Boulder County and the town of Superior are suing Jefferson County and the acting director of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, Stephanie Corbo, in an attempt to reduce aircraft noise and protect residents from lead exposure.
Superior and Boulder County government officials say increasing operations at the airport near Broomfield, especially training flights for student pilots, are causing excessive noise, dropping leaded fuel over their residents’ homes, and threatening their “health, safety and welfare.”
The lawsuit also accuses Jefferson County of not acting in good faith at a series of board meetings called Community Noise Roundtables convened in 2021 to address noise issues.
As evidence, the lawsuit includes quotes from former airport director Paul Anslow, who was investigated over allegations last year he privately belittled residents who were concerned about airport operations.
According to a transcript of a private 2021 conversation KUNC News obtained from Jefferson County through an open records request, Anslow called nearby residents concerned about airport operations “nut jobs” and said he wanted nearby governments to “waste their money and time” trying to mitigate noise.
Anslow was also quoted in the transcript predicting the Noise Roundtable meetings would not result in meaningful change.
“It will probably take five years, and a couple hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer’s money that’s wasted, and I get to sit there and be like, ‘Hey we support this, we do anything we can to help (with) noise,’” Anslow is quoted as saying.
Anslow’s comments were revealed publicly by a KUNC News investigation.
Get top headlines and KUNC reporting directly to your mailbox each week when you subscribe to In The NoCo.
Officials in Boulder County and Superior said they're choosing to go to court because they've "exhausted" all other options trying to protect their residents from airport operations.
“For years, we have asked Superior residents to be patient while we worked with Jefferson County to address the noise and lead pollution coming from RMMA,” Superior Mayor Marc Lacis said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “But now we know that Jefferson County did not take this issue seriously and went so far as to mock our residents’ legitimate concerns. Our residents have had enough. Jefferson County knows there is a problem and they could solve it immediately by eliminating touch-and-go operations by piston-engine aircraft.”
Touch-and-go operations refer to training flights where a pilot will land and immediately take off again without stopping the plane. The lawsuit asks the court to intervene and force the airport to stop those touch-and-gos.
Hundreds of residents in northern Colorado have complained about the impact of flight noise in recent years at public meetings. They’ve also raised concerns about exposure to lead emissions from planes that still use the toxin in their fuel.
The issue has reached the state Capitol, where lawmakers are currently advancing a bill to financially incentivize airports to switch to unleaded fuel and reduce their noise impacts.
Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport announced last year it was starting the process of transitioning to unleaded fuel ahead of the federal government's goal of eliminating it by 2030.
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Jefferson County defended its efforts to reduce the airport’s impacts on surrounding communities.
“Federally-funded airports such as RMMA are subject to federal laws that require the airport to be available to aircraft operations, including those using leaded fuel, those that make noise, and those engaged in touch-and-go and similar operations,” the county said. “It is not a legal option for the airport to mandate a reduction in those operations. The County believes that the Community Noise Roundtable is a valuable venue for these discussions and will continue to work with community members to address their concerns where viable and legal options exist.”
