Federal Appellate Court Deals Victory To Boulder County

BOULDER, CO — A federal appellate court dealt a victory Friday to Boulder County in a case about how boundaries are drawn around sources of air pollution in the Front Range. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s designation of the Metro-Denver ozone non-attainment area.

The current ozone non-attainment area stretches along the Front Range from Castle Rock in the South to Fort Collins and Greeley in the north and west into Rocky Mountain National Park. The area did not include northern Weld County and its thousands of oil and gas sources, which contribute to the serious ozone problem in metro Denver and the northern Front Range, Boulder County officials said.

The court ruled the EPA’s decision to exclude northern Weld County from the non-attainment area was “arbitrary and capricious.” The court has ordered EPA to reconsider its decision because the previous non-attainment decision was inadequately supported and reasoned, Boulder County officials said.

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Cindy Copeland, Boulder County Public Health air and climate policy specialist, said the county is "encouraged that the EPA will reconsider excluding northern Weld County from the ozone non-attainment area."

“Including northern Weld County in the area would require many oil and gas sources to meet EPA requirements to reduce emissions, which would help to greatly improve ozone levels for front range residents," Copeland said in a statement.

Including the Weld County area in the ozone non-attainment area would bring many additional oil and gas sources into air quality planning under EPA requirements, county officials said.

The resulting reductions in nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds pollution would help to greatly improve ozone levels in metro Denver and Boulder County, officials said. Air quality conditions and ecosystem health at Rocky Mountain National Park could also be improved with more emissions controls, according to county officials.

The ruling is a result of a lawsuit against the EPA filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by the Boulder County Board of Commissioners, the Center for Biological Diversity and National Parks Conservation Association.