There has been a pattern of our state government misrepresenting issues to pursue an environmental agenda.

Our government has misrepresented the climate change issue. Colorado’s ruling Democrats are falling all over themselves trying to write more regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) released in the state based on the claim in state legislation passed in 2019 that reducing GHG produced in Colorado will protect Coloradans from the effects of climate change. It is deeply disturbing that we have elected legislators who actually believe that.

The fact is that Colorado produces only 0.22% of global GHG. If we eliminated 100% of our GHG over 10 years, the change would not even be measurable. Unless legislators can provide a scientific justification for making people in Colorado waste tens of billions of dollars to reduce global GHG by only 0.22%, the laws and regulations based on the 2019 legislation, HB19-1261, should be repealed.

Our government also has misrepresented the traffic congestion issue. CDOT could dramatically reduce congestion on highways around Denver and in the mountains in a matter of weeks by using queuing theory. I offered to show CDOT how to do it, but two directors each told me separately that CDOT will never take action to reduce congestion on highways, because Democrats use the congestion to justify their transit projects. So, we sit in traffic.

Congestion presents an interesting conundrum for Democrats. By far, the fastest, cheapest, easiest way to reduce GHG in Colorado is to reduce congestion on our highways.

Meanwhile, our government has misrepresented the value of the Front Range Rail Project. Its website claims that within 20 years, annual ridership “could be as much as 2.6 million riders.” If there are only 2.6 million riders per year, that’s only 7,000 riders per day. And if people use the train to go somewhere, they probably also use the train to go back home. That means there are really only 3,500 people per day using the train. Are we really going to spend $9 billion to $14 billion so that 3,500 people can ride the train?

Perhaps the worst offense is that our state government has misrepresented the ozone issue. While the GHG and congestion issues waste time and money — high ozone levels make people sick.

We have had high ozone levels since 2008, but our government is making no effort to reduce ozone. The reason we still have high ozone is because everyone in our government continues to blame oil and gas for the ozone. Last year, Gov. Jared Polis “declared” that oil and gas production causes “almost half” of the high ozone in the Denver metro area, even though his air-quality agencies — the Regional Air Quality Council and the state health department’s Air Pollution Control Division — have models showing that oil and gas production contributes maybe 3%, not “almost half.”

The problem with blaming oil and gas is that it diverts all efforts away from determining what is really causing the high ozone. The question is whether that’s the point. Democrats are using an absurd claim to write laws and regulations for GHG. Are Democrats deliberately keeping ozone levels high so that they can continue to write regulations affecting oil and gas?

Half steps

It is easy and straightforward to find sources of emissions. But air-quality agencies are not making a real effort to reduce ozone, and the question is whether that is due to not being qualified — or to a political agenda.

Ozone is formed when nitrogen oxide compounds (NOx) react with gaseous organic compounds (called volatile organic compounds, or VOC). We have very high VOC levels in the region coming from man-made sources and from vegetation. In fact, the agencies claim that vegetation produces three times as much VOC as oil and gas. Since VOC levels are so high, it is not reasonable to try to reduce VOC to reduce ozone, and we will need to target NOx levels.

Ozone is not spread evenly across the region. Out of 14 state air-quality monitors in the area, ozone levels are usually high at just three. They are at Chatfield Reservoir, the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, and Rocky Flats. We need to determine why just those three monitors have high ozone.

Normally, air-quality engineers would take transportable monitors out into the field to find out exactly where the ozone is coming from at those three monitors. The problem is that the agencies don’t have air-quality engineers with field experience. Since the air-quality agencies have no qualified personnel, they have never taken monitors out into the field. Instead, they use models to estimate emissions levels.

Since the agencies have no field data, they have created regulations to reduce emissions from various sources based on their models. They claim that from 2011 to 2023, we reduced NOx and VOC across the region by more than 40%, but ozone did not drop in that period. That’s proof beyond any doubt that the agencies have not been reducing the emissions that are causing the high ozone. Targeting oil and gas has not reduced ozone.

It’s time to start using science instead of guessing. Existing air-quality monitors show what needs to be done. For example, the monitor at the National Renewable Energy Lab usually has high ozone only in the afternoon when there is a light breeze from the northeast. There is a monitor at Welby, which is just south of Thornton, and that monitor is to the northeast of the lab. With a breeze from the northeast, the air mass has to pass by Welby before it reaches the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Even when the monitor at the lab registers high ozone, Welby usually has low ozone levels and very low NOx levels. After the air mass passes Welby and moves to the southwest toward the lab, somewhere along the way, ozone levels increase significantly. That is proof beyond any doubt that the source of high ozone at the National Renewable Energy Lab has to be somewhere to the southwest of Welby, not in Weld County with its oil and gas development.

In the metro area, overnight and into the morning, there is typically a light breeze from the southwest. With a breeze from the southwest in the morning, Welby frequently shows very high NOx levels. That’s proof beyond any doubt that there is a significant source of NOx to the southwest of Welby.

If the source of the high NOx to the southwest of Welby is also to the northeast of NREL, then the probability is extremely high that whatever causes the high NOx at Welby in the morning also causes the high ozone at the National Renewable Energy Lab in the afternoon. With transportable monitors, air-quality engineers could find the source of the NOx in a matter of days.

For the best chance to reduce ozone in the 2025 ozone season, Polis needs to establish an ozone reduction project now. This project must be staffed with real air-quality engineers. It would cost less than $500,000 to buy, operate, and maintain transportable monitors that could be moved around the region to find the sources of the ozone. Such monitors would need to be ordered now to have them in time for the 2025 ozone season. Polis should not have any problem finding half a million dollars to reduce the suffering of the thousands of Coloradans who are affected by high ozone levels every summer.

Crackdown looms

There is more to the ozone issue. If Polis does not act now to try to reduce ozone levels in 2025 and 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will downgrade the north Front Range from “Severe” to “Extreme” nonattainment for ozone in July 2027.

“Extreme” does not refer to ozone levels. It describes an amount of time, as in, the air-quality agencies have wasted an “extreme” amount of time not achieving the ozone standard.

EPA hasn’t imposed penalties that affect most people. However, if we are downgraded to “Extreme,” EPA will require Colorado to establish new controls for transportation congestion, and that will affect everybody.

We had high ozone in 2024, but every high ozone day was caused by wildfires. The agencies have the right to present evidence to EPA that the high ozone days were caused by wildfires, and if EPA agrees, EPA will remove those days from our record.

EPA uses a three-year running average of the highest ozone levels to determine attainment. They will use the average for 2024, 2025, and 2026 for their attainment evaluation in 2027.

The reason we need the wildfire days removed is that the wildfire ozone levels were so high in 2024 that ozone levels in 2025 and 2026 cannot possibly be low enough to offset them.

This is not just a Denver-area problem. EPA has not declared Colorado Springs nonattainment, but due to wildfires, ozone levels were very high in 2024 in the Springs as well. It is likely that the city will exceed the ozone standard for 2024-2026.

If city managers want to avoid being declared nonattainment, they should be pushing the air-quality agencies to remove the 2024 wildfire days from their record as well.

We are going to need Polis to direct the air-quality agencies to make the effort to remove the wildfire days. The agencies will not take the initiative because they complain that it takes a lot of work, and they have stated that they won’t waste the time if it won’t make any difference.

But it will make a difference. If the wildfire days are removed, we would achieve the ozone standard for 2024. That would at least give us a chance to be in attainment by 2027 if we can manage ozone levels in 2025 and 2026.

If Polis does not direct the air-quality agencies to have the wildfire days removed, then that would be proof that he wants us to be downgraded, and he would owe the people of Colorado an explanation.

Is there in fact a political agenda here? Do our governor and his fellow Democrats in reality want the Front Range to fail to meet ozone standards yet again — so that federal regulators will force more stringent air-quality laws on us? Even if those new laws do little to curb ozone?

Barney Strobel is a retired chemical engineer in Centennial. He worked as a field engineer in air-pollution control for 12 years.