[Commentary] Denver Metro Now Ranked 6th Smoggiest
Air Quality Not Just About The ‘Brand’
By Andy Keiser
Special to the GPHN
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Three thousand gallons. That’s how much air a person breathes every day. That’s roughly 30,000 breaths, filtered through your lungs each and every day. Each breath drawn in and out of an ecosystem no less delicate than any on Earth.
So I was understandably dismayed when I read the report last month, published by the Frontier Group and the Environment America Research & Policy Center, listing Denver as the sixth smoggiest metro area in the United States.
Surely, I thought, this must be some kind of mistake. After all, Colorado is the land of clean mountain air. Even our own Gov. Hickenlooper, when asked about President Trump’s loosened environmental regulations, affirmed that clean air “continues to be an important part of Colorado’s brand.” But does the reality match the branding? I soon discovered that the answer wasn’t so simple.
Remember the brown cloud?
Longtime residents of Denver who remember the notorious “brown cloud” of carbon monoxide and other pollutants that hung over downtown Denver throughout much of the 1980’s and 90’s were perhaps less shocked than I was to discover that Denver still has problems with air quality. They might also still be under the impression that Denver is making gains in a positive direction.
Indeed, that is the position maintained by many Denver officials including the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE), the state agency tasked with ensuring clean air throughout the state. As recently as last September, a senior air quality official with CDPHE was quoted as saying that he thinks “Denver has good air quality.”
To be sure, Denver has made great strides in cleaning up pollutants like carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide over the past 30 years, but ozone levels remain a major challenge. In fact, Colorado was out of compliance with federal ozone regulations even before those regulations were tightened last November.
CDPHE maintains that Denver is on pace to reach compliance by the end of 2020, but critics point out that this goal is unlikely to be attained without further regulations on oil and gas, something the state agency has said they won’t pursue.
In addition to the latest report ranking Denver as 6th most polluted, both the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Lung Association (ALA) have voiced concern over Denver’s worsening ozone and small particle pollution. All indications show the positive trends from decades past have reversed.
The EPA is currently in the process of downgrading Denver from a “marginal” violator of clean air laws to a “moderate” violator. Over the last few years, Denver has seen its rating from the American Lung Association steadily rise from 26th most polluted city to 13th – and then to 8th most polluted. Indeed, in my research I could not find any person or agency without a vested interest in Denver’s “brand” who didn’t think air quality in our city was getting worse.
In our backyard
This should be of concern to Park Hill residents for a couple of reasons. First, there is no safe amount of exposure to ozone or small particle pollution. While it affects children and the elderly disproportionately, the harmful health effects are felt by everyone. Those include stinging eyes, tightening of the chest, a burning feeling in the lungs, and shortness of breath. They are also cumulative in nature, meaning that even if you are otherwise healthy, your lungs could be permanently damaged by exposure to Denver’s polluted air.
Secondly, Park Hill may be at greater risk than other parts of Denver due to our proximity to DIA, Interstate 70, and the Suncor refinery just a few miles to the northwest. Recently, on two separate occasions, Suncor leaked massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere above Northeast Denver. While CHPHE maintains that there were no negative health effects from this contamination, it’s also true that there is not a single air quality monitoring station between Suncor and Park Hill.
As a result, neither CDPHE nor any other agency can say with certainty exactly what the quality of our air is here in Park Hill without further study. One thing we do know for certain is that incidences of asthma-related emergency room visits increase dramatically as you travel towards I-70 and Suncor.
Gov. Hickenlooper pledged last August to issue an executive order to seek a one-third cut in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. This would have gone a long way towards cleaning up Suncor and the air in Northeast Denver. After the election, however, he backed away from issuing the order, perhaps because the fight would be too costly politically.
To be sure, there are vested interests fighting hard every day to ward off regulations like this. The time has come for all of us to send a message to Gov. Hickenlooper that the fight is not too hard because we will be there fighting right alongside him. Please consider calling the governor’s office today at (303) 866-2885 to tell him not to cave to the pressures of the oil and gas industry but instead to enact common sense regulations to keep us and our children safe. Let him know that clean air is more than just a brand.
Andy Keiser is a nonprofit professional, writer, and advocate living in Park Hill. His areas of interest include education and the environment. You can usually find him riding his gigantic bicycle around Park Hill with his daughters or you can reach him at (720) 255-7772.