A bitter, yearslong fight over noise and lead contamination from thousands of planes taking off and landing at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Jefferson County could be entering its final chapter — in the courts, at least.
On Monday, local leaders in Superior are set to discuss whether the town, along with Boulder County, should try to bring the so-far unsuccessful public nuisance lawsuit they filed against the airport two years ago to the Colorado Supreme Court.
“This is the issue I hear from my residents, day in and day out,” Superior Mayor Mark Lacis said. “People are concerned about the noise and people are concerned about the lead pollution.”
Things haven’t gone the way of the town or county in the legal scrum so far. A Boulder County District Court judge ruled that plane noise and aircraft exhaust were solely the province of the federal government to regulate through the Federal Aviation Administration. Last month, the the lower court’s ruling, while keeping a window of hope open for the plaintiffs.
Noise issues are under the FAA’s jurisdiction, it concluded, but the lead contamination issue needs another look at the district court level.
“We’re not trying to tell the airport how to operate,” Lacis said. “All we filed in our lawsuit was an allegation that this is a public nuisance. Courts have long had the power to address nuisances.”
The Superior Town Council’s Monday discussion is set to happen behind closed doors in an executive session, since it’s a legal matter.
The nuisance factor at Rocky Mountain airport has been all too real for Greg Tan, a nearly 20-year resident of Superior’s Rock Creek neighborhood. The community sits under the flight path of a seemingly endless daily parade of planes — many of them flight school training runs — coming from the airport just to the south.
“All of these flights taking off are going right over my house,” Tan said. “If I’m working from home, I have to put on noise-cancelling headphones or a white noise machine.”
Airport spokesperson Sydny Boyd didn’t answer specific questions submitted by The Denver Post for this story. In a statement, Boyd said the 66-year-old airport, which is owned by Jefferson County, “remains focused on initiatives that support safe operations and continued community compatibility.”
Boyd cited the airport’s voluntary noise-abatement program, the introduction of unleaded aviation fuel and its participation in an FAA-guided noise study as measures the facility has taken in recent years to address complaints.
“RMMA will continue working with stakeholders and regulatory partners as these efforts move forward,” she wrote.
In the meantime, Tan has formed an attachment to the wind that often whips through his neighborhood — since it curtails flight activity, which can often go on until 11 p.m.
“I tell you, I used to hate the wind,” he said. “But now I’d rather take the wind than the noise.”
Increasing activity at airport
Tan is convinced that Rocky Mountain airport could do better if it wanted to. For the first 15 years he lived in Rock Creek, he wasn’t bothered by the nearby airport.
“There wasn’t an issue because there wasn’t as much activity as there has been in the last three, four, five years,” he said.
Takeoffs and landings have exploded at the airport over the last decade. show airport operations leapt from nearly 150,000 operations in 2016 to nearly double that number in 2023, the most recent year for which the county provides data on its website.
In the airport’s , the county reported that takeoffs and landings at the airport jumped from approximately 282,000 in 2023 to nearly 295,000 in 2024. And with that increase, noise complaints rose from around 5,000 in 2023 to nearly 11,400 the following year.
The lion’s share of the 2024 complaints — around 69% — came from Superior. And according to the noise report, nearly all the complaints centered on prop planes, which are popular aircraft with flight schools.
Tim Sitz, a 25-year resident of Rock Creek, said the frequency of planes flying over his house can sometimes reach as many as two or three in a minute.
“In the summer, we sleep in an internal bedroom to avoid the noise,” he said. “We don’t enjoy our backyard.”
Jefferson County, he surmised, can turn a blind eye to nearby community concerns because the airport is perched in the extreme northeast corner of the county, from where it sends the majority of its air traffic over Broomfield and Boulder counties.
“Superior and Boulder County are impacted, but Jefferson County largely is not,” Sitz said.
In Boulder County and Superior’s 2024 lawsuit, they claimed that flight school “touch-and-go” operations at the airport — during which a plane momentarily lands before taking off again without stopping or leaving the runway — are done under maximum power and at a lower altitude than typical takeoffs.
The result: “maximum lead and noise exposure” for those below, the lawsuit says.
Last June, the FAA led the nation in “potentially significant events, which include both runway incursions and airborne safety incidents.” That prompted a letter five months later sent by to Jefferson County, the FAA and , pleading for changes.
“Under federal and state law, (Jefferson County) has both the authority and the obligation to mitigate noise, pollution, and safety risks,” the letter reads. “Yet the county has repeatedly refused to act — rejecting proposals for curfews, landing fees, and operational limits while dismissing well-documented community health impacts.”
The coalition is made up of Boulder County, Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette, Longmont, Louisville, Westminster, Erie and Superior.
‘We’re going to make progress’
The March 12 appeals court decision made it clear that state courts have no authority to compel operational changes at airports — that authority rests singularly with the FAA.
But the court said Rocky Mountain airport could make adjustments to mitigate noise and emissions voluntarily under a “proprietor’s exception” in the law.
“We therefore assume, without deciding, that Jefferson County has the authority as the airport proprietor to prohibit touch-and-go operations if it chooses to do so,” the court ruled.
Lacis said the proprietor’s exception calls into question what has long been Jefferson County’s explanation for why it can’t make adjustments: The federal government has tied its hands.
“The county and the airport have long said, ‘We would love to help you, but our hands are tied by federal law,’ ” he said. “The argument they’ve been making has been dismissed by the appeals court.”
While neither the county nor the airport would answer The Post’s questions about taking voluntary measures to reduce aircraft activity and bring relief to neighbors, lawyers for Jefferson County argued in an October case filing that doing so was no easy feat for the airport.
Rocky Mountain airport, the lawyers argued, is “subject to comprehensive regulation by the FAA through the terms of its grant agreements.” That includes making the airport “available for public use on reasonable conditions and without unjust discrimination.”
“Restrictions on touch-and-go operations are expressly subject to this requirement,” the motion stated.
Regardless of the legal twists and turns, Lacis said the fight was not over. His constituents have suffered too much, he said, and he and other local officials aren’t ready to fold.
“I’m optimistic that we’re going to make progress,” he said. “We wouldn’t be continuing the fight if we didn’t think there was progress to be made.”
