Atmospheric lead monitoring at Moorabbin Airport, Melbourne, Australia
Creators: name: ANELE, ONYEGBULEM HARRISON
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 370108
subject: Meteorology
classificationCode: 370199
subject: Atmospheric sciences not elsewhere classified
classificationCode: 4104
subject: Environmental management
classificationCode: 410404
subject: Environmental management

description: There is ample evidence to show that any lead in the atmosphere affects human beings to some degree. Consequently, the use of leaded fuel was been banned for use in motor vehicles in 1996. However, leaded aviation fuel is still used for piston engine aircraft and is now the largest contributor of lead to the atmosphere in the USA; data for Australia are not available. There have been a few studies on the concentrations of lead in the atmosphere near airports in the USA, but none have been conducted in Australia. This is the first study to do so. Moorabbin Airport was selected for the study as it is one of the busiest airports of its type in the Southern Hemisphere, with between 200, 000 and 300,000 aircraft movements a year, with most of those being piston engine aircraft using leaded aviation fuel.<br>This study compared the concentration of lead in the atmosphere around Moorabbin Airport with 2 other sites in Melbourne with no known sources of lead emissions close by. The three sites selected for this study were Moorabbin Airport, Footscray and Alphington; each site was chosen because it represented a different environment from the others, and combined, they formed a representative cross-section of Melbourne based on their location to sources of lead.<br>Samples were collected on quartz filter papers using a PM10 head mounted on a high volume sampler at these three sites, on a six day interval. The filters were digested in 3 M nitric acid to extract the lead, and the extract was analyzed using ICP-MS. The concentration of lead from the sampling done at Moorabbin Airport was also compared with the predicted concentrations from the output of modelling programs: HYSPLIT (dispersion modelling) and AERMOD.<br>It was observed that the average lead concentration at Moorabbin Airport (0.006 μg/m3) was six times higher than the average at the other two sites at Footscray (0.001 μg/m3) and Alphington (0.001 μg/m3). The highest lead concentration observed at Moorabbin Airport was six and twelve times higher than at Footscray and Alphington, respectively, while the lowest lead concentration measured at Moorabbin Airport was similar to the other two sites. However, the results are based on only 7 samples, since the management of Moorabbin Airport, did not want the project to continue on their site. Nevertheless, despite the small number of samples, it was observed from the wind trajectory and wind rose modelling for Moorabbin Airport, that the days when higher concentrations of lead were collected, were the days when the air movement was from the airport runways towards the location of the sampler. Also, six out of the seven concentration values of the Hi Vol sampling and the AERMOD Modelling estimates were similar.<br>Based on these findings, it was concluded that the higher concentrations of lead at Moorabbin Airport were a result of the leaded aviation fuel used in piston-engine aircraft. However, they are well below the current the Australian NEPM and US Environmental Protection Agency permissible limits of 0.15 μg/m3 and 0.50 μg/m3 of air for three months rolling average, respectively. The samples from Moorabbin Airport were also collected within a few hundred meters of the runway, so it was expected that the concentrations would be elevated. Modelling data indicated that the concentrations in the residential areas on the sampling days should have been close to background levels. Nevertheless, if piston engine aircraft continue to use leaded aviation fuel, it is recommended that periodic monitoring for lead should be carried out at Moorabbin Airport, particularly in the light of plans to significantly increase the capacity of the airport.