Broomfield to depart noise board as pressure on Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport mounts

BROOMFIELD — Officials in Broomfield chose to hit the eject button this week and bail on the  Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport Community Noise Roundtable.

In an unanimous vote, Broomfield City Council members gave the roundtable, an advisory board made up of local government officials from Jefferson, Broomfield and Boulder counties formed to address noise concerns from neighbors in communities surrounding RMMA, the required 30-day notice that Broomfield will no longer participate. Furthermore, Broomfield leaders said they will support dissolving the roundtable entirely should a vote of the full roundtable membership occur during that 30-day period. 

City Councilman Deven Shaff, who also serves as chairman of the roundtable, said he “will be echoing these same sentiments at our meeting next week,” when roundtable members are expected to vote on dissolving the organization. That CNR meeting is scheduled for April 4.

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Broomfield’s decision to take its ball and go home comes amid increasing pressure on the roundtable, airport administration and leaders in the Jefferson County government, which owns the Broomfield-based RMMA, from neighbors who say they are sick of the loud noises and pollution that emanate from the airport.

“We do have residents … who are seriously affected by this,” Broomfield City Councilwoman Paloma Delgadillo said.

Officials in Boulder County and Superior sued their counterparts in Jefferson County this month over their alleged inaction to limit the impacts of noise and lead pollution from operations at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.

The lawsuit, which notably does not seek monetary damages, was filed in Boulder County District Court in an effort by Boulder County and Superior leaders to “protect their residents from negative and unreasonable health impacts,” the plaintiffs said in a news release. 

The legal move comes, the plaintiffs said, after several years of work by Community Noise Roundtable failed to deliver satisfactory results for neighbors who live in close proximity to RMMA.

Rather than monetary damages, the “plaintiffs seek preliminary and permanent injunctions requiring Jefferson County to abate the public nuisance caused by piston-engine aircraft performing ‘touch and go’ operations on Runway 30L and Runway 30R at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport,” according to the complaint. “These operations deposit unsafe levels of lead particulates on plaintiffs and expose plaintiffs’ residents to repeated and excessive noise and thus create unreasonable health and safety hazards for their residents, constitute a public nuisance, and must be enjoined.”

Touch-and-goes are a common maneuver performed by piston-engine aircraft, which, according to Superior and Boulder County, are “the only type of aircraft still using fuel containing lead,” during pilot-training flights.

Jefferson County officials, in a statement emailed to BizWest in mid-March, said, “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. 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.”

Broomfield officials appear to disagree that the CNR is a “valuable venue.”

A roundtable has “no legal authority” to enact operational changes at the airport, Broomfield city attorney Nancy Rodgers said.

City Councilman Todd Cohen called participation in the board a “toothless exercise,” while Delgadillo said it is “nice to have a seat at the table, but maybe that (seat) was never real” if recommendations from Broomfield roundtable representatives weren’t taken seriously by the airport’s Jefferson County ownership and management officials. 

The dispute between RMMA leadership and residents and elected leaders in nearby communities has been a source of conflict around the Broomfield airport for years. 

Westminster officials considered abandoning the Community Noise Roundtable this year before a slim 4-3 majority of the Westminster City Council members voted to remain part of the regional body, whose voting members include representatives from Westminster, Louisville, Lafayette, Superior, Broomfield, Arvada, Boulder County and Jefferson County.

That vote came after KUNC published transcripts of private conversations during which former RMMA director Paul Anslow, who left his position in late 2023, belittled the work of the roundtable and referred to those who complain about noise as “nut jobs.”

While Anslow had his defenders — six members of an RMMA advisory board resigned in protest after he left his job, according to KUNC — those comments appear to have struck a nerve.

“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. 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,” Superior Mayor Mark Lacis said in a prepared statement when the lawsuit was filed this month. “Jefferson County knows there is a problem, and it could solve it immediately by eliminating touch-and-go operations by piston-engine aircraft. If Jefferson County won’t abate this nuisance voluntarily, we’ll have the courts require it.”

The lawsuit from the Boulder County and Superior governments came just a few months after more than 400 Superior homeowners sued Jefferson County, alleging that noise and pollution from RMMA have devalued their homes. 

When Broomfield leaves the CNR, Broomfield deputy city manager Don Davis suggested that the best way for Broomfield residents and leaders to have their voices heard on RMMA-related issues, aside, perhaps, from following Boulder County and Superior’s lead and taking the matter to court, could be to speak with the region’s elected officials in Washington, who would then lobby federal agencies such as Federal Aviation Administration to make changes at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.