Small planes fly by the Donald J. Meyer Elementary School playground every few minutes as they take off from the nearby Reid-Hillview Airport in East San Jose.
According to a new study commissioned by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, those planes are leaving behind dangerous amounts of lead. The study analyzed blood samples collected between 2011 and 2020, finding significantly more in children who lived within a half-mile of the airport than those who lived even a mile further away.
Children living downwind from the airport had, on average, an additional 0.40 micrograms per decileter. That increase is on par with those measured in Flint, Michigan children during the peak of the city's water crisis, according to the study's authors.
Alum Rock Union School District Superintendent Hilaria Bauer said Friday she believes that lead pollution is impacting her students' health, and she drew a direct link between the planes and the area's high rate of academic problems.
"We can also see differences in performance between schools located within this radius, and across the district on the other side," Bauer said Friday, claiming "no amount of intervention" has been able to raise academic performance in the area.
Meyer is far from the only school or childcare center in the airport's surrounding area. The study also found children commuting away from the airport had lower blood lead levels than students commuting toward it.
Mary Ann Dewan, Santa Clara County's top education official, noted that lead exposure is linked to cognitive impairment, learning disabilities and attention problems. There is also no treatment.
"There is no safe level of lead exposure in children," Dewan said. "Therefore, the focus must be on prevention by reducing or eliminating the sources of childhood lead exposure."
Many elected officials in the South Bay are calling for the airport's closure.
In the meantime, the airport's supporters believe it should be given a chance to transition to unleaded fuel.
Related
