Monthly Archives: July 2024

Air quality monitoring, APCD, CDPHE, Environmental damage from O&G, General Environmental Reference, Larimer County Commissioners, Ozone pollution in Front Range

The Air Quality Forum & next steps

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written by Rick Casey with editorial assistance from Carol Hawkins


We had chosen Thursday, June 27, 2024, for the Air Quality Forum, an ambitious public meeting where the best experts and interested politicians would come together and discuss our current poor air quality and the possibilities for improving it. Another big step was to stream it live over a Zoom link, to allow remote viewers to watch and participate (or so we hoped).

Here is the poster that we had created for it (which was a joint effort by other Larimer Alliance volunteers):

Screenshot

After securing our five guest panelists, and reserving a prime meeting site (the auditorium at Fort Collins’ Old Town Library), and advertising the event to the extent possible (social media, posters in local bulletin boards, announcements to all available listservs, etc), we thought we were well prepared for an significant event that provide the public with good information on this weighty issue.

Then the bombshell landed a week before: the presidential debate, between Biden and Trump on the very same night….what are the odds? There was much deliberation within the Larimer Alliance steering committee on what to do…

In the end, we decided to go ahead. With our event scheduled to begin at 6, and the debate at 7, and because we were planning on live streaming it, we thought people could watch for the first hour, and then switch to the debate. What really weighed on our minds, though, would be the difficulty of rescheduling the event. Our five panelists all have busy lives, and the Old Town Library meeting room is not easy to reserve; and, of course, there was the busy summer vacation season we were entering to consider. This event was very important for us, and we had been planning it for months. So, in the end, we decided to go ahead as planned…though with trepidation for how many of the public would attend.

Nonetheless, we felt we were putting on a quality event. It would be the first time that two elected officials, both with a history of concern over our air quality, and three other experts on local air quality issues, would be on a panel discussing this issue in public.

As our panelists got settled in, and we were preparing to begin the meeting for all the public in attendance, I was discovering there was a certain amount of complexity to running a Zoom livestream, while also operating the nearby camera to project the panelists up on the screen. But the show must go on: I gave the go-ahead to Ed to begin the meeting, that some Zoom attendees had shown up, and that I had started the recording of the meeting….or so I thought:

Ed Behan hands off the microphone to Andrew Klooster, our first speaker

Meanwhile, each of the panelists in turn contributed their particular expertise and experience with the problem of our severe ozone air pollution in the Front Range — particularly here in Larimer County.

Earthworks: Andrew Klooster

Starting off was Andrew Klooster, who works as a full-time videographer and lobbyist for Earthworks (earthworks.org ), a nationwide non-profit dedicated to “ending oil & gas and mining pollution”. As a trained technician with an OGI (optical gas imaging) camera, he has filmed dozens of O&G emission violations, and reported many of them to the CDPHE as illegal violations. Unfortunately, these proven violations of their emissions permit are rarely followed up by inspectors from the Air Pollution Control Division (APCD).

Here are two examples of such videos that he shared in his presentation:

Below is a contrasted image that illuminates what is visible and invisible to the human eye, made visible by the OGI camera:

On the left is what you would see; but on the right is what the OGI image reveals. An OGI image can identify what types of gas are being emitted, such as methane or benzene; but it cannot capture the volume of the gas in question. Andrew revealed a big loophole which operators use to their advantage: operators are allowed to perform certain maintenance tasks which do not have to be reported as part of their permitted emissions. While performing such tasks, emissions can escalate dramatically, but without the least fear of being reported. Why the CDPHE allows such emissions to go unreported is a question that the CDPHE needs to explain.

All in all, given the lack of an enforcement action on the violations in the videos submitted by Earthworks, we have to conclude this is simple regulatory failure: the CDPHE and APCD are not protecting the public health as required by law. It has been allowed to continue for years, if not decades, and it is high time that it changes. This will only happen by raising the public awareness of this failure, and developing the political will to act, which was part of the purpose of this forum.

Physicians for Social Responsibility: Dr Correll

Next to speak was Dr. Cory Correll, who was present as a representative of the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), another nationwide non-profit that looks out for the public health. They have had a particular focus on the harms from fracking for nearly a decade, which they compile into annual reports: the ninth issue of Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas and Oil Infrastructure is available on their website.

Dr Correll emphasized how ozone affects people differently, and those more susceptible — the old, infants and persons with pre-existing lung conditions. The effect of ozone on the is somewhat like sunburn on your lungs; they get red and inflamed, like your skin getting burned by sunlight. One of Dr Correll’s slides compared a picture of the inside of healthy lung to a lung that was inflamed from ozone exposure; it was not a pretty sight, and was a graphic illustration of how excessive ozone causes direct human harm. Another slide showed the effect on vegetation. Plants that breathe in too much ozone develop a sickly yellow patches over its leaves, another unpleasant sight.

A recent study of the effects of proximity to O&G operations on the elderly was pointed out by Dr. Correll, which focused on older adults and women with atrial fibrillation. (see ‘Living near oil and gas sites in Colorado could make irregular heartbeat symptoms worse, CU study says‘ from Colorado Public Radio). The author, Dr. Lisa McKenzie of the CU Anschutz Medical Center School of Public Health, has done a number of public health studies related to fracking, and has become an authority on the topic.

In the opinion of the Larimer Alliance, what is really needed are periodic, broad based public health studies designed to capture the true cost to human health and the natural environment over time. Such studies need to be done where there is most fracking and the most people: Weld and Garfield counties. Perhaps the first step of such a study would be to conduct surveys that ask local residents how concerned they are and if they know of anyone who has been impacted by pollution from fracking. Given the prevalence of anecdotal evidence about this, it is surprising that such a study has yet to been done.

Air Quality Advisory Board: Mark Houdesheldt

The Air Quality Advisory Board is a volunteer group that advises the Fort Collins City Council, but has no legally binding influence over Council decisions. Mark has a PhD in astronomy and served as chair on the Air Quality Advisory Board for Fort Collins since January 2023 to June 2024, and as vice-chair since then. He gained valuable insights into how the board interacted with the Fort Collins City Council, and other local administrations, while there.

Mark’s input pointed out the difficulty of making progress on air quality based just on one city’s jurisdiction alone, due to the regional nature of the air quality. It must work together with other regional entities and coordinate its policies. This is a crucial insight, and a key lesson for the city and county staff that they need to build liaisons with their corresponding staff in other jurisdictions. We need this because we cannot depend on the CDPHE or the RAQC to improve our air quality; we need to build the political will to create regulatory reform, and to create the new legislation that will accomplish that.

Broomfield Council: Laurie Anderson

Laurie was elected to the Broomfield Council in 2023, and has resided in Broomfield since 2015, where she lives with her husband and five children. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota – Institute of Technology, and worked as an engineer in the private sector for several years. More recently, she has focused on serving her community by joining several non-profits, including Moms Clean Air Force, Colorado Communities for Climate Action (CC4CA), State Highway 7 Coalition, and US 287 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Coalition, Advisory Committee on Environmental Sustainability (ACES).

Of all the Broomfield Council members, she has had the most experience with their air quality monitoring program. Of the four jurisdictions that have installed Boulder AIR monitoring stations, Broomfield has had the most experience interfacing with the CDPHE, and dealing with the issue of getting them to accept this data as valid — an issue that is yet unresolved, but evolving. She gave detailed testimony of the trying issues that Broomfield has experienced in dealing with fracking and the air pollution it causes. See the video below for her comments about this.

Larimer County Commissioner: Jody Shadduck-McNally

Ms Shadduck-McNally was elected in 2020 in District 3 of the county, which is the southern portion that includes Loveland, Berthoud and Estes Park. Coming from a background in health care, she had an extensive record in public service, which can be found on the Larimer County website. Of the three county commissioners, she has been the most outspoken in the need to protect our environment from the harms of fossil fuels, attending past events hosted by the Larimer Alliance.

Commissioner Shadduck-McNally emphasized that the county has invested more resources in its air quality programs, and had added new content to the county website; the starting page for the county’s Air Quality Programs can be found at: https://www.larimer.gov/health/environmental-health/air-quality

Finally, the county has taken some actions on its own to improve air quality monitoring, which are listed on the above website, and reproduced here:

Screenshot

There were some technical difficulties…

Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with a live Zoom meeting, only the last half hour of forum was recorded; however, this was during the informative Q&A section, which you can view here:

The Q&A from Air Quality Forum held June 27, 2024

To aid in your understanding of the dialogue audio, I have prepared a transcript of the audio, which can be read here:

Transcript from Air Quality Forum, June 27, 2024

What were the take aways from the Forum?

What this public discussion accomplished was a public recognition of the following:

  • A serious ozone problem during the summer months due to being out of compliance with EPA standards
  • we have been out of compliance since 2004*
  • persons with respiratory issues suffer from this poor air quality but it is undocumented from a public health perspective
  • the state regulatory agencies responsible for issuing emission permits and enforcing penalties for violations have failed in their responsibility to protect our air quality
  • because we cannot rely on the current regulatory agencies for enforcement, the air quality staff in local jurisdictions should form their own communication channels on how best to coordinate local enforcement actions
  • EarthWorks has recorded videos of dozens of such violations which has not resulted in a single fine of the companies involved
  • A Larimer County Commissioner is interested in helping improve this situation
  • we need to petition our elected state representatives for regulatory reform of the ECMC, CDPHE and APCD that directly addresses the causes of ozone and other pollution from excessive O&G activity
  • as part of that reform, there should be new legislation developed that orders the APCD to stop issuing any new permits for O&G drilling until this region is within EPA attainment standards for our ozone levels

The Larimer Alliance hopes this information benefits the future public discussion of the issue, and hastens the day when it can be resolved.

* see: Parts of Colorado’s Front Range have topped ozone limits for nearly 20 years. Will they ever do better?, Colorado Sun, July 17, 2023

Air quality monitoring, APCD, CDPHE, CO state regulatory agencies, Environmental damage from O&G, General Environmental Reference, Ozone pollution in Front Range, SB-181

The Colorado Sun misses the mark

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or how the public continues to be confused over why our air pollution worsens…

This was a letter I sent to the Colorado Sun today in reaction to a misleading article about our ozone pollution problem..it is self-explanatory:

Re: the 7/9/24 story on “…hunt down one Colorado county’s toxic ozone producers” (by Michael Booth)

Dear Mr. Booth:

I am a subscribing member of the Colorado Sun, and am thankful that we have a reporter like you covering stories about the environment and regulatory enforcement. 

However, the story that was published today “Researchers are surveilling land, air and space to hunt down one Colorado county’s toxic ozone producers” is somewhat misleading. If you are seeking to inform the public about the most effective ways in which to identify the sources of ozone in Weld County, please read on. 

It is all well and good that Coloradoans are getting the assistance of federal agencies like NOAA’s aircraft and NASA’s satellites to help identify the worst sources of ozone precursors from O&G operations in Weld County. I have no doubt they will help…somewhat.

However, they will be one-time operations, which will not be a persistent tool that can be counted on to help us, month in and month out. The FRIPPE study which NOAA conducted back in 2014 was their last effort to assist Colorado in identifying the source of ozone precursors. It proved that O&G and vehicular exhaust both contribute, but did little to pinpoint specific operators in Weld County. Perhaps their efforts this time will do that; we shall see. 

What is needed, though, is a permanent, on-going ground-based monitoring effort, which is measuring our air quality on a continuous basis. The instruments need to be reliable enough on which to base a strong regulatory program that includes provisions for regulatory enforcement actions, including cease-&-desist orders. The technology for doing this certainly exists, and has been put into use in Boulder County, Longmont, Erie and Broomfield (Commerce City had one for a year around 2021 but closed it down for reasons discussed below). The state regulatory agency that is in charge of monitoring our air quality, and enforcing regulatory action, is the APCD (Air Pollution Control Division) within the CDPHE (Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment). 

It should interest us to learn why these four jurisdictions decided to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build their own air quality monitoring stations. They did so, starting in 2017, because of the distrust of these state agencies and the sincerity of their efforts; perhaps basic competency may have played a part as well. When the O&G industry had controlled the regulatory environment in this state for over half a century, it tends to have an effect on how well funded such regulatory efforts are. While SB-181, the historic law passed in 2019, did fundamentally change the mission of those regulations, there was nothing in that law that changed how much funding went into those regulatory changes; and certainly nothing about air quality monitoring. It is a problem that still needs to be corrected.

Unfortunately, the investment by these Front Range communities has not resulted in any improvement in our ozone pollution problem over the years. Why not? Shouldn’t this improved monitoring, and an abundance of data, have resulted in changes in state regulatory action? 

Sad to say, it has not. There has not been one iota of reduction in emissions pollution. In fact, dozens of violations of emission permits have been documented by Earthworks, filmed in action by their OGI field operators, all of which were submitted to the APCD, which has seldom taken any action to contact the operators about them. 

This lack of enforcement action by the APCD/CDPHE is slowly being recognized as the real impediment to progress on these environmental crimes. This was why the Green Latinos, who were instrumental in the acquisition of the continuous monitoring station that was in operation in Commerce City for a year around 2021, decided to shut it down. Even though they could have continued to operate it, they decided not to do so because their data was effectively ignored by these state agencies. Their refusal to continue to monitor should be recognized as a sign of protest against injustice: the injustice of these regulatory agencies to do their job, which is to protect our environment against such polluters. 

The Larimer Alliance, with whom I volunteer, has been trying to get a continuous monitoring station here in Larimer County. We want to understand where our ozone precursors are originating, which we strongly suspect are coming mostly from Weld County. If we can get a continuous monitoring station installed, and begin to quantify those precursors, we feel confident we will have the scientific data to prove this. 

But it will be of little avail if the state regulatory agencies do nothing with the data. And that will be our next political barrier to overcome, before we start to make progress on curbing our extreme ozone pollution. 

Sincerely, 

Rick Casey 

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