Protesters want help reining in noise, lead pollution from small planes at Long Beach Airport

About 100 residents took to the street on Thursday as they escalated their push to reduce noise and lead pollution from small plane flights at Long Beach Airport.

The group gathered on Spring Street outside the airport to demand new limits on flight schools and other operators flying an increasing number of small planes out of LGB.

The small aircraft circling over neighborhoods not only disrupt daily life with frequent noise, they’re also a health risk because most of them still use leaded gasoline, which spews dangerous emissions, according to protest organizers from the group Small Aircraft NoisE Reduction group, which goes by SANER.

“We want it stopped,” one of SANER’s leaders, Lisa Dunn, said about the pollution.

SANER has been pushing city leaders to do something about small-plane noise since last summer when factors like a shortage of commercial pilots led to a surge in flight school operations and other non-commercial flights at LGB.

Long Beach city officials have said their hands are tied in this situation. Because the airport receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, the city would have to return that money or seek FAA approvals to implement any new noise regulations.

In the absence of being able to put in new rules, the city says it’s pursuing solutions like offering incentives to use unleaded fuel and seeking voluntary agreements with flight schools to reduce noise. 

Another SANER organizer, John Mosquera, called for the federal government to step in and give Long Beach the tools to regulate its own airport.

They’ve also encouraged residents affected by the noise and lead pollution to keep the pressure on by complaining. In the month of March alone, a little more than 100 households in the neighborhoods around the airport submitted over 30,000 complaints about noise, according to a recent city memo.

Staff member Thomas R. Cordova contributed to this report.