Boulder County, Superior sue Jefferson County over aircraft maneuvers
Boulder County and Superior filed suit Tuesday against Jefferson County, claiming the owner of the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport has created a “public nuisance” by not doing more to reduce noise pollution and lead contamination from planes flying over nearby neighborhoods.
The lawsuit specifically cites Jefferson County for not taking action against “touch-and-go” operations at the airport, during which a plane momentarily lands before taking off again — without stopping or leaving the runway.
The complaint states that touch-and-go maneuvers, which it attributes overwhelmingly to flight school planes, are done under maximum power and at a lower altitude than typical takeoffs, thus leading to “maximum lead and noise exposure” for those on the ground below.
“Jefferson County’s decision not to prohibit touch-and-go operations by piston-engine aircraft that overfly Plaintiffs’ residents constitutes a continuing public nuisance because such operations — which materially increase each year — unreasonably damage the safety, health and welfare of Plaintiffs’ residents,” the lawsuit reads.
The suit asks a judge to order Jefferson County to “abate the public nuisance” caused by the touch-and-go operations. The airport, which is owned by Jefferson County, saw nearly 300,000 takeoffs and landings in 2022.
“The problem has grown worse each year and Jefferson County has indicated it intends to expand the airport,” Superior Mayor Mark Lacis said Tuesday. “We need to stop this problem now before the town and Boulder County residents are irreparably harmed.”
But Cassie Pearce, a spokeswoman for Jefferson County, said in a statement that the county cannot legally order a reduction in touch-and-go operations at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.
“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,” she said.
Local and state governments are largely powerless to control or limit operations at airports, as that authority rests exclusively with the Federal Aviation Administration
The lawsuit, filed in Boulder County District Court, is the latest legal action taken around noise and lead contamination from piston-engine planes using Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. In December, more than 400 homeowners in Superior’s Rock Creek neighborhood sued Jefferson County on the claim that flights from the airport posed a hazard to their health and devalued their homes.
That suit came four years after the Rock Creek Homeowners’ Association sued the county, claiming the airport’s increased traffic had violated the facility’s 29 avigation easements — its right to fly over the neighborhood.
In Tuesday’s complaint, Boulder County and Superior contend that some touch-and-go operations can produce noise levels that are 1,000 times louder than ambient sound. And on the lead front, the suit notes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has concluded that there is no known safe level of lead in blood, especially in children.
Eighteen samples taken from windowsills and walls in Rock Creek homes last year all tested positive for lead, according to reporting by the Daily Camera newspaper, though it wasn’t definitively determined where the lead came from.
However, between May 2023 and January of this year, Pinyon Environmental Inc. was hired to test for lead in various locations throughout Superior, Louisville and Lafayette. The results revealed no sample readings that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
Even so, the federal government has a goal of eliminating leaded fuel in piston-engine aircraft by 2030. Last fall, Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport announced it planned to fully shift from the use of toxic leaded aviation gasoline to unleaded fuel at its facility within four years.
The issue hit the state legislature this session, with lawmakers introducing a bill that would reward aircraft owners who shift to unleaded fuel with a state income tax credit. The legislation would also allow state grants to be awarded to commercial and general aviation airports that help encourage the sale of unleaded aviation fuel at their facilities by installing the infrastructure to do so.