Pembroke Pines Passes Resolution Urging County To Study Lead Emissions at North Perry Airport

Pembroke Pines city commissioners confronted members of the Broward County Aviation Department at a tense commission meeting this week before passing a resolution demanding that the county study lead emissions at North Perry Airport.

The resolution, proposed by Commissioner Tom Good, came after a South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation that revealed North Perry ranks fifth in the country for lead emissions based on EPA calculations, but Broward County, which operates the airport, has never tried to study the toxin.

In announcing the resolution at the meeting late Wednesday, Good thanked the Sun Sentinel and George Koren, a Pembroke Pines resident who serves on the airport’s advisory board and who has long raised questions about the air quality there.

“This resolution is not about shutting down Perry airport,” Good said. “It’s about recognizing how high the potential is for lead pollution and the associated health hazards for those who live near the airport. Let’s not wait anymore. Let’s not worry about a budget and just become one of those communities that find out too late that they were subject to harm.”

Though Broward County owns and operates North Perry, the airport sits within the city limits of Pembroke Pines and borders Hollywood and Miramar. Residents in all three cities live directly across from the airport grounds, the small piston-engine planes constantly flying low over their homes.

Most of them run on leaded fuel and emit the toxin into the air, which is then breathed in by those living below. Studies have demonstrated that children living near these general aviation airports have higher levels of lead in their blood than those living further away.

Before voting on the resolution, city commissioners questioned Mike Nonnemacher, the deputy director of the Broward County Aviation Department, which operates the airport.

“You gonna do a study?” Commissioner Angelo Castillo asked over the phone.

Nonnemacher replied that the department has “put funds in the requested budget for fiscal year 2024,” amounting to $30,000.

However, he added, “I just want to be clear. We have agreed to put funds into the fiscal year budget. That doesn’t mean BCAD is going to or is not going to do an environmental study.”

“There’s a problem,” Vice Mayor Iris Siple told Nonnemacher. “We don’t know exactly what or how extensive the problem is, but there’s a problem.”

The proposed resolution specifically concerns lead emissions, she pointed out, while Nonnemacher has agreed only to put money towards an “environmental” study.

“In your opinion, knowing that there is this potential for a real health problem out there, how would you suggest we figure out that there is or that there isn’t?” she asked. “And if there is, what do we do about it? And to say we’re going to wait until 2024, 2024 is a long time. It’s a long year.”

Nonnemacher replied that the lead emissions issue “is not a North Perry issue, it’s a national issue.”

The Federal Aviation Administration has a plan to eliminate leaded fuel by 2030, he said, but accessing unleaded fuel at the airport requires a lot of “moving parts” and would run into supply-chain issues. The fuel is also expensive, he said.

One of North Perry’s fuel depots currently does offer a type of unleaded fuel, though few planes use it.

Nonnemacher added that he had spoken with members of the FAA’s local flight standards district office and “learned everything [he] could possibly learn about aviation fuel in the last few months.”

“Could we do a study?” Nonnemacher said. “Sure, we could. Now depending on what the outcome is, what do we do with the data then? Because we don’t control aircraft operations. We don’t control what engine manufacturers are allowed to do. We don’t control the supply of fuel.”

Siple was not convinced.

“You’ve mentioned several times that this is happening across the nation. While we feel for the nation, we don’t really care about that,” she said. “We care about what’s happening for our folks in Pembroke Pines.”

The commission isn’t asking the airport to remove the lead, Good added, just to study its effects.

“Listen, we’re not here asking for the solution right now,” he said. “We just want to know where we stand … The solution could be ‘hey, when the wind blows this way, close your windows so it doesn’t get in your house.'”

Meanwhile, Commissioner Jay Schwartz, who operates a flight school at North Perry Airport, defended Nonnemacher’s comments about supply-chain issues and offered to have his blood tested, having “been around the stuff for 50 years.”

“If I can be used as a lab rat, I’m willing to do that for the community,” he said.

Multiple residents who live near the airport, including Koren, expressed outrage in public comments.

“I’m sitting here astounded at what I was listening to,” said Rosalie Labate. “The gentleman from the airport giving us all the details about specifications and requirements of the oil and gas industry without once ever saying that if you did the study and the study demonstrated there is a problem, then that’s how change gets done.”

Michael Eaton, president of the Hollybrook homeowner’s association, said that the 55+ community bordering the airport has “enormous health issues.”

“Anything that is added by the environment to those health issues needs to be addressed,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it has to be solved. It needs to be addressed.”

The commission voted unanimously in favor of the resolution, except for Mayor Frank Ortis, who was not present for the vote. The resolution included an amendment to specifically request a lead emissions study rather than an air quality study in general.

Similar conversations will soon take place in the cities of Hollywood and Miramar.

Over the last few weeks, Good said he has spoken with Hollywood City Commissioner Kevin Biederman and Miramar City Commissioner Yvette Colbourne, who both plan to introduce the topic at upcoming commission meetings.

Colbourne told the Sun Sentinel that she has become concerned about lead emission issues at the airport and is placing a similar resolution supporting an emissions study on the agenda at the Sept. 6 commission meeting.

Biederman said that he would introduce the topic for discussion, but hasn’t planned to call for a resolution specifically.

“I don’t know how much faster they can get it done,” he said of the study in a conversation with the Sun Sentinel Wednesday morning. “From what I understand, the people I spoke to are already working on including it in the 2024 budget.”

Still, Biederman added, “regardless, I don’t mind supporting the expediency of doing a study so that we know what we’re dealing with and how we can resolve the issue … if there’s toxins in the air, then we need to know about it.”

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