DANVERS — The Select Board is calling on officials to move away from leaded-fuel in small planes flown out of Beverly Airport and other runways around the country.
Select Board members agreed at their Oct. 18 meeting to send letters to federal and state officials condemning the use of this fuel.
The board will also hold a public meeting in the near future concerning noise from aircrafts out of the airport, a problem that has gotten significantly worse over the last few years, according to neighbors.
While there isn’t an official date for the meeting or a plan to address this issue through a municipal approach where possible, changes are already being discussed at the airport, said Aaron Henry, a Danvers representative on the airport’s commission and the town’s director of land use and community services.
“The commission needs to do a better job of collecting data to answer these questions,” Henry said at the Oct. 18 meeting.
“I think a lot of the answers that we might have, if we had better data, wouldn’t necessarily make people happy,” he continued. “But right now, we really don’t have enough to even answer some of the questions, which is a little disheartening.”
More than 40 people attended a Sept. 12 airport commission meeting to share their complaints about noise issues and the use of leaded fuels. Or in some cases, to defend the airport’s current policies and practices.
The airport’s voluntary noise abatement program urges pilots to avoid flying over outdoor events and residential areas, use low power settings to reduce propeller noise when in flight, avoid flying from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and follow other precautions to lessen aircraft noise when it is safe to do so.
The commission will reassess this “outdated” program, along with its good neighbor policy, Henry said.
“We do need to revisit those even if they are perfectly fine,” he said. “We haven’t looked at them in my time on the commission. and that’s got to change.”
The airport commission has discussed taking an affirmative position to facilitate the transfer to unleaded fuel in the aviation industry, the last transportation industry in the country that uses this type of fuel.
Henry has been on the commission for four years. During this time, he was unaware that planes coming out of Beverly have been using leaded gas, he said.
There hasn’t been an official vote from the commission to stand against leaded fuel, Henry said. But there was “a lot of head nodding” among commissioners during discussions of doing so, he added.
Unlike larger planes, small piston-engine planes rely on fuel called avgas that contains lead, which can lead to a number of serious health issues, especially in children.
Danvers Select Board Chair Daniel Bennett said this issue coming out of the airport concerned him the most.
“You need to take a position,” Bennett said, adding that the use of leaded fuels is “absolutely ridiculous.”
There has started to be a national shift away from avgas. In February, the Federal Aviation Administration announced it is working with aviation and petroleum industry stakeholders to eliminate the use of leaded fuel in smaller aircraft.
The CEO of Swift Fuels said during that hearing that the company will have an alternative to leaded avgas ready in three years. For the industry to fully shift to non-leaded fuel, national policies and large-scale changes are needed.
The letters to the federal government and state officials — including state Rep. Sally Kerans, state Sen. Joan Lovely and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton — would mainly address concerns around leaded fuel.
Lovely and Kerans have attended multiple meetings with neighbors and the airport commission about noise and leaded fuels, including the Sept. 12 meeting. A representative from Moulton’s office also attended that meeting.
In the past, the commission has pointed to its good neighbor policy as a measure to address noise complaints when presented with them by neighbors, Kerans said.
“That is not enough,” Kerans said at the Select Board meeting. “Are you enforcing it? How aggressively are you promoting it? We know what you can’t do. We know that you can’t be the FAA. No one’s asking them to be the FAA. But are they really working hard to get compliance with the good neighbor policy?”
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com and follow her on Twitter @CarolineEnos.
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