Now Colorado regulators want to address — the structures often called smokestacks by the general public — after a recently published report found that the flames are the state’s most significant source of volatile organic compounds.

Those harmful chemicals contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, an ongoing problem along the Front Range that has pushed the region into violation of federal air quality standards. The compounds can also be hazardous to human health if breathed for extended periods or in highly concentrated levels.

“We’re looking at programs that would necessitate periodic reviews of how the facility’s operating their flares, in terms of what����ap being sent to them and what technologies are they using to minimize emissions from flaring, and then taking steps to implement process improvements,” said Jessica Ferko, the policy and planning director for .

Not only is the Suncor refinery Colorado’s largest polluter of volatile organic compounds the report released in April shows the Commerce City facility is in the state’s top 10 for releasing sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides. Those are all hazardous gases that contribute to global warming and are also harmful to humans who regularly breathe them or are exposed to intense levels within a short period of time, the report found.

The facility also fell within the top 50% of emissions nationally for a refinery of its size and age, according to , a North Carolina consulting firm that produced the report. The first refinery on that site was built in the 1930s.

“Broadly speaking, we see Suncor as a large source of pollution,” Ferko said.

The refinery report will become the foundation for an upcoming process to create new state rules directly aimed at Suncor and its ongoing pollution problems. The air pollution division is hosting a series of public meetings this month to and to listen to public concerns about the refinery. The will be held Saturday and Tuesday.

Colorado law sets up a formal but lengthy process for creating new air quality rules, and it could be nine months or longer before the acts. It would be even longer before any new regulations went into effect.

But the state’s regulators said they have heard from the public and understand there is demand to do more to bring Suncor into compliance. The report, which cost $190,506 to produce, was mandated by the Colorado General Assembly.

Suncor has not been involved in writing the report or developing new regulations. The company would have the opportunity to argue over proposed new rules once the Air Quality Control Commission starts considering new policies.

In an email to The Denver Post, a Suncor spokeswoman said the company has made significant investments in its Commerce City refinery to improve reliability, refining operations and environmental impact. She did not address the report’s findings or the upcoming plans for new regulations.

“We remain committed to continuous improvement, regulatory compliance and working with regulators and stakeholders to responsibly support Colorado consumers and Colorado’s energy needs,” Tara Weber of Suncor wrote in the email. “As Colorado’s only refining operations, our ability to remain competitive with out-of-state suppliers is essential to supporting local jobs, continuing investment in the facility and providing the fuels Coloradans rely on every day.”

In 2025, Suncor said it was prepared to spend $57 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at its Commerce City refinery.

Suncor, based in Calgary, Canada, operates , processing 103,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The refinery, located on the banks of Sand Creek, makes gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and asphalt, and it sells 95% of its products in Colorado.

The refinery is allowed to send pollutants into the air under its . But that permit limits how much of each particular pollutant can be released. Violations must be reported to the state.

Colorado has three active investigations into Suncor’s pollution violations, dating to July 2, 2024. However, no investigation has yet to be launched over possible 2026 violations, including the July 28 incident when giant flames shot from a smokestack, or a May 11 incident when black and yellow plumes billowed from the refinery.

In the July incident, Suncor reported that it had exceeded its limits for smoke, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide from 9:42 a.m. July 27 through 12:59 p.m. July 28, according to its notification to the state health department. The malfunction occurred at its Plant 1 main flare and  equipment that cooks crude oil at high temperatures and breaks it down into a usable substance.

Flares and cracking units are two pieces of equipment at the refinery that often malfunction and cause Suncor to violate its federal air permit standards, the refinery report found.

The air pollution division’s staff is looking into those incidents as part of its annual inspection, which is not finished, said Kate Malloy, a state health department spokeswoman. If any alleged violations are found, the department would issue a compliance advisory, which is an official notice of an investigation.

In a recent public meeting, multiple people complained that Suncor’s notifications about this summer’s flaring incidents came late and did not provide much information about what had caused the excessive smoke and whether they needed to take precautions.

Michael Ogletree, the state health department’s senior director of state air quality programs, said the division wants to address Suncor’s public notification system so the community is more informed when malfunctions happen at the refinery.

“We have heard a lot from the community about how we can increase transparency from the refinery,” Ogletree said.

The refinery report identified four pieces of equipment, including the flares, that cause the most pollution, and it offered ideas for new technology and best management practices used by other refineries to reduce pollution.

Excessive pollution is often released when refinery workers need to shut down and then restart operations, which often happens after a malfunction. Between 2022 and 2024, 175 of those events were reported, Ferko said during a Wednesday public meeting.

The state health department will likely propose a regulation that would require Suncor to hire an outside consultant to analyze repeated malfunctions within a certain time frame, or when they happen because the same piece of equipment fails, Ferko said.

The division’s regulators want the new rules to give enforcement staff more power to bring Suncor into compliance, Stefanie Shoup, deputy director of regulatory affairs for the Air Pollution Control Division, said the Wednesday meeting. They can only do so much under existing state and federal regulations.

“It gives them more weight,” Shoup said. “It gives them something they can grip into when they are pursuing enforcement.”

Initiative 177, brought forward by the conservative nonprofit , qualified for the ballot after proponents submitted the required number of signatures, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. The “right to natural gas” initiative will be on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.

Proponents needed to gather enough signatures from each state senate district to equal 2% of the total registered voters in those districts because the ballot initiative would change the Colorado Constitution. It also needed to meet the 124,238-signature threshold, the secretary of state’s office said in a Thursday news release.

In May, Democrats floated a bill that would establish guardrails for Initiative 177, anticipating that it would make the ballot and win approval from voters. But House leaders scuttled the bill at the last minute, saying it would not meaningfully change the impacts of any ballot measure.

Colorado is trying to move away from natural gas as a heating and cooking source in homes as the state tries to reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions. Denver has also considered outlawing natural gas in homes after implementing new restrictions on its use in commercial buildings.

Burning natural gas produces nitrogen oxides, which are a key ingredient in ground-level ozone pollution. Those nitrogen oxides combine with volatile organic compounds on hot summer days, and the pollution contributes to climate change and harms human health.

The nine-county northern Front Range region — Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties — has been out of compliance with federal ozone standards for 17 years.

Research has also shown that cooking with a gas stove in the kitchen can release as much benzene as second-hand cigarette smoke.

The program will provide to more than 2,800 income-qualified residents over the next year, the announced Thursday. The rebates are part of the state’s broader work to reduce greenhouse emissions and meet .

The poor air quality that has plagued Denver over the last few days is a great reminder of the need to reduce emissions, said Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office. He was set to announce the initiative’s return this morning with Gov. Jared Polis at a bike shop in Wheat Ridge.

“Helping folks replace car trips with e-bike trips is one really cost-effective way to address pollution in Denver and the whole Front Range area,” Toor said ahead of the event.

Who qualifies?

Coloradans who make will qualify for the rebate. For metro Denver, that means single people who earn up to $80,640 per year, or a household with an income of up to $115,200 for a family of four.

Why did the rebate go away?

The state first offered a similar rebate in 2023, but the program ended after the money allocated to it by the state legislature ran out in 2025. During that time, nearly 8,000 Coloradans used the program to buy e-bikes.

The rebates totaled $9.75 million, according to the energy office. More than 34,000 people applied for the rebates.

What’s available this time?

Now the Colorado Energy Office is using $3 million from the state’s to pay for the rebates. The enterprise is funded primarily through fees consumers pay on residential deliveries of online shopping purchases, like those from Amazon, Toor said.

The relaunched program differs from the previous iteration in a few ways.

Coloradans who earn between 80% and 100% of their county’s area median income will no longer have access to the rebates. The application is also shorter and simpler, said Sarah Thorne, a senior program manager with the Colorado Energy Office.

In addition to the standard $1,000 rebate, customers can also apply a $300 discount to the purchase of a cargo e-bike as well as a $300 discount to an adaptive e-bike. The e-bike must be purchased from a retailer participating in the program.

How do people apply?

Those who are interested must submit their name and contact information to a lottery. If they are randomly selected for the rebate, they will then need to provide documentation of income and residency.

The first application window will be open from 11 a.m. on Aug. 24 to noon on Aug. 31. A link to the registration portal will be available . The application will reopen once each quarter.

What other incentives are available?

The relaunched program is in addition to an existing for e-bike purchases. The tax credit is available to all Coloradans, regardless of income, and is applied at the time of purchase from participating retailers.

The tax credit will increase to $450 on Jan. 1, Toor said.

While e-bike buyers can use both the rebate and the tax credit on a single purchase, they cannot combine the state rebate with those offered by local governments, like .

The vast majority of people who used the rebate from the first iteration of the program said they would not have bought an e-bike without the discount, according to a survey by the Colorado Energy Office. Those e-bike buyers, on average, replaced at least two vehicle trips a week with an e-bike ride, according to the survey.

Not only did those rides reduce emissions, but they also saved the rider parking and gas money, Toor said.

“For a lot of people, it’s also just a great way to get around,” he said.

Re: “Suncor’s refinery emits black smoke,” July 29 news story.

Denver Post readers must know by now that one of the largest polluters on the Front Range is the Suncor Energy refinery. Colorado Air Quality has been sending out notices of poor air quality on the Front Range for weeks. Here is how the Wednesday Denver Post article described the 3 incidents so far in 2026: bright orange flames, plumes of black smoke, visible smoke, excessive smoke spewing thick black and yellow plumes.

Residents along the Front Range should not expect any resolution or punishment regarding the ongoing pollution anytime soon. In the past, fines have been so ridiculously small that Suncor is not deterred from future occurrences. Their excuse is that the flames are part of a flaring process to burn off excess gases or because of starting back up after maintenance.

We can expect many more days of very poor air quality when all they get is a hand slap.

Mariann Storck, Wheat Ridge

Mothers are too often left out

Re: “Wonder why the birthrate is falling? Look how we treat mothers,” Aug. 1 commentary.

Christine Michel Carter has written the truth about being a woman, whose only asset has been for millennia – of value left unpaid. I thought these things at age 16, and that was in 1954. Nature asks us to carry, deliver and nurse the child. The notion that the entire job is ours has been dumped on us by men, so they can have a life and get paid for it. This is changing, needless to say, and I hand it to all men who realize they have an important role in childcare. But we must support it with concrete measures that work. If you want a job in the workplace, you need a system that welcomes and accommodates you. This is not a world in which staying home is going to teach you. Women need to participate in all of life, in all its aspects.

This is a complex issue and cannot be ignored!

Anne M Culver, Denver

Access to care depends on Medicare fee schedule

When was the last time you saw a doctor? How long did you have to wait for an appointment? How far did you have to drive? For many Americans, accessing local care is becoming increasingly difficult.

As a physician, I want to treat all my patients as early as possible, when their conditions are more manageable and complications are more likely to be prevented. Longer wait times and fewer care options are frustrating for doctors and patients alike.

I’m especially worried about the federal government����ap projections that show a nationwide shortage of over 110,000 doctors by 2028. Unfortunately, systemic barriers are preventing physicians from entering the field, expanding their services, treating new Medicare beneficiaries, and opening offices in rural communities.

One major barrier: chronic cuts to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, which is a cornerstone for independent physician practices to stay afloat. Since 2001, Medicare physician reimbursement has declined when adjusted for inflation. With less and less payment, it����ap little wonder then that we’re seeing more doctors decide to leave medicine altogether.

Congress should instead tie future reimbursement updates to the rate of inflation. This is a straightforward way to ensure stability for small and independent physician practices, and doing so will go a long way to addressing the severe physician shortage and ultimately improve Americans’ access to care.

Liudmila Kastsianok, Aurora

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It’s complex and multilayered, with a 48-page minerals access agreement at its heart that has stirred questions and suspicion among residents of fast-growing Erie, which straddles Boulder and Weld counties.

The quarrel related to what is known as the Draco oil and gas pad, which has received clearance from the state to move forward, is now likely headed to a special election — a vote that will test the tolerance of Erie residents for the latest fracking project in a town that sits at the edge of the energy-rich Denver-Julesburg Basin.

Opponents are crying foul over a controversial deal Erie’s elected leaders approved in June — on the second try — to sell town-owned underground minerals to SM Energy for up to $35 million over the next two decades. The agreement calls for the company to give the town 160 acres of land as well. SM also would plug and abandon old wells in exchange for access to the subterranean riches.

Many in this town of 42,000 question whether there was enough openness in the way town leaders crafted the minerals agreement with SM Energy — and why a consultant who once worked for a company that recently merged with it was hired to help Erie close the deal.

In a larger sense, the community pushback in Erie is the latest flashpoint in a long history of standoffs between residents, industry representatives and state regulators. Those disputes have centered on the question of how the state’s communities can co-exist with an industry that employs thousands of Coloradans and injects billions of dollars into the economy — including — while also posing threats to human health and the natural environment.

Fights over proposed drilling operations are gearing up, or already underway, in other burgeoning areas of the Front Range, including southeast Aurora, Adams County and Windsor.

The Draco pad would be located just east of the Erie town line in unincorporated Weld County. SM Energy’s lateral wells, drilled 7,000 feet deep, would extend westward .

For Amy Becker, an 11-year Erie resident, people’s health and peace of mind outweigh any financial benefits the town might accrue from doing business with an oil and gas operator.

“To me, it’s not about the money,” she said, “it’s about doing the right thing.”

The right thing, she says, would be to resist SM Energy’s plans and make it as hard as possible for the company to do business at the edge of the bedroom community, where new suburban houses are sprouting from the ground just a mile from the proposed well pad site. The site is at the northwest corner of Weld County roads 6 and 7.

“Do we want to make it easier for them or do we want to make it harder for them?” Becker said. “We have been fracked enough — we want to be done with this.”

Becker has been helping collect signatures for a petition to send a measure to a special election ballot, asking voters if they want to keep the agreement Erie made with SM Energy, a $7 billion oil and gas firm based in Denver — or scuttle it.

Last week, Erie’s clerk determined the petitioners had to go to the voters. Assuming it isn’t successfully challenged over the next month or so, the measure will appear on a ballot in the fall.

An election date has not yet been set, though a town spokeswoman last week said Erie would do all it can to include the measure on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. If the timeline doesn’t allow that, it will likely appear on a special election ballot a few weeks later.

“With a decision like this, where the repercussions last decades, if not longer — and it affects everyone in Erie — you really need the backing of the people,” said Emily Brecht, a recent Erie resident who is spearheading the ballot effort. “Many people did not feel heard when the Town Council made the decision ultimately to make a deal with SM Energy.”

Erie Mayor Andrew Moore, who voted in favor of the minerals deal, said there are “activists against the oil and gas industry in and around Erie, (who were) either trying to stop Draco before or (are) just being against oil and gas in general.”

“And there’s emotional commitment to that,” Moore added.

But killing the deal with SM Energy would be tantamount to Erie shooting itself in the foot, he said. The , the regulatory body that decides on drilling and fracking applications statewide, .

That means the project can move forward regardless. Absent a deal with SM, Erie will forfeit millions of dollars that the town could use to fund infrastructure projects and other town services.

“So when we get to the point of, ‘Hey, the state approved this’ — I can’t change that,” Moore said. “But I think we need to work to get as much as we possibly can for Erie.”

SM Energy spokeswoman Maureen O’Shay declined to comment for this story.

Pursuing minerals deal, despite project concerns

The battle over the Draco pad has been swirling for years. Before the ECMC greenlighted the project in March 2025 — after — Erie residents .

The town itself of the ECMC’s decision hours after it was made.

But with the approval behind it, SM Energy’s next step was to establish access to the oil and gas that lies largely beneath hundreds of Erie homes.

The eventual package negotiated with SM reflected the leverage Erie gained under a recent change in state law. Under , which took effect in January 2025, local government-owned mineral rights cannot be force-pooled. Forced pooling allows oil and gas operators, with state approval, to combine mineral interests within a drilling area even when some owners object.

Late last year, the town hired Matt Owens, the founder and CEO of Alameda Mineral Advisors, to help it hammer out a minerals access deal with the company.

Owens is the former an oil and gas company that joined forces with SM as part of a $12.1 billion merger earlier this year.

That was a red flag for Steve Drew, a five-year Erie resident, who wondered why the town would choose a former executive of a company that would, in short order, become part and parcel of the very same operator seeking to develop Draco.

“That’s why conflict of interest laws exist,” he said.

Owens, who wouldn’t comment for this story, told the Boulder Daily Camera in June that his involvement in crafting a deal with SM Energy posed no conflict. He left Civitas in April 2023, according to .

“There is no basis for anyone to complain about a (conflict) because what I am doing benefits Erie,” he said. “And I do not get compensated unless Erie does, so our interests are in lockstep.”

Owens could earn up to $4.5 million for his services if the deal goes forward.

Under the agreement negotiated by Owens, Erie would receive a $4.5 million upfront payment and 3% royalty interest for the life of the project, which the town projected at the time of the council’s vote could range from $19 million to $31 million. The royalties wouldn’t kick in until SM Energy has recovered 200% of its cost to develop Draco.

The agreement would also transfer roughly 160 acres of SM’s land along County Line Road to the town and allow Erie staff to conduct inspections at the Draco well pad, even though it would be located outside town borders.

Drew said the town never properly bid the contract before awarding it to Owens. In June, he hired an attorney to investigate how Erie ended up with Owens as its representative.

The town has acknowledged it violated its purchasing policy in the way it hired Owens.

Town leaders are “investigating what led to these purchasing policy oversights and acknowledge and take responsibility for the errors,” the town

Erie, Drew said, should rip up the contract and start over, not just because of how Owens was hired but because he believes the town didn’t claim all of its underground minerals in its negotiations with SM Energy. The agreement stipulates that Erie will sell 180 acres of municipal mineral rights to SM — roughly 4.9% of the overall Draco drilling area.

According to Erie spokeswoman Gabi Rae, a couple of parcels in the nearly 4,000-acre drilling area have “unclear titles.”

“The final due diligence report should give more information about ownership and sizing,” she said.

That doesn’t allay Drew’s concerns.

“Why would you give away that potential negotiating position?” he said. “This deal could have been done right.”

Aside from the agreement itself, some in Erie are vexed by what they say was an opaque process behind the negotiations with SM Energy, said Brecht, the special election petition organizer.

“When this sale came into the public discussion earlier this year, the mayor framed it to the people of Erie that the town was just exploring whether it was the right option for Erie to sell, versus not sell, its minerals,” she said. “It has become clear that at that point the lawyers were already negotiating the terms of the sale.”

Much of the early discussion took place in executive session, she said, a part of public meetings that are not open to the public. The lack of detail from town leaders “left a lot of residents frustrated,” Brecht said.

Leverage requires discretion, councilman argues

That’s not the way Erie Councilman Brandon Bell sees it.

He voted in favor of the minerals agreement, and he pushed back on the idea that the town’s process was shrouded in secrecy. Executive sessions are a common tool used by elected bodies in Colorado to protect positions and leverage in sensitive negotiations, he said.

“State law allows for executive sessions for negotiation strategies that are held in private so that those are kept from third parties,” Bell said. “Because you don’t want that information getting back to the people you’re negotiating with, and you want to ensure that the town has the strongest position.”

Erie, he said, has had “dozens of other land deals where we’ve had executive sessions.” Killing the deal with SM Energy, Bell said, would still allow drilling to move forward while leaving the town holding a whole lot of nothing in exchange.

“There still is a thought that … if this petition gets brought to a vote, that it’s going to stop Draco,” Bell said. “The petition really just would stop the sale of the mineral rights.”

Councilwoman Emily Baer voted against the agreement with SM Energy in June. There were too many unanswered questions, she said.

The stipulation in the agreement allowing SM to recover twice its cost to develop Draco before Erie receives any royalty payments runs up against the hard reality that oil and gas well yields start to decline precipitously in the first couple of years of operation, she said.

One industry estimate concluded that wells in the Denver-Julesburg basin .

Then there’s the issue of Erie taking energy money in the first place, Baer said.

“It is hard for health and safety to rise to a level of importance when budgets, projects and services rely on oil and gas money,” she said. “I think it is a risk to entangle our budget with oil and gas revenues.”

Baer wants to hear what residents have to say at the ballot box.

“In my opinion,” she said, “having a committed, engaged electorate that is willing to spend the time and effort to ask their fellow neighbors if they’d like to have the opportunity to vote on a matter is an important part of the civic process.”

Oil and gas fights elsewhere

Potential health harms from proximity to oil and gas drilling have long been a major driver of opposition to the practice in Colorado.

Nearly a decade ago, Colorado voters rejected a ballot measure that would have increased the setback required for new oil and gas wells from homes. But that same 2018 election set the stage for a blue wave that ushered in Democratic state lawmakers determined to turn the tables on oil and gas regulation.

The result: a new state law in 2019 that shifted the focus of the state regulators who consider drilling applications from favoring the industry to ensuring that oil and gas development doesn’t harm human health and the environment.

This year, the ECMC assembled a panel to review several health studies that looked at how exposure to oil and gas fracking — and some of its cancer-causing emissions, like benzene — impacted people living nearby.

It spent eight months reviewing the findings and released in June. However, the report did not reach any conclusions as to whether Colorado’s rule requiring oil and gas sites to be at least 2,000 feet from the nearest home is sufficient to protect people’s health.

Randy Willard, who has spent three years fighting drilling proposals near the Aurora Reservoir, isn’t surprised the state hasn’t been stricter about where energy companies can drill. He’s watched both Arapahoe County and the state approve one well pad after another on a state-owned parcel next to the reservoir and close to his Aurora neighborhood.

“Until the ECMC has a backbone and steps up to bad actors, we won’t see any change,” Willard said.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t stop trying to stop drilling efforts.

Just last week, Willard and his neighbors crowded a meeting of the Arapahoe County commissioners, urging them to reverse their earlier approval of a 24-well pad that will be just over half a mile from homes in Aurora’s Southshore neighborhood.

Willard is looking farther afield to other communities facing similar challenges. To the north of Erie, Verdad Resources submitted an application to Weld County in the spring to drill a 22-well pad near Windsor. To the south, oil giant Chevron is proposing a massive 40-well operation, dubbed Cord Federal, near U.S. 85 and East 136th Avenue, north of Commerce City.

That project is being pursued by a Chevron subsidiary, PDC Energy.

Just over a year ago, there was a well blowout in the Weld County town of Galeton — an incident that spewed pollutants over homes and a school for about five days. Willard said a similar accident near more densely populated communities would be exponentially more disastrous.

Chevron owned the blown well in Galeton, for which it was fined $1.5 million.

“We can help them much more quickly to learn the process,” Willard said of other communities being eyed by the industry. “It’s going to take consistent community engagement and outrage.”

More statehouse action?

While Moore, Erie’s mayor, suspects that a vocal minority is behind the effort to crush Erie’s minerals deal with SM Energy and deprive the town of millions of dollars in revenue, he shares the frustration that many town residents feel about not having the power to change the course of things.

It starts with a lack of jurisdiction, he said: The drilling pad is set to be located in unincorporated Weld County, outside Erie’s borders.

“It’s because state laws are such that oil and gas operators can get permission from the state — and one county — to drill,” he said. “And they can cross county lines. (SM) went outside of Erie to go under Erie. Something just feels wrong about that.”

If state lawmakers want to help empower local communities with meaningful input on drilling decisions, he suggested, they could pass a law prohibiting cross-county access to minerals.

“It would seem to me that we should have more say about what happens in and under our town,” Moore said.

As critical as Brecht has been of Moore and his colleagues on council regarding how they went about crafting the minerals access deal with SM Energy, she agrees that local voices deserve a fuller hearing.

That’s what the effort to get a measure on the ballot is all about, she said.

“In getting a voice, in getting a say in the future of our town, the people of Erie win,” Brecht said. “Whichever way the vote goes.”

The study, published in May 2025, sounded an alarm for communities surrounding well sites, and it got the attention of the , the state body that regulates the oil and gas industry.

The commission assembled a panel to review that report along with two others that looked at how exposure to oil and gas fracking impacted the people who live near well sites. They spent eight months reviewing and released in June.

However, the report did not reach any conclusions as to whether Colorado’s rule requiring oil and gas sites to be at least 2,000 feet from the nearest home is sufficient to protect people’s health. Nor did it make any policy recommendations, leaving the commission’s critics to wonder just how much evidence is needed to effect change.

“It����ap a good first step. But what’s missing here is what is the action that will come from these findings and from putting time into this work,” said Guadalupe Solis, who served on the commission’s panel and is director of public health and advocacy at , a community health nonprofit that is active in Adams County.

Meanwhile, oil and gas industry representatives welcomed the review, saying it is important for Colorado regulators to follow science.

Carly West, executive director of the , said the review reinforced confidence in the state’s 2,000-foot setback rule.

“The evidence doesn’t support changing Colorado’s existing regulatory framework at this time,” she said.

While no policy changes will be forthcoming, the ECMC is accepting on its Public Health Studies Review until Aug. 7. Comments may be submitted online at

The commission’s review reflects the nature of scientific research and how different parties can interpret results differently, based on their interests. Long-term studies are complicated and nuanced, rarely producing definitive conclusions. And that can make it hard for policymakers to enact change even as critics grow antsy over increasing public-health concerns.

Energy and Carbon Management commissioner Trisha Oeth said during a Tuesday night public meeting that she convened the panel after seeing the reports and hearing from the community.

She recruited 14 people, including medical doctors, scientists, state regulators, an industry representative and public health experts from the community, to meet with the researchers and ask questions.

She wanted the commission to understand the science, but she never intended for the group to make policy recommendations.

“It does not change ECMC rules,” Oeth said. “It doesn’t make permit decisions, and it does not say that every health question has been answered. We certainly did not take that on.”

Instead, the panel recommended further study of the cumulative risks of oil and gas development and what it means for people who live near multiple well sites.

And that frustrated those who live near the sites and have been fighting for better public health protections.

‘We need to keep paying attention’

Laurie Anderson, a Colorado field organizer for , said she believes that Oeth had the right intentions when she called for a panel to review the three studies.

But Anderson said the commission, the oil and gas industry and the public are looking for a definitive study that will answer everyone’s questions as to how far apart oil and gas development and neighborhoods should be.

“They just so badly want to justify that 2,000-foot setback and that everything is going to be OK,” Anderson said.

Anderson started fighting oil and gas development after moving to Broomfield in 2015, and she said there is mounting evidence that fracking operations cause illnesses, both long-term and short-term.

She is growing tired of various government agencies waiting on a definitive study while continuing to issue drilling permits.

“They just continue to permit,” Anderson said. “Pretty much they’re going to frack anything in this area before they get the study that says, ‘Whoops, we weren’t as protective as we should have been.'”

During Tuesday night’s informational session on the health panel’s findings, Dr. Jacob Fox, a pulmonologist at UCHealth who studies respiratory disease and climate change, said the leukemia research was an “excellent study.” It showed an association between childhood leukemia and fracking, and it adds to a growing body of evidence that fracking emissions are associated with childhood cancer.

Still, it did not determine a safe distance for families with children, Fox said.

“It����ap something as community members we need to keep paying attention to,” he said.

William Allshouse, one of the paper’s authors, said it’s nearly impossible to make a definitive link between fracking and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which mainly affects children between the ages of 2 and 5. That’s because the scientists were not measuring the actual pollutants the children were exposed to.

That would require more air monitors and more money, he said.

“This is the best we can do with the available information to build that body of evidence,” Allshouse said. “We can’t say this pollutant is causing this cancer at this distance. If we’re going to continue to drill these large sites, they should be monitored to see what’s coming off the well pad to protect the people that live near them.”

Still, Allshouse said he was glad to see the ECMC look at the study.

“Obviously I would like to see things happen more quickly, but I’m glad it����ap not getting lost either,” he said.

Examining three studies

The leukemia paper was one of three 2025 studies reviewed by the panel.

A by the Environmental Defense Fund and Colorado State University looked at the cumulative health risk of the Front Range’s ozone pollution and volatile organic compounds released by oil and gas sites. That study found acute health risks persist even when best management practices exist, and recommended that drilling and well construction stop during the summer ozone season, which stretches from June 1 to Aug. 31.

“There are limits to how broadly we can apply this finding,” Oeth said. “The sites studied had specific practices, and oil and gas practices were changing during the study period, which is very common in research. So ultimately this study helps us understand risk, but it certainly doesn’t answer every question for every site. No study can do that.”

A study by a CSU researcher measured air pollution and noise exposure at oil and gas development in northeastern Colorado’s . It was funded by the Health Effects Institute.

That study found that noise around wells is a concern and that benzene is the greatest air pollutant risk, but it did not identify any chronic health hazards during operations at the tested sites.

That result bolstered the industry’s arguments that a 2,000-foot setback is enough to protect nearby residents.

“One of the things the review reinforced was confidence in Colorado’s setback requirements,” said West, of the American Petroleum Institute. “The hope is always that the regulations you put into place achieve what you want to achieve.”

Oeth repeatedly reminded the audience at Tuesday’s meeting that the commission’s review did not settle every scientific question.

“It’s meant to help the public, help the ECMC as an agency and help our partner agencies better understand what these studies found, what they did not prove and where more work is needed,” she said.

Colorado needs to follow California’s lead and take a more comprehensive look at research that studies the connection between oil and gas drilling and public health, said Dr. Sara Carpenter, executive director of .

“What concerns me the most about the ECMC report is it����ap not that thorough,” Carpenter said. “I think it was a great idea to convene a panel and say, ‘Let����ap look at this.’ But it����ap only three studies.”

In 2024, the California Geologic Energy Management Division released after a 15-member panel it commissioned reviewed thousands of studies on oil and gas production’s impact on public health and then picked 72 from across the United States and Canada to focus on.

The panel concluded that enough evidence existed to show that oil and gas operations cause respiratory diseases such as asthma and perinatal health problems such as low birthweights, preterm births and congenital abnormalities, Carpenter said. And California clearly stated that its findings would be used to make policy decisions. It reinforced the state’s 2022 decision to make setbacks a minimum of 3,200 feet.

More research has been conducted since that paper was released, and Colorado could have picked up the torch and added to the body of work, she said.

“If this bleeds into inaction at a policy level, that����ap a problem,” Carpenter said. “Why reinvent the wheel? I think these guys reinvented a spoke.”

MILWAUKEE — The eerie glow of an orange sun through thick wildfire smoke might be unnerving, but the biggest risk from the haze is something much harder to see.

Tiny particles in the air can cause a range of , experts say.

Wildfire smoke can settle over cities for days — like the recent blanket over parts of the U.S. from burning fires in Canada, which has for

Health officials advise people to stay indoors — and to take steps to keep the air in your home clean.

How to safely run your AC

If you have central air conditioning, it should clean the air in your home.

Make sure filters are replaced on schedule and are of the highest level of filtration your system can handle. Filters rated MERV 13 or higher are ideal. Set the air to recirculate and close any vents that pull air from outside if you can. The University of Oregon’s Center for Wildfire Smoke Research and Practice recommends running the system’s fan through the entire smoke event, not just when cooling.

If you buy a portable air filter, look for a HEPA air filter or one that says it traps small particles of pollution. Ensure it does not generate ozone, another harmful air pollutant.

If you can only afford one portable air filter, use it to create a “clean room” in your house where you can spend most of your time.

“The basic message is that something is better than nothing,” said Amy Kalkbrenner, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The science behind DIY air filters

There’s good evidence that DIY filters made by to a box fan work.

They’re simple, relatively affordable and scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency have found they are just as good at removing fine particles of pollution from the air as a small commercial air purifier.

“The good news is they really work,” said Kalkbrenner.

All you need to have to make one is: four 20-by-20-inch (50.8-by-50.8-centimeters) furnace air filters rated MERV 13 or higher, a box fan, cardboard and duct tape. The EPA’s website shows how you can modify the design to only use one or two filters. The fan should blow out, and the arrows on the filters should point in. Make sure everything is taped up air-tight.

Using your window AC and cooling your air safely

Many window air conditioners, mini-split heat exchangers and portable air conditioners don’t have the filters needed to remove fine pollution particles. But heat can also be dangerous.

“When smoke and heat occur together, the impacts on your health are even greater than when they occur by themselves,” said Jess Downey, a researcher at the University of Oregon’s Center for Wildfire Smoke Research and Practice

Downey said the ideal scenario is running the AC unit and using an air purifier or a DIY box fan filter to clean the air. Make sure your AC is well-sealed in your window frame, she added.

Make sure the window units are set to recirculate air. Portable units with a single hose should be used sparingly, according to the University of Oregon wildfire smoke center.

If you don’t have AC, any reprieve from hot, smoky air is important. Head to the library, shopping mall or other space with clean, cool air.

Ways to seal up a home to keep hazardous air out

Whether it����ap a towel, some tape, or something else — plug areas where air could enter from outside.

“Being from Chicago, I think you can liken it to trying to keep the cold air out,” said Dr. Khalilah Gates, a lung doctor with Northwestern Medicine. “Any areas in which air can come in, consider sealing up those areas to reduce the amount that����ap coming into the home.”

When smoke levels are high, experts recommend avoiding anything that burns — candles, fireplaces, even gas stoves — so plan ahead with some meal prep.

How wildfire smoke affects the body

Exposure to wildfire smoke can lead to shortness of breath, chest tightness, headaches, and a burning sensation in the nose and eyes.

“When you ever start to feel those symptoms and they’re not severe, it����ap important to acknowledge, ‘Oh, my body is responding to this. I need to move away from it. I need to move inside,’” Gates said.

If you’re wheezing, can’t catch your breath or are in distress, get to the emergency room immediately, she said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Sheryl Magzamen, an epidemiologist and professor of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University, is also curious about how, if at all, poor air quality affects dogs. That����ap why she is helping lead a study intended to find out .

“There’s this huge gap in understanding what this means for animal health,” Magzamen said. “A lot of our recommendations right now are based on human health recommendations, and part of our question is, does that make sense given that dogs usually spend more time outside than people do? And their lives aren’t as long, so do we see that health effects have more meaning because their lifetimes are shorter?”

Leveraging the Denver-based Morris Animal Foundation’s , Magzamen and her co-researchers Craig Webb, Danni Scott and Colleen Duncan will evaluate whether smoke and specifically the chemical PM2.5 lead to higher rates of cancer in the breed or ultimately shorten their lives by causing other diseases.

The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, started in 2012, seeks to identify nutritional, environmental, lifestyle and genetic risk factors for cancer and other diseases in dogs. It has enrolled more than 3,000 dogs located across the U.S., Magzamen said, which should give researchers a better understanding if the type of smoke also plays a role in canine illness.

Colorado dogs, for example, are more likely to be exposed to smoke from forest fires, whereas dogs in the southeastern U.S. are more prone to exposure from grassland fires and other types of prescribed burns, Magzeman said.

“Depending on what burns and how hot it burns and what other things burn around it changes the chemical composition of that smoke,” she said. “We are really trying to understand what this means not only for us, but for our canine companions as well.”

Results from her study won’t be published until at least next year. Until then, Magzamen said owners can use themselves as a barometer for their dog’s safety in smoky conditions. Humans and canines have many of the same organs in their cardiovascular and respiratory systems, she said, so “if you don’t feel good, you can assume your dog might not feel good either.”

On days when the air quality index is “unhealthy” for people to breathe (an AQI between 151 and 200), Magzamen advised limiting your dog’s activity and exercise. High-intensity activity, like runs or big hikes, should also be reduced when the air quality is less than ideal, she said. Senior dogs could be considered among “sensitive groups,” like children and individuals with lung diseases, who are at risk when the air quality index hits 100 or more, she added.

Play inside or out? How to manage Denver’s poor air quality with kids

Air pollution has been linked to in humans, including increasing the risk of premature birth, causing or worsening lung and heart disease, and shortening lives, according to the American Lung Association.

Magzamen and her co-researchers hope to understand if AQI readings are transferable to dogs or if there should be separate guidance for animals and individual breeds, such as French bulldogs and pugs that have shorter snouts and more difficulty breathing. As a dog lover, she also hopes her work can help other canine-loving families lead happy, long lives. Her golden good boy, Comet, recently died from cancer at 6 years old.

“It definitely gives me pause to think about what this means as Comet was out and about on his two walks a day. When he was healthy and doing well, these are days that we know smoke was in the air. I'm not saying that it����ap causal, but it also makes me think, did this potentially have impacts on his diagnosis and ultimately his death?” she said.

The metro area typically deals with high ozone levels in the summer because of the intense sunshine acting on chemicals in the air, plus the fact that the city sits in a bowl below the Rocky Mountains. In addition, smoke from wildfires burning across Colorado and neighboring states temporarily worsens air quality.

Both factors combined in late June and early July to create air that was unhealthy for sensitive groups, and occasionally, the general public, to breathe.

Unfortunately, young children are a sensitive group.

The lungs are larger, as a proportion of body size, in babies and toddlers than in adults, said Dr. Deniz Kolozs, associate medical director of pediatrics at Kaiser Permanente’s Aurora Centrepoint clinic. When kids inhale the same amount of polluted air as adults, they’re more likely to see a negative effect, she said.

Not all children are equally sensitive, however. Inflammation adds up, so children with asthma and seasonal allergies will have more breathing problems at the same level of pollution than kids whose airways aren’t already irritated, Kolozs said.

Parents can safely let most kids play outside even in the summer as long as they watch for symptoms, Kolozs said. If children are coughing, wheezing or just not acting like themselves, parents should move playtime inside, she said. If they don’t improve within 20 to 30 minutes, parents should call a doctor.

If a child’s or their lips start to turn blue, call 911.

“It’s case by case and child by child,” she said. “If they seem like they don’t feel good, they probably don’t.”

Kids with severe lung conditions who have to be outside on smoky days could reduce their risk by wearing well-fitted N95 masks, but obviously not all children will tolerate that, Kolozs said. Children younger than 2 shouldn’t wear masks because of the risk they’ll breathe in too much of their exhaled carbon dioxide.

Evidence about the long-term risks of polluted air is still emerging.

Researchers have found possible links between heavy wildfire smoke during pregnancy and , as well as preterm birth and low birthweight. At the other end of life, studies suggest a possible link between air pollution and , as well as an increased risk of , commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Long-term exposure to pollution isn’t good for children, but keeping them cooped up for the whole summer also isn’t healthy, Kolozs said. Parents can check to keep up with fluctuating air quality and try to plan outdoor play for the least risky times, she said.

“Kids need to be outside,” she said.

Air pollution from wildfires burning across the state and the Front Range’s typical summer ground-level ozone problem will be intensified, experts say, as cities, sports teams and families launch pyrotechnics over the long holiday weekend.

The warns that breathing the fine particulate matter and chemicals released by exploding fireworks can exacerbate symptoms for people who suffer from asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“It����ap a time for fun, right? We want people to enjoy themselves and have fun,” said Nick Torres, the lung association’s advocacy director in Colorado. “But fireworks are a contributor to poor air quality.”

Some Colorado cities and counties, including Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Highlands Ranch, have canceled this weekend’s fireworks shows as wildfires rage, and cities such as Denver have replaced them with drone shows because of the high fire risk.

Many cities have prohibited individuals from shooting them off themselves, although those bans are often ignored and loosely enforced. And those smaller backyard fireworks can be just as damaging to air quality.

When fireworks explode, they emit fine airborne particles that can be inhaled and enter the bloodstream. Along with particulate matter, known as PM2.5, fireworks also release chemicals that are used to create loud noises and vivid colors. Gases and heavy metals can hang for hours after the brilliant plumes of red, white and blue have faded.

Gases from fireworks include sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide, and the heavy metals include barium, copper, cadmium and aluminum.

A massive Fourth of July fireworks display planned for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., will involve 850,000 fireworks in a 40-minute show and will create unhealthy conditions in the nation’s capital, , which obtained internal documents from the .

A park service analysis of the anticipated air quality impacts from that fireworks display determined it will cause “very unhealthy” conditions and stated that people should avoid prolonged exposure around the Mall and central D.C., the newspaper reported.

A 2015 study in the scientific journal found that concentrations of fine particulate matter were elevated on the evening of July 4 and the morning of July 5 at 315 monitoring sites in the United States. On average nationally, particulate matter levels rose 42% during the 24 hours surrounding the holiday, and a site adjacent to a fireworks show can have particulate matter levels three times higher than normal.

In Colorado, a team of meteorologists who track weather patterns in Boulder determined that the city’s 2019 decision to cancel its annual July 4 fireworks show at Folsom Field led to lower air pollution levels on the holiday compared to neighboring cities that shot off fireworks, according to the report. The city has not held a fireworks show since.

The meteorologists monitored air quality indexes for Boulder, Longmont, Broomfield and Denver and found that while Boulder had a slight uptick in air pollution around July 4, the other cities more than doubled their levels. They accounted for weather patterns in each city, the BoulderCast report stated.

An below 50 is considered good. In 2025, Boulder’s air quality index for PM2.5 peaked at 70, largely due to residents who bought fireworks in Wyoming and shot them in their backyards. The index level dropped around 1 a.m.

“Particulates remaining in the air until 1 a.m. would suggest people continued to launch fireworks well into the night, or could be some influence from the topography of Boulder Valley slowing the clear out,” the report said.

Meanwhile, Longmont’s air quality index peaked between 120 and 170 around 10 p.m. when the city’s fireworks show ended. Air quality levels dropped to normal by 11 p.m. Broomfield’s air monitoring stations showed peaks of 140 between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., when that city’s fireworks show took place, and air quality levels returned to regular levels by midnight.

In Denver, fireworks set off by residents likely caused high air pollution levels because the only large-scale display in the city was a 15-minute show hosted by the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. But the city’s air quality monitors showed a rise in particulates between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., with sites averaging a peak of 145, BoulderCast reported.

“This suggests that citizen fireworks, and the air blowing in from upstream cities, polluted Denver substantially for several hours,” the report stated.

Ben Castellani, a BoulderCast co-founder and lead meteorologist, said he expects the air quality indexes to peak even higher this year because wildfire smoke has already elevated those numbers at monitoring stations across the Front Range.

“This year I will expect it to be worse of a peak, but not stick around any longer,” Castellani said.

Experts said the pollution from fireworks does not cause long-term health effects because the celebrations are short-lived. But the brief, intense emissions can make some people sick.

“It����ap not that great of a danger, but some of the chemicals and metals in fireworks are more dangerous than what’s in the wildfire smoke,” Castellani said.

On Thursday, the issued health advisories for much of the state because of the smoke. The health department warned that people who suffer from respiratory or heart diseases, along with the very young and elderly, should stay indoors. Those advisories are in effect at least until 9 a.m. Friday.

Those advisories are expected to continue through the weekend as hot, stagnant weather sets in, said Mike Silverstein, executive director of the , which helps establish policy to reduce the region’s air pollution.

The air quality council is predicting a  because of the hot weather.

“Fireworks is another emissions category just like vehicles or industrial emissions,” Silverstein said. “It just exacerbates our air pollution problem.”

The nine-county Front Range region violates federal air quality standards, leading the to impose tighter regulations, including a requirement that motorists buy a more expensive blend of gasoline that burns cleaner.

The region struggles with ground-level ozone pollution, which is most problematic during the hot months between mid-May and early September. Volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides — chemicals released by burning fossil fuels — cook in the sun, forming a blanket that traps heat along the Front Range.

Adding fireworks to the wildfire smoke and the ground-level ozone can make for a dirty, unhealthy holiday.

Torres recommends that people who suffer from lung diseases stay downwind of fireworks displays or watch them inside through windows or via television broadcasts.

“Stay indoors and curl up with your pets, who probably aren’t enjoying fireworks either,” he said.