After a pleasant days-long stretch of warm weather often eclipsing the 70-degree mark, northern Colorado and metro Denver will see quite a change in conditions starting Friday night.
Instead of breaking records for heat, temperatures will drop substantially and snow will begin falling in the far northern mountains tonight, spreading southward into the Interstate 70 mountain corridor and Summit County by late Saturday afternoon.
By late Saturday night, the National Weather Service predicts areas of snow to develop along the Interstate 25 corridor and along the adjoining eastern plains, with travel impacts continuing into Sunday morning. Some of those areas of snow could start out as rain earlier Saturday evening before turning to snow.
Just how severe those travel impacts will be in metro Denver are still in question.
“There is considerable uncertainty with regard to the amount of snow, since we anticipate bands of snow,” according to a weather service bulletin issued Friday afternoon for the metro area. “Thus, some areas may receive very little or no snow, while others get a few inches.”
Higher amounts of snow are assured for some of Colorado’s northern mountains, with the National Weather Service forecasting around 10 inches for Winter Park, 5 inches for Breckenridge and half a foot of the white stuff for Keystone. The predicted weekend snowfall for some of Colorado’s snow-starved ski resorts will come as welcome news to an industry that has seen a decidedly dry start to the season.
Meteorologists are calling for a low of 20 degrees Saturday night, a low of 14 degrees Sunday night and a low of 21 degrees Monday night in the metro area. But by Tuesday and towards New Year’s Day, temperatures will top out in the 40s and 50s with little precipitation expected.
A plane’s autonomous landing system took over and landed the aircraft at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield on Saturday.
The plane successfully landed while being piloted by Autoland, an autonomous emergency landing system made by Garmin International, according to a statement from Mikayla Rudolph, a senior public relations specialist for the technology company known for its GPS tech.
The statement did not specify why the autonomous landing system engaged.
Rudolph noted that this is the first time the system has landed a plane.said in the statement that it will release more information at the “appropriate time.”
Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport is aware of the autonomous landing, according to Sydny Boyd, a spokesperson for the airport. The plane landed safely, Boyd said, but declined to comment further.
State Sen. Faith Winter was a fierce and relentless advocate for Colorado’s families, climate and transportation who forever altered the state’s political landscape by fighting to make it a better place to live, her friends and colleagues said Thursday.
Winter’s death was confirmed late Wednesday by Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leaders, and Polis ordered flags be lowered to half-staff in her honor on the day of her memorial service, which has not been announced.
“Our state is shaken by the loss of Senator Faith Winter, and I send my deepest condolences to her children, loved ones, friends, and colleagues across our state,” Polis said in a statement.
“I have had the honor of working with her on many issues to improve the lives of every person and family in our great state and tackling climate change. I am deeply saddened for her family, her friends and colleagues and her community. Faith’s work and advocacy made Colorado a better state.”
The Arapahoe County coroner’s office on Thursday confirmed Winter was killed in the crash, which also injured three others and closed northbound I-25 for more than five hours Wednesday night.
The cause of the crash is under investigation, and additional information likely will not be released until next week, Arapahoe County sheriff’s Deputy John Bartmann said Thursday. No one has been cited or arrested in connection with the crash.
Winter’s 10-year career in the statehouse exemplified her deep passion for making the lives of everyday Coloradans better as well as her remarkable resilience in the face of adversity, friends and colleagues told The Denver Post.
A Democrat from Broomfield, Winter served in the House from 2015 to 2019, moving over to the Senate after she won a seat in 2018. She also served on the Westminster City Council earlier in her career.
Winter was a driving force behind bringing paid family leave to Colorado; passing a massive 2021 transportation bill to improve the state’s roadways and expand transit options; and strengthening protections against workplace harassment, among many other initiatives.
“Faith was a deeply complex person, and she moved through multiple challenges with grace and remained dedicated to the work she was doing,” state Sen. Lisa Cutter said in an interview Thursday. “She believed in the work she was doing, believed in the power of friendship and connection and will always live on that way and certainly live on in my heart.”
Winter led the way in addressing sexual harassment in Colorado workplaces as well as her own workplace — the halls and chambers of the Capitol.
Her allegations against former state Rep. Steve Lebsock were followed by similar sexual harassment complaints from other women, leading to his expulsion from the House in 2018.
“I was always proud to stand by her side in moments when she was trying to change the culture of the Capitol,” Garnett said. “She was a leader in that space.”
Garnett met Winter as the two ran and won seats in the House of Representatives and described her as a leader among their class of state lawmakers.
“She understood the Capitol better than most,” Garnett said. “When we started, the legislature was very different: We were in split chambers with a small majority, and she knew how to work across the aisle to get some of her stuff through.”
Winter also knew when to take a stand, Garnett said, including running a paid family leave bill she knew would not pass the Republican-controlled state Senate to get legislators, the media and public talking about the issue.
Garnett was so inspired by Winter’s passion for paid family leave that he accidentally announced that his wife, Emily, was pregnant while speaking on the issue from the floor of the House.
“Somebody tweeted it and my wife texted me and asked, ‘Did you just announce I was pregnant on the floor of the House?’” Garnett said, laughing. “I told her I was so moved by Faith, I had to do it.”
Winter also cared deeply for those around her, from her family, including children Sienna and Tobin, to her friends and colleagues at the statehouse. The Capitol could be a lonely place, and Winter was intentional about connecting with people, whether through soup-making parties or field trips to pick sunflowers, Cutter said.
Flowers brought Winter deep joy, and she was known for keeping a tiny vase of flowers on her desk that she would arrange on Monday mornings and leaving single buds or tiny flower arrangements on the desks of her colleagues.
“She had a tremendous heart,” Cutter said. “I don’t know where she found the energy to do all that. I really don’t.”
Winter also faced several personal challenges, including an ethics complaint for appearing intoxicated at a Northglenn community meeting in 2024, which caused her to seek treatment for a substance use disorder.
Winter’s death caused an outpouring of grief from Colorado’s local, state and federal elected officials on Wednesday night and Thursday.
In a statement Wednesday night, Senate President James Coleman and Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez said they were “devastated” by her passing.
“Whether fighting for legislation to support mothers and families, championing groundbreaking transit policy, or simply supporting constituents in moments of need, she brought thoughtfulness, innovation, and humility to every aspect of her work,” they said in a joint statement.
Sen. Cleave Simpson, the Republican caucus leader in the chamber, said in a statement posted to X that Winter’s legacy was “one of courage, kindness and unity.”
“Senator Winter was not only a dedicated public servant but also a bridge builder,” Simpson said. “She worked tirelessly with colleagues across the aisle, forging strong partnerships with her Republican counterparts. Her ability to listen, collaborate and find common ground reflected her deep commitment to the people she served and to the integrity of the legislative process.”
House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Majority Leader Monica Duran, both Democrats, said in a statement that Winter “always fought for Colorado’s most vulnerable. Her bravery brought necessary reforms to the Capitol, and her kindness filled the building. We will all miss her dearly.”
They extended condolences to Winter’s family, including her children, as well as to former state Rep. Matt Gray, a fellow Democrat to whom she was engaged.
WESTMINSTER, Colo. — For the past five years, the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office has been searching for a way to bring resources and support to domestic violence survivors and their families under one roof.
Finally, the office has found a temporary home for its Family Justice Center inside a suite of offices at the Adams County Human Services Center in Westminster — a space officials believe has the power to save lives.
“This is an important milestone. We’ve got a lot more work to do, but this, today’s milestone, is worthy of celebration,” said 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason, who represents both Adams and Broomfield counties. “The need to serve victims of domestic violence exists now. It existed yesterday. It existed five years ago. And so, we wanted to find, first, a place where we could open a Family Justice Center as soon as possible in a temporary location.”
Mason announced the update to a room filled with people, many wearing small purple ribbons as a sign of domestic violence awareness.
Jordan Ward
District Attorney Brian Mason explains the work that led to the Family Justice Center on Monday.
Mason said when he first became district attorney, he started the Special Victims Unit, which focuses exclusively on domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking cases. Next, he created the Domestic Violence High-Risk Team, which reviews reports from law enforcement about domestic violence and searches for what contributed to cases becoming deadly.
“The Domestic Violence High-Risk Team is already a success story in this community. And back in 2021 and 2022, we sought a grant through our federal government,” Mason told the crowd. “We succeeded, for the first time, in getting what, for us, was a historic grant of $2 million to fund the Domestic Violence High-Risk Team and to serve victims of domestic violence here in the 17th Judicial District.”
Mason said he felt more had to be done.
“The most dangerous time in the life of a victim of domestic violence is when she is trying to get out — that’s when the most domestic violence homicides occur. And yet, right now, we put up countless barriers to victims and survivors of domestic violence for them to get the services that they need,” Mason said. “A hypothetical victim of domestic violence in Commerce City has to travel 300 miles to get the services that she needs. That alone is an enormous barrier for victims of domestic violence to get help, and it doesn’t include the hours that they have to spend at all the places that they go.”
Jordan Ward
District Attorney Brian Mason explains what the future Family Justice Center will look like.
Child care, housing assistance, legal services, counseling, and safety planning are all examples of the needs someone trapped in the cycle of domestic violence may want to access. That’s where the Family Justice Center steps in to help, according to Mason.
“Every single jurisdiction with a Family Justice Center has seen their domestic violence homicides go down, and there actually aren’t that many of them,” Mason said. “There are about 150 nationwide, and in a country of 300 million people, that’s not a lot.”
According to Mason, this Family Justice Center would be the third in Colorado. There are similar facilities at the Rose Andom Center in Denver and PorchLight in Lakewood.
Roughly two years ago, Mason said several stakeholders and those who have worked on other Family Justice Centers gathered for a listening session to evaluate the needs of the community. Five months later, a strategic plan was developed with two parts: the first, a temporary space for the center, and the second, a permanent home for the Family Justice Center.
“For the last nine months, more than nine months, we’ve been searching for a space where we can open up a Family Justice Center right away, albeit temporarily, but a place where we can actually start providing services under one roof to victims and survivors of families of domestic violence. And we have found that space thanks to the generosity of the Adams County commissioners and Adams County government. They have donated to this project, to our Family Justice Center Project,” Mason said. “Since that generous donation — I’m going to call it a donation — we’ve been working for several months on a design, because the suite of offices that they have graciously given us wasn’t being used for this purpose. And so, we’ve been working on a design, and we’ve had multiple stakeholders involved in that process.”
Denver7 asked Mason why it has taken five years for the temporary space to be identified.
“It’s a pretty big project to address domestic violence in a thorough and comprehensive manner, and this community has had a need for a facility like a Family Justice Center for a long time,” Mason said. “We’re now in a place where we can deliver on that.”
Jordan Ward
A layout showing the Family Justice Center inside of the Adams County Human Services Center in Westminster.
Mason said the Family Justice Center can reside within the Human Services Center for three to five years, according to the agreement with Adams County. The goal is to open the Family Justice Center to the public next year, likely by late summer or early fall.
“I think we are going to outgrow this space very, very quickly. It’s a wonderful space, but it’s small, and we have thousands of victims of domestic violence every single year. So when we outgrow it, we will need a bigger space,” Mason said. “The need exists right now, so we didn’t want to wait for the process of planning and designing and building a brick and mortar building from scratch to open. And that’s why we’re going to open in this space first, with the long-term goal of having a permanent brick and mortar building.”
The space will undergo design changes and reconstruction thanks to funding from Adams County, Mason said.
“This room here right now is a conference room, but this will be redesigned and reconfigured and refurnished as a welcoming, safe place for children of domestic violence,” Mason said, pointing to the room.
Crime
Domestic violence deaths in Colorado rose by 24% in 2024, report shows
While the report found that domestic violence-related fatalities are more common in rural counties, it determined Broomfield County had the highest number of domestic violence deaths per 100,000 residents when it comes to urban counties. Adams County was in the middle of the list of urban counties when looking at the same metric.
In 2024, all eight collateral victims of domestic violence were children, ranging in age from three months to seven years old. The report also found the risk to children has “significantly increased over the years.”
“One of my first memories as a child is witnessing domestic violence where my dad was abusing my mom,” said Adams County Commissioner Emma Pinter, who attended the announcement about the Family Justice Center. “It is one of the first things I remember happening in our household, and it led to a lot of instability, and then ultimately, our family broke up. And my mom and her two children, me and my sister, experienced homelessness.”
Jordan Ward
Adams County Commissioner Emma Pinter shared her personal story about domestic violence with Denver7.
Pinter said she personally experienced a lack of resources.
“We did not have access to anything like a Family Justice Center,” Pinter explained. “We didn’t have access to extra food, counseling, doctors’ visits, attorneys, none of that. My mom was completely on her own.”
A Family Justice Center would have been pivotal, Pinter said, to ensure her mother knew she was not alone in her journey.
“To have somebody help her navigate that, so she wasn’t alone, would have been transformative for our family, and possibly could have given us some of the stability that we never had,” said Pinter.
Pinter believes her story is one of many that prove a Family Justice Center can be a solution to an incredibly complex problem.
“All of those worries that parents carry, or individuals carry, when they’re leaving a violent situation can be addressed in one location,” said Pinter. “This is going to take a community effort to make sure that we continue to have funding at a time when the federal government is shutting down and funding is scarce. It’ll be a community effort, but this will save lives.”
According to Mason, future funding will come from “as many sources as possible.” He explained the Family Justice Center will be funded by both public and government dollars, adding that the 17th Judicial District will have to search for funding sources.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available through Violence Free Colorado or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.
Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Colette Bordelon
Denver7’s Colette Bordelon covers stories that have an impact in all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in reporting on crime, justice and issues impacting our climate and environment. If you’d like to get in touch with Colette, fill out the form below to send her an email.
A review of an investigation into officers who shot at Gregory Miles, the man suspected of killing his girlfriend in an incident at the Arista Flats apartments in Broomfield last year, found that the officers’ use of force was justified, according to a decision letter from the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
The judicial district’s critical incident response team — including Aurora police detectives and investigators independent of the Broomfield Police Department and other agencies involved with the incident — investigated the officer-involved shooting, according to the letter.
Based on the evidence, “there is no reasonable likelihood of success of proving the elements of any crime” against the involved officers, the letter said. Ten officers discharged their firearms during the incident, after which Miles was taken to a hospital and treated for his injuries, according to the letter.
Officers were dispatched to the Arista Flats apartment complex at 11332 Central Court in Broomfield on Sept. 12, 2024, after a 911 call alerted police to a disturbance in a unit, the letter said. Officers attempted to contact the occupants of the unit including Miles, who is now 35, but no one responded, according to the letter.
The letter states officers attempted to get past the the door with physical force, as they became concerned for the safety of a woman they believed was inside, the letter said. Miles threatened he was armed with an “AR15 with one hundred rounds,” the letter said. A short time later, gunshots were fired from the apartment through the front door and through an apartment window and an officer returned fire, according to the letter.
Officers from multiple agencies including the Boulder County Regional SWAT team responded, and officers trained as crisis negotiators engaged in “lengthy negotiations” with Miles to surrender, the letter said. Miles’ mother also arrived on scene and told officers that she was on a video call with her son, that a woman inside the apartment was shot and that Miles expressed to her that he wanted the police to shoot him, the letter said.
Hours of negotiation occurred, and Miles was told to exit onto the apartment’s balcony with his arms raised and not to reenter the apartment, according to the letter.
While Miles was on the balcony, SWAT officers detonated explosives on the front door of the apartment, the letter said. Officers in overwatch positions observed Miles attempting to reenter the apartment, and observation-team officers as well as some from the entry team fired their weapons at Miles, according to the letter.
Miles was taken into custody and was transported to a hospital, where he was treated for multiple gunshot wounds, the letter said.
In the apartment, officers discovered the body of a woman, later identified as Miles’ girlfriend, with an apparent gunshot wound to the head, according to the letter. The woman was later identified as Aisha Quest.
Miles was charged with first-degree murder and 22 counts of attempted first-degree murder for shooting in the direction of police officers and civilians in the area, according to the letter.
State officials expect a rise in ozone and fine particulate levels that will be unhealthy for older adults, children and people with heart or lung disease, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The agency issued an action day alert at 4 p.m. Thursday that is set to last until at least 4 p.m. Friday. Communities covered by the alert span urban corridor from Douglas County to the south and Larimer and Weld counties to the north, including Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley.
People who are sensitive to air pollution should not spend long periods of time outside or participate in heavy exercise outdoors, state officials said.
Brett Carlini, 28, has been charged with eight counts of first-degree assault for threatening a peace officer with a weapon and one count of second-degree assault on a peace officer, according to a release from the district attorney’s office. The 17th Judicial District Attorney’s office covers Adams and Broomfield counties.
Broomfield police were called to the WoodSpring Suites at 121 Edgeview Drive on Aug. 28 “for a man wanted on several felony violent crime warrants,” according to a post on X from the department.
When officers tried to arrest the suspect, he threw a knife at officers, injuring one of them. He then barricaded himself in a hotel room and the hotel was evacuated, according to the department’s posts. Carlini was arrested without further incident after the SWAT team deployed gas into the hotel room, another post said.
The injured officer was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and another officer bitten by Carlini’s dog was also treated at the same hospital and released. The dog was put into the care of Broomfield Animal Services, the X post said.
Carlini’s next court appearance is on Sept. 25 at 1:30 p.m., according to the district attorney’s release.
Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, centered on suburban Jefferson County, hasn’t had a Republican in the seat since Bob Beauprez left Congress nearly 20 years ago.
But Sergei Matveyuk, an antiques repairman from Golden and the GOP contender for the seat in the Nov. 5 election, urges voters not to count him out in his battle with incumbent Brittany Pettersen. The first-term Democratic congresswoman is seeking reelection.
“People are hurting economically,” Matveyuk, 57, told The Denver Post. “They want someone who feels the pain.”
He’s running in a once-battleground district that has turned decidedly blue in the last decade or so, with Democratic former Rep. Ed Perlmutter winning election eight times running, until his retirement announcement in 2022 ushered in an open race.
Pettersen, 42, a former state lawmaker from Lakewood, won the 2022 election by 16 percentage points over Republican Army veteran Erik Aadland. The bulk of the district’s electorate calls left-leaning Jefferson and Broomfield counties home, while redder areas in the district — such as Teller, Custer and Fremont counties — simply don’t have the populations to give Matveyuk a sizable boost.
As of Sept. 30, Pettersen had raised more than $2.2 million this cycle, compared to about $35,000 collected by Matveyuk, according to campaign finance filings. There are two minor party candidates on the ballot this time: Former state lawmaker Ron Tupa is running on the Unity Party of Colorado ticket, while Patrick Bohan is running as the Libertarian candidate.
Matveyuk, a political neophyte, said that as a small business owner, the historically high inflation of the last two years has hurt those like him who are particularly sensitive to escalating prices. But it’s his personal story that he thinks will resonate with voters in the current political climate, in which border policy has taken center stage. Matveyuk, who is of Polish descent, and his family left the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s after experiencing life under communist rule and immigrated to the United States.
“As an immigrant myself, I know how hard it is to start a new life — but it has to be legal,” he said.
Matveyuk doesn’t echo former President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations but says migrants who “are hurting our people and committing crimes need to be deported, for sure.”
“We need immigration reform — 40 years ago we had a regulated border and now we have a porous border,” he said.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data through August, there have been more than 8.6 million migrant “encounters” at the southern U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. That influx has prompted many big city mayors across the country, including Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, to cut city services to pay for migrant housing and plead for help from the federal government.
Pettersen acknowledged that the U.S. asylum system is “absolutely outdated.” But many of the arriving migrants are filling jobs that businesses in the district, like nursing homes, are desperate to staff, she said.
Making people wait years before getting work permits is an unworkable policy, Pettersen said.
“We don’t have the people in the U.S. to meet our economic needs,” she said. “We need legal pathways based on economic need.”
Though Pettersen is in the minority party in the U.S. House, a bill she sponsored was recently signed into law by Biden. It directs the federal government to study and report on illicit financing associated with synthetic drug trafficking.
Last month, she introduced a bill that seeks to incentivize more states to offer substance use treatment through Medicaid, six years after she sponsored a bill in the state House requiring Colorado to provide that care. Pettersen has often spoken publicly of the struggles her mother faced battling opioid addiction.
If reelected, she said in The Denver Post’s candidate questionnaire that she would work to protect abortion rights and to address the opioid epidemic. Her top priority would be “modernizing our tax code to rebuild the middle class.”
“We need to lower costs by reinvesting in access to affordable housing, childcare, health care, and higher education,” she wrote.
The suspect in Thursday’s fatal hostage situation and shootout at Broomfield’s Arista Flats apartment complex and the woman he held hostage lived in the same apartment, property managers said.
In an email to residents, Arista Flats management said the hostage and gunman lived together, but the relationship between the two is still unknown.
“As you likely know, there was a domestic violence incident in our community early in the morning of Sept. 12, 2024, that involved a male resident firing shots inside and outside of a unit and injuring a female resident who resided in the same unit,” management wrote in the email. “The incident ended after a short stand-off with law enforcement and the resident was taken into custody.”
The hours-long standoff with police at the Arista Flats complex ended with the death of the woman hostage and police taking a seriously injured gunman into custody.
Police did not specify who shot the woman, but said Thursday at least one Broomfield officer fired his weapon at the suspect.
Police have not publically identified the gunman and the woman he’d held hostage, but Broomfield Police Department spokeswoman Rachel Haslett said criminal charges against the 34-year-old suspect “are forthcoming.”
Residents who were evacuated from Arista Flats during Thursday’s hostage situation and investigation can return home Friday, police said.
The number of residents evacuated from the apartment complex was not available Friday.
Officers set up a ladder at the scene of a shooting and hostage situation at Broomfield apartment complex Arista Flats in Broomfield, Colorado on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The south stairwell in building 15 of Arista Flats — 11332 Central Court — remains closed for the investigation, police said. Residents can use any other entrance.
Colorado has three years to lower ground-level ozone pollution to meet federal standards, and this summer’s hazy skies — caused by oil and gas drilling, heavy vehicle traffic and wildfire smoke — are putting the state in a hole as it’s already logged more dirty air days than in all of 2023.
“Our state has taken a lot of steps to improve air quality, but you can see it in the skies, you can see it in the air, that we still have work to do,” said Kirsten Schatz, clean air advocate for the Colorado Public Interest Research Group.
Two months into the 2024 summer ozone season, the Front Range already has recorded more high ozone days than the entire summer of 2023. As of Monday, which is the most recent data available, ozone levels had exceeded federal air quality standards on 28 days. At the same point in 2023, there had been 27 high-ozone days.
The summer ozone season runs from June 1 to Aug. 31. However, the region encompassing metro Denver and the northern Front Range this year recorded its first high ozone day in May, and in some years ozone pollution exceeds federal standards into mid-September.
The first benchmark is to lower average ozone pollution to a 2008 standard of 75 parts per billion. The northern Front Range is in what’s called “severe non-attainment” for that number, meaning motorists must use a more expensive blend of gasoline during the summer and more businesses must apply for federal permits that regulate how much pollution they spill into the air.
The second benchmark requires the region to lower its average ozone pollution to a 2015 standard of 70 parts per billion, considered the most acceptable level of air pollution for human health. In July, the EPA downgraded the northern Front Range to be in serious violation of that standard as the region’s ozone level now sits at 81 parts per billion. The state must now submit to the EPA a new plan for lowering emissions.
Colorado needs to meet both EPA benchmarks by 2027, or it will be downgraded again and face more federal regulation.
Of the 28 days the state has recorded high ozone pollution levels, 17 exceeded the 2008 standard of 70 parts per billion, according to data compiled by the Regional Air Quality Council, an organization that advises the state on how to reduce air pollution.
That’s bad news for the region after state air regulators predicted Colorado would be able to meet that standard by the 2027 deadline. The EPA calculates average ozone pollution levels on a three-year average, so this summer’s bad numbers will drag down the final grade.
“It’s not a good first year to have,” said Mike Silverstein, the air quality council’s executive director.
Smoke from wildfires near and far
Ground-level ozone pollution forms on hot summer days when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides react in the sunlight. Those compounds and gases are released by oil and gas wells and refineries, automobiles on the road, fumes from paint and other industrial chemicals, and gas-powered lawn and garden equipment.
It forms a smog that can cause the skies to become brown or hazy, and it is harmful to people, especially those with lung and heart disease, the elderly and children. Ground-level ozone is different than the ozone in the atmosphere that protects Earth from the sun’s powerful rays.
Wildfire smoke blowing from Canada and the Pacific Northwest did not help Colorado’s pollution levels in July, and then multiple fires erupted along the Front Range over the past week, creating homegrown pollution from fine particulate matter such as smoke, soot and ash. Ultimately, though, the heavy smoke days could be wiped from the calculations from 2024, but that decision will be made at a later date.
Still, June also saw multiple high ozone days, and air quality experts say much of the pollution originates at home in Colorado and cannot be blamed on outside influences.
The out-of-state wildfire smoke sent ozone levels skyrocketing the week of July 21 to 27, Silverstein said, but it’s not the reason the numbers are high. The week prior saw ozone levels above federal standards, too, and wildfire smoke had not drifted into the region.
“Pull the wildfires out and we would probably still have had high ozone,” he said.
Jeremy Nichols, senior advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, also warned that wildfires should not be used as an excuse for the region’s air pollution.
“While the wildfires are out of our control, there is a whole bunch of air pollution we can control,” he said. “I don’t want to let that cover up the ugliness that existed here in the first place.”
Nichols blames oil and gas drilling for the region’s smog. The state is not doing enough to regulate the industry, he said.
“We actually need to recognize we are at a point where oil and gas needs to stop drilling on high ozone days,” Nichols said. “Just like we’re told to stay home on high ozone days, business as usual needs to stop. I don’t think we’ve clamped down on them and in many respects they are getting a free pass to pollute.”
One proposal would require drilling companies to eliminate emissions from pneumatic actuating devices, equipment driven by pressurized gas to open and close valves in pipelines, Silverstein said. Oil companies already are required to make 50% of those devices emission-free, and the federal government also is requiring them to be 100% emission-free by 2035. But Colorado’s proposal would accelerate the timeline, he said.
The second proposal would tell companies to stop performing blowdowns, which is when workers vent fumes from pipelines before beginning maintenance to clear explosive gases, when an ozone alert is issued, Silverstein said.
“There are thousands of these very small events, but these small events add up to significant activity,” he said.
Gabby Richmond, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the industry supports the new regulations. She said operators also were electrifying operations where possible and voluntarily delaying operational activities on high ozone days.
“Our industry values clean air, and we are committed to pioneering innovative solutions that protect our environment and make Colorado a great place to live,” Richmond said in a statement. “As a part of this commitment, we have significantly reduced ozone-causing emissions by over 50% through technology, regulatory initiatives and voluntary measures — all in the spirit of being good neighbors in the communities where we live and work.”
“Knock down emissions where we can”
Meanwhile, people who live in metro Denver and the northern Front Range are asked to do their part, too.
When the state health department issues an ozone action alert — which is a forecast for high pollution levels — people are asked to limit driving as much as possible. They also are asked to avoid using gas-powered lawn and garden equipment until later in the day when the sun starts dropping behind the mountains and temperatures fall.
It would be easy to blame Colorado’s ozone pollution on its geography, global climate change that is raising temperatures, and pollution blowing from other countries and states, Silverstein said. But Colorado has a responsibility to do its part.
“We have 4 million people and a big oil and gas field and lots of industrial activity and all of the things related to human activity all in one concentrated location with a great mountain backdrop, but it comes with a bit of a price,” he said. “So it’s up to us to find the strategies to knock down emissions where we can.”
