The Effect of Leaded Aviation Gasoline on Blood Lead in Children

Sammy Zahran, Terrence Iverson (), Shawn P. McElmurry and Stephan Weiler

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2017, vol. 4, issue 2, 575 - 610

Abstract: Lead is a neurotoxin with developmentally harmful effects in children. In the United States, over half the current flow of lead into the atmosphere is attributable to lead-formulated aviation gasoline (avgas), used in a large fraction of piston-engine aircraft. Various public interest firms have petitioned the EPA to find endangerment from and regulate lead emitted by piston-engine aircraft, though the EPA has so far ruled against such petitions. To address an EPA request for more evidence, we construct a novel data set that links time and spatially referenced blood lead data from over a million children to 448 nearby airports in Michigan. Across a series of tests, and adjusting for other known sources of lead exposure, we find that child blood lead levels (1) increase dose-responsively in proximity to airports, (2) decline measurably among children sampled in the months after 9/11, (3) increase dose-responsively in the flow of piston-engine aircraft traffic, (4) increase in the percentage of prevailing wind days drifting in the direction of a child’s residential location, and (5) behave intuitively and significantly when considering two-way and three-way interactions of our main treatment variables. To quantify the policy relevance of the results we provide a conservative estimate of the social damages attributable to avgas consumption. Damages are at least $10 per gallon, which can be compared to a pump price of about $6 per gallon.

Date: 2017
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Related works:
Working Paper: The Effect of Leaded Aviation Gasonline on Blood Lead in Children (2014)
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