline, will cost billions and will infringe on the rights of the States and their residents – all for benefits that may be entirely speculative.”
Kobach repeated this nearly verbatim in a March 7 post on X (formerly Twitter).
Buttigieg responded by writing, “The benefit of not being lead poisoned is not speculative. It is enormous. And because lead poisoning leads to irreversible cognitive harm, massive economic loss, and even higher crime rates, this work represents one of the best returns on public investment ever observed.”
Well also remember: The aviation sector as a whole has done a LOT to reduce its lead footprint since 1950. Used to be, everything from two seat trainers to transcontinental airliners burned leaded gasoline in reciprocating engines. Now it is fairly rare to find a reciprocating engine of more than 350 horsepower or so in service as they have largely been replaced with turboprops. Sometimes literally replaced; I know of several operations that use older airframes like DeHavilland Beavers/Otters, Grumman Geese/Mallards, or even Douglas DC-3s that have swapped their old radial engines for Pratt & Whitney PT-6s.
Old 80/87 red AVGAS was phased out before I started flying, I’ve never seen any in person. Granted some aircraft rated for it just started burning 100LL but others started using regular automotive gasoline. 115/145 purple AVGAS was also phased out, though I understand it’s made in small batches for certain motorsports events? Even 100/130 green AVGAS is rare to find; 100LL blue AVGAS is meant to do the job of 100/130 with less lead. The industry as a whole has made a lot of broad strokes, now we’re working on the details.
Before the 60s, people didn’t consider what tetraethyl lead was doing. It was the groundbreaking work of Clair Cameron Patterson that finally exposed it. Even then industry fought him for years. I would far and away attribute most of those early gains to the wide adoption of faster and higher flying jet aircraft that thankfully do not use leaded fuel. And even turboprops have seen wide adoption, not because of lead fuel, but because they have superior performance and can support higher altitudes.
But, again, I find it unconscionable that in 2024 leaded fuel is still used. Sorry it effects you livelihood (it sure as hell effects mine even though we figured out how to mitigate it 30 years ago and would have stayed that way if it weren’t for some moron tea party Republicans in Michigan that thought they knew more than experts), but our children can’t wait. Hopefully, now nearly 60 years after Dr. Patterson exposed how bad leaded fuel is, leaded gas can finally die.