By DEAN BILLING.
Late in 2011, a little known environmental organization, perhaps totally unknown in aviation circles, Center For Environmental Health (CEH) filed a lawsuit against “30 companies that sell and/or distribute lead-containing aviation gas (avgas) at 23 California airports, calling on the companies to provide safer alternative fuels.”
At the time, there was some fanfare in the aviation press about the lawsuit and it has been news off and on for three years. (Go ahead, Google: CEH leaded avgas I dare you).
One of the odd things you will learn is the original lawsuit included the major producers of leaded avgas, such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, but the settlement only included their distributors and companies that sell 100LL avgas. It appears that making leaded avgas is not an environmental hazard in California, only distributing it to airports and using it.
A settlement was negotiated in September 2014, and the litigants and the court signed off on it in December, whereupon CEH published its press release about the outcome on Dec. 10, 2014.
Since the whole objective of the lawsuit was to eliminate the use of leaded avgas sooner rather than later, what did the lawsuit accomplish?
After all, the settlement cost the defendants a sizable chunk of change for doing something that is perfectly legal, selling FAA-approved aviation fuel to aircraft owners. The practice continues to this day, unabated and unchanged, so the lawsuit did little more than increase the cost of doing business for aviation businesses, which pass it along to their customers. Little wonder GA is circling the drain.
Here is the breakdown of the visible costs: “… the settling FBOs and fuel distributors to pay a total of $550,000, of which $374,000 is apportioned to attorneys’ fees, $70,000 is allotted to the state for civil penalties, and the remaining $106,000 is a payment in lieu of civil penalties to CEH.”
There were plenty of other hidden costs over the four years of litigation. Just talk to the FBOs that were involved or read about their plight in the aviation media.
Essentially, this is the resulting agreement of the protracted litigation that cost more than half a million dollars:
- “… the fuel distributors will offer for sale the lowest-lead fuel that is commercially available in sufficient quantity.” Translation: 100VLL, which may or may not be available in California, and may or may not be sold already on most California airports. This is the conundrum of the aviation fuel industry. We have no clue what they produce, where they produce it and which product they sell on our airports. Is it 100LL or 100VLL? There is no labeling requirement.
- “The companies are also required to warn residents living within one kilometer of the airports where they operate of the lead risk, and to post warning signs at the airports.”
- “The companies will also make mogas available to FBOs that request it, subject to certain terms (eg, coverage under liability insurance) and availability.”
The purpose of my post is to focus on the third part of the agreement in the settlement, which is quite unprecedented … and, unfortunately, probably quite useless.
It recognizes that using lead free auto gasoline, the forgotten FAA-approved aviation fuel, would decrease the amount of lead spread into the environment by general aviation. Ironically, it is a viable solution that could be implemented immediately if all of the stakeholders would cooperate: Airport management, FBOs and fuel suppliers.
However, it is doubtful anything will come of it since every possible loophole was included in the agreement: FBOs have to request it (unlikely), it is subject to “terms” (all of the common ones used in the past to keep mogas off of airports), and there is the supreme hurdle, availability.
There is no known supplier of ethanol free auto fuel in California, at least no oil company willing to admit it. Otherwise, there would be ethanol free gasoline widely available for marine use, off road use and for small engines.
The only E0 supplier listed on Pure-Gas.org is Renner Petroleum in the northwest part of the state, supplying the marine industry in minuscule quantities just like the few racing fuel suppliers listed.
It has been three months since the settlement agreement was announced. Since I have seen nothing in the aviation press about California airports starting infrastructure projects to add mogas as a result of this ground-breaking settlement (pun intended), I’ve begun contacting all of the individuals who got in touch with Kent Misegades the past few years asking how to get mogas on their favorite airport in California. So far, a number of the email addresses bounced and the few replies I’ve gotten indicate continued interest as long as someone else figures out how to do it and finds a viable source of E0 in the state.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who is actively pursuing an airport mogas project and has contacted fuel suppliers in California. It would be interesting to know what their response is considering the agreement resulting from the CEH lawsuit behooves them to make unleaded auto fuel available to general aviation in order to reduce lead pollution.
After all, it is an FAA-approved unleaded aviation fuel that can be made today and is already available on airports in many states.
Wasn’t that the objective of the lawsuit in the first place?
Note: If you were bold enough to do an Internet search as I advised above, you might have noted this extremely bizarre result of the lawsuit. If you were not one of the defendants that signed the settlement and ponied up your fine and you distribute or sell leaded avgas in California, you are potentially not off the hook: “The proposed consent judgment also has provision that would allow additional FBOs and fuel distributors to opt-in to the settlement 180 days after the consent judgment is entered. FBOs opting into the agreement will pay $7,500 for each of their California locations, while fuel distributors opting into the settlement will pay a flat $85,000.”
The clock is ticking.
As they used to say on radio newscasts: “Stay Tuned.” I plan to follow up this report with the results of my communication with airport managers, FBOs, interested pilots, perhaps a state government political aide, and a spokesperson for CEH.
All this adds up to is environmental extortion. These people are the Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson of the environmental kind. Shell out some cash, do a little dance, and all is good.
This lawsuit is a result of California enacting Clean Air standards then providing monetary incentives for lawyers that seek to “enforce” the laws. 3/5 of the money went to the legal team with the “green” name.
Without an across the board solution–unleaded autogas is not an all airplane solution–this green law does nothing but stike fear into the thousands of workers and every company that operates av gas fueled aircraft in SoCal.
Why didn’t the suit name “Big Oil?” Because BO has the legal resources to stop it.
Nothing is better after the settlement; unless you happen to be a lawyer at the firm that brought the suit.
Always follow the money
The lawsuit as originally filed in 2011 included “Big Oil.” The fact that they were dropped in the final settlement is the clearest indication I know of that 100 LL avgas is not made at any of the refineries in California.
With all of its environmental regulations it is no surprise that 100LL is not being refined in CA. That just leads to high transportation costs and of course higher cost to the the end user (Pilots).
As always, only the lawyers win in the end, the settlement is B.S.
The only good national result of this, I would think, is the acknowledgment of auto gas D-4814 as an FAA approved aviation fuel. This however will be overlooked by those who could do something as it would interfere with current business. The standard rebuff I have received in Michigan is that “insurance will not cover auto gas and there policy will be dropped or the cost would be prohibitive”. The insurance in many cases is provided by the airports fuel suppler (large national chain) who does not distribute auto gas. The airports themselves require minimum hangar space for every operation ,want to run a fuel truck?, you need “X” amount of hangar space. If you do not have a hangar at the airport you can’t run a truck. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but does protect existing business, often the county that is selling fuel.
Autogas blended with the oxygenates MTBE or ETBE is approved for use with autofuel STC’s. MTBE has been found to persist in the environment and is therefore no longer in use. ETBE does not share that characteristic and in Europe ETBE is used as one of the components of aviation gasoline. Autofuel in California could be blended with ETBE rather than ethanol in order to meet that states oxygenate regulations.
Difficult – yes. However, certainly not impossible if everyone wanted to see it done.
Mogas does not meet California’s Air Quality regulations. Can’t cite the specific value or details, but it has to do with ‘oxygenation’ of the fuel and Mogas does not have quite enough to meet California’s requirements. As part of a technical team for the Long Beach Airport Commission, we investigated this when the law suit first appeared.This is why we don’t see Mogas here in the state.
This sounds like a specious technicality gasoline producers would raise to keep from having to supply unleaded auto fuel for aviation use. The use of ethanol free auto fuel (mogas) in aviation does not have to meet California oxygenate regulations since it is an FAA approved aviation fuel. If California could apply their oxygenate regulations to aviation fuel they would have banned 100 LL years ago and there would never have been a need for the CEH lawsuit.
In addition, oxygenate requirements never applied to the entire state of California, only to certain southern counties and usually only at certain times of the year. The terms of the CEH settlement illustrates the excuse is false since the gasoline distributors agreed to supply mogas to airports if requested and it was “available.” Of course, that is their new escape clause, because ethanol free auto gas is not produced in California that I know of, but that is only due to another technicality that has to do with the federal RFS mandate.