A group trying to shield northern Colorado residents from noise at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport might try to move some flight routes away from their neighborhood airspace to over less populated areas.
One idea under review by the airport's Community Noise Roundtable aims to reduce noise by altering a currently-recommended daytime flight pattern for planes taking off from the airport. The proposed updated flight pattern would direct more planes to turn toward open space in Boulder County instead of neighborhoods in Superior during takeoff. Specifically, it would direct planes to fly over the Coalton Trailhead, a county trail that provides access to the Meadowlark Trail and rolling grasslands in southern Boulder County.
Superior Town Council Trustee Jason Serbu pitched the idea last week to the airport’s Community Noise Roundtable, a board representing eight northern Colorado governments whose residents are affected by increasing air traffic.
Serbu said the new flight path would reduce noise by having planes make their crosswind turns at a higher altitude and over less populated areas.
“It’s gonna give relief to the town of Superior, and also Broomfield and Westminster,” he said.
Serbu said he talked with flight schools, the Federal Aviation Administration and air traffic controllers in recent months to develop the plan. The proposal primarily aims to address noise from flights known as "touch and goes," he said, a training maneuver where a pilot makes a loop and lands and takes off again without stopping.
A vote to advance Serbu’s flight path proposal was postponed until next month, though, after it became clear not all nearby governments were ready to endorse the idea.
Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann, for one, raised several questions. Citing a review of current flight data, she questioned Serbu’s claims that planes would be able to make crosswind turns over the open space at higher altitudes.
Stolzmann told KUNC News on Tuesday she’s also seeking community feedback before deciding whether to endorse the flight path recommendation. She worries it might only solve noise for one small part of the region without addressing bigger drivers like airport growth.
“I think it has some promise, but it's not going to be the magic solution that fixes the whole problem,” she said. “We have a tremendous problem over unincorporated Boulder County, over Louisville, over Lafayette, and this will have no effect on any of that.”
Stolzmann also raised concerns about another issue unrelated to noise: water quality.
“The new route pushes more traffic closer to some water sources: Superior’s water treatment plant, Louisville’s water treatment plant, and Marshall Lake,” she said. “We previously in the noise roundtable had adopted a principle that we were going to avoid (flight paths) near drinking water when possible.”
Stolzmann said she also plans to look into whether the proposed shift in flight routes would negatively impact other residents in Boulder County, including the hundreds who sued Jefferson County late last month over aircraft noise and air pollution.
Finally, she said she wanted to review any potential impacts a new flight pattern could have on the open space.
“That property is already significantly impacted by (Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport), so it’s important to understand how this would change the impact there,” she said.
In a separate vote during the same meeting, the Community Noise Roundtable rejected an idea proposed by some of its representatives to appoint a resident affected by aircraft noise pollution to a new panel charged with selecting a company to carry out an airport noise study.
The study, known as a Part 150, will include efforts to map noise levels around the airport and recommend programs to mitigate noise. Representatives from Boulder County, Jefferson County and Lafayette voted during the meeting to include a resident in the process of selecting the study consultant, but were ultimately overpowered by "no" votes from representatives for Westminster, Superior, Louisville, Arvada and Broomfield.
Arvada City Council member John Marriott said having a community member involved could “slow down” the process of starting the study.
“I don't see this as the place where there's any value added to the community, or to the group, or to the selection process by adding a community member to it,” he said.
Some residents who spoke during public comment earlier in the roundtable meeting called for more citizen involvement in the efforts to reduce noise. Bri Lehman, a Lafayette resident and member of a community group that calls for local airports to reduce their noise and environmental impacts, said she was disappointed by the vote to keep a resident off the noise study selection panel.
“The assumption that a citizen is somehow detrimental to the process is a problematic assumption in my mind,” she said.
She said having a resident involved could bring more accountability to the noise study itself.
Meanwhile, Jefferson County hired a search firm last week to help find it's next airport director at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan. Former airport director Paul Anslow suddenly departed in November.
A KUNC News investigation revealed that days before Anslow left, county officials received evidence he privately called residents concerned about airport operations "nut jobs," downplayed concerns about lead pollution from airplane exhaust, and said he wanted neighboring governments to “waste their time and money” fruitlessly trying to mitigate concerns about airport noise.
