What’s your plan for YPK airport – should activity increase, hold, or decline?
Every candidate for local government should answer that question heading into our fall elections.
Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge councils appoint the airport board, and the board sets the direction for how the airport operates. That responsibility was made clear at March meetings of both councils, where airport general manager Guy Miller explained he was hired with a clear mandate to grow the airport — and that’s exactly what he did.
READ MORE: Pitt Meadows Airport attracting millions in investment
Flight activity at YPK doubled during the past decade. There were about 106,000 more take-offs or landings in 2025 than in 2015.
Not all of that growth is under the airport’s control. About 40 per cent of flights come from elsewhere.
But activity that begins and ends at YPK – the part the airport management can influence – has also increased by more than 100 per cent, or roughly 64,000 flight movements. That’s one extra local plane overhead every six minutes during operating hours.
Current council members in Pitt Meadows see this as progress, noting at the March 31 meeting that the airport was previously underused. That may be true. But not all growth is good growth.
There’s a big difference between growing into the airport of the future – and growing by doubling down on the past.
A forward-looking vision would embrace cleaner aviation: unleaded fuel and electrification for small aircraft, sustainable aviation fuel for jets, and the high-tech industries and good-paying jobs that will power the future of flight.
But much of YPK’s recent growth has its roots in the past. The airport now hosts 10 flight schools that rely on planes that burn leaded fuel – a type of fuel banned from cars in 1990 because of its well-known health risks.
Lead is dangerous, especially for children. Even low levels of exposure are linked to impacts on brain development. Studies near similar airports have found higher blood-lead levels in children living nearby, particularly those downwind.
AI-assisted estimates suggest that the increase in flights at YPK adds the equivalent of more than 7,000 car tanks of leaded fuel into local air each year. This lead settles onto our yards, schools, playgrounds and farmland.
If these estimates hold, it would be like scattering millions of toys with unsafe lead levels across the places where children in Pitt Meadows live and play.
And yet, there is no regular monitoring of lead around YPK.
There is some good news. The airport does plan to study its carbon emissions.
I encourage Mr. Miller to examine pollution more generally – including the serious health risk linked to lead pollution.
And let’s not overlook the noise pollution from flight school planes – the same aircraft that burn leaded fuel.
As one neighbour wrote to council: “It’s to the point where I can barely sit on my deck and socialize… without having to shout over airplane noise every five minutes.”
For all these reasons, voters should be asking candidates: what’s the plan now?
Do we keep expanding activity based on older, polluting technology? Or do we chart a course for YPK that protects health and reflects the future of aviation?
.
– Dr. Paul Kershaw is a policy professor in UBC’s School of Population Health, and a resident of Pitt Meadows since 2004. He welcomes reader feedback at paul.kershaw@ubc.ca
PAST GUEST COLUMN:
GUEST SHOT: Pitt Meadows airport traffic is booming
RELATED:
LETTER: Environmental harm comes with airport expansion
and
LETTER: Airplane noise progressively worsening
and