Last week the Broomfield City Council voted unanimously to leave the Community Noise Roundtable, a coalition of local communities working to address noise issues at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. The move comes after Boulder County, the town of Superior and hundreds of area residents filed lawsuits against Jefferson County, which owns the airport.
Chris Wood, publisher and editor at BizWest, joined KUNC’s Nikole Robinson Carroll to dig into the story.
The airport, which was previously called Jefferson County Airport, is located near U.S. Highway 36 and first opened in 1960.
“It is actually owned by Jefferson County, even though parts of it sit within the city and county of Broomfield,” Wood said. “It's considered a 'reliever airport,' meaning that it helps relieve traffic and congestion at the far larger Denver International Airport.”
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Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport also houses flight school instruction for fixed- and rotor-wing aircraft and stores high-end corporate aircraft, air taxis, military and firefighting aircraft.
“The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) does consider the airport a challenge for pilots and controllers, because it has kind of a complex layout,” Wood told KUNC. “In terms of traffic, it has seen substantial growth. In 2019, pre-COVID, the airport had about 191,000 flight operations, but that increased to about 282,000 last year.”
Communities around the airport have seen a lot of recent growth. Superior, Arvada, and Louisville have all seen their populations increase significantly.
“And those communities are all—and along with Westminster, Boulder County and Jefferson County—are all part of this roundtable,” Wood said. “The (Broomfield) council members believe that it was ineffective in addressing issues of noise, and one city council member described the round table as a 'toothless' exercise.”
Litigation is at play now as well.
“At first, 400 residents of Superior filed suit in December against Jefferson County over noise and pollution issues,” Wood told KUNC. “They also claim that their property values are being lowered because of those issues. And just last month, Boulder County and Superior filed suit against Jefferson County and the airport over the county's alleged inaction on responding to noise and pollution complaints."
Jefferson County officials say airports like Rocky Mountain are federally funded. As a result, they are subject to federal laws with availability requirements for aircraft operations, including those using leaded fuel. While residents are concerned about lead pollution and noise, officials say they are still seeking legal options for the airport to mandate a reduction in operations.
