Superior residents urge legal action against Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport

SUPERIOR, Colo. — Residents in Superior are urging the town’s Board of Trustees to consider legal action against the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (RMMA), as frustrations continue to grow over traffic, noise, and safety concerns. An agenda for the board’s meeting on Monday shows an executive session with the town attorney scheduled on the topic.

Rachel Stanton, a resident of Superior who is among those pushing for more action against the airport, said it has become a “significant quality of life issue” for herself and many of her neighbors. Stanton moved into her current home, just a couple miles away from the airport, in 2017. She said she expected to see and hear planes, and “never minded” the noise she and her family experienced early on in their home. In the past few years, though, she said it has become substantially more disruptive.

“The increasing noise levels have become a huge issue. And things that are happening more frequently now are flights in the middle of the night—going into after midnight, 4:00 in the morning,” Stanton said. “I cannot sit outside on a nice day when any normal person would like to enjoy their backyard, or their front porch to have a cup of coffee. That’s not possible because the airplane traffic is so loud and so frequent.”

Stanton said the increase in traffic and noise, along with concerns over lead pollution from smaller planes taking off and landing from RMMA, have her and many of her neighbors fed up. The Rock Creek Homeowners Association in Superior sued the airport over noise complaints in late 2020, and the Colorado Court of Appeals last month affirmed a ruling that violations had occurred over parts of the neighborhood. There is now a growing push on Superior’s Board of Trustees to consider legal action at the municipal level.

Superior residents urge town to consider legal action against Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport

“My message to them is to look to pursue whatever you possibly can right now,” Stanton said. “This is not the time to be cautious. They need to be looking at every option.”

A representative for the town of Superior said there is no current legal action, and past conversations among the board have shown reservations against pursuing legal action. However, an agenda for its July 10th meeting has a scheduled closed-door meeting with the town attorney to “receive legal advice on specific legal questions … regarding Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.”

“It has been a while since the board has been able to speak collectively about the airport noise and lead concerns raised by Superior residents,” said Kevin Colón, Communications and Community Engagement Manager for the town of Superior, in an email to Denver7. “They will be taking this time to look at the issues in a broad sense. Noise, lead, RMMA community noise roundtable discussions, new maps being evaluated for possible flight path changes, etc.”

Denver7 reached out to RMMA’s director Paul Anslow, who said he would wait to comment until specifics on possible legal action are known.