The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing downgrading the northern Front Range ozone issues from “serious” to “severe” in a change that would require officials to cut emissions and pollution in the Denver metro region. via blairmiller
Colorado health and environment officials have been preparing for the EPA’s proposal after the nine-county region between Castle Rock and Fort Collins missed multiple deadlines over the past few years to bring ground-level ozone levels down to 2008 and 2015 standard thresholds, they said Tuesday. Colorado Public Radio first reported the proposal on Tuesday.
“Ground-level ozone remains one of the most challenging public health concerns we face, affecting large numbers of Coloradans and their families,” said EPA Region 8 Administrator KC Becker. “EPA’s proposed Clean Air Act reclassification for the Denver and North Front Range will make sure we are leveraging all available measures and resources as we move forward to reduce ozone pollution with the Colorado Department of Public Health and environment and all our partners.
The downgrading would also require businesses to comply with more regulations on emissions, and some in the nine-county area would have to cut emissions of volatile organic compounds and other pollutants that contribute to ozone from 50 tons per year to 25 tons per year. The EPA downgraded the Denver Metro North Front Range area from “moderate” to “serious” in 2019 after struggling to meet standards for more than a decade beforehand, and Gov. Jared Polis and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said the change would “help us stop sweeping our air quality crisis under the rug and gives us additional tools to move urgently to make our air cleaner.
“Over the last few years, we’ve done some really great work – implementing some of the most stringent regulations in the oil and gas industry in the country, zero low emission vehicle standards, securing legally enforceable closure dates for a lot of coal power plants,” CDPHE Executive Director Jill Hunsaker Ryan said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.
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