Boulder City Council Member Matt Benjamin, a pilot and ardent Boulder airport supporter, is entitled to his opinion about the future of the airport site. However, he is not entitled to lie to his constituents, as he did at the August 15, 2024 City Council meeting.
Is Council Member Benjamin trying to distract from the real environmental justice issue happening right now at the Boulder airport?
At the August 15 City Council meeting, Benjamin stated that repurposing the airport site with 50% affordable housing would “deliberately put our lowest income people, families and people of color, on a knowingly contaminated site.” When asked by his astonished colleague, Council Member Mark Wallach, “Are you suggesting that housing would actually be built on this site without any adequate remediation of whatever environmental conditions exist?” Benjamin doubled down. He said, "I'm not the one suggesting it. The petitioners are." He was referring to the ballot initiatives brought by the Airport Neighborhood Campaign, ANC.
This is an outrageous and offensive lie. All development in Boulder is subject to state and federal law regarding environmental remediation. The ballot petitioners have never suggested, nor ever would suggest, bypassing state and federal law to build housing for anyone, regardless of income, on an unremediated airport site. It is a given that any necessary remediation would occur.
Benjamin further said, “Remediation does not remove all the contaminants. It just makes it okay to meet a standard.” Does Benjamin think that the 46,000+ people living in the repurposed Stapleton community are living on a toxic site? [1] If he is truly implying that state and federal requirements for site cleanup are inadequate, he should back it up with data rather than using insinuation and fear-mongering. Hopefully, the Council Member recognizes that environmental remediation occurs at many locations in Boulder and around Colorado, not just the airport. Creating doubt or distrust in that process is not something to do lightly.
It's possible that airport supporter Benjamin is trying to distract from the real environmental justice issue happening at the Boulder airport right now. Right now, people who live, work, go to school, and recreate near the airport are being exposed to ongoing airborne lead emissions from the burning of leaded aviation fuel. Multiple peer-reviewed studies in the United States involving hundreds of airports and over a million children have drawn a direct link between the use of leaded aviation fuel used by piston-engine planes like those that fly from the Boulder airport (and elsewhere) and elevated blood lead levels in children. [2] [3] One study of aviation lead near Reid-Hillview Airport in California found that at times the blood lead levels of children within .5 miles of Reid-Hillview airport were double the levels seen during the height of the Flint Water Crisis in Michigan. [4] [5]
Who are these people that live, work, and go to school within a few miles of the Boulder airport? Many reside in lower income housing including apartments and mobile home parks such as Vista Village and San Lazaro, precisely the people that Benjamin claims to want to protect. Some county homes are within 500 feet of the runway. [3] A private school is .5 miles southeast of the runway. [3] The especially tiny particle size of lead dust from aviation fuel makes it both easily absorbed in human and animal tissues and very difficult to filter with normal filtering technology. [6] These residents and students are being subjected to chronic and ongoing environmental harms right now from continued airport operations. We encourage Council Member Benjamin to take up this environmental justice cause.
Indeed, knowingly exposing residents to the risk of airborne lead may be a liability issue for the city. In March, 2024, the Town of Superior and Boulder County Commissioners filed a lawsuit to protect their residents from negative and unreasonable health impacts caused by operations at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. [7] They say in particular, “These operations deposit unsafe levels of lead particulates on Plaintiffs... and thus create unreasonable health and safety hazards for their residents.” [8] Like RMMA, the Boulder airport is situated on the periphery of the Boulder jurisdiction and sends its polluting traffic over county residents, particularly via repetitive touch and go maneuvers. It would not be surprising to see a similar lawsuit by the County against Boulder.
Airborne lead pollution from piston engine plane traffic is very real. However, professing environmental justice, Benjamin conveniently ignores that issue and instead makes up stories about the intent of ANC petitioners and remediation. We deserve better from our city council than what we got from Council Member Benjamin on August 15. His disgraceful lie about the ballot measures was an abuse of the public’s trust in him as a council member. It was a dereliction of his duty to act truthfully, ethically, and in good faith towards his constituents, the people of Boulder, including ANC petitioners.
References
[1, Stapleton population] Point2 Homes, Data from 2022 American Community Survey, https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/CO/Denver/Stapleton-Denver-Demographics.html, retrieved 8/20/24.
[2, a million children] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316072809_The_Effect_of_Leaded_Aviation_Gasoline_on_Blood_Lead_in_Children, July 2017.
[3, a million children, county homes, private school] https://boulderreportinglab.org/2024/07/09/as-boulder-considers-closing-its-municipal-airport-to-address-housing-shortage-lead-concerns-also-emerge/, July 2024.
[4, double the levels during Flint] County of Santa Clara News Center, https://news.santaclaracounty.gov/news-release/findings-county-commissioned-airborne-lead-study-published-online-proceedings-national, Jan 2023
[5, Reid-Hillview study] Zahran, Keyes, Lamphear, https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/1/pgac285/6979725. Jan 2023.
[6, aviation fuel particle size] Unveiling the Health Impacts of Leaded Aviation Fuel.
[7, RMMA lawsuit report] Boulder County New & Information, https://bouldercounty.gov/news/superior-and-boulder-county-take-legal-action-against-rocky-mountain-metropolitan-airport-and-jefferson-county/, March 2024.
[8, lawsuit content ] https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/COBOULDER/2024/03/12/file_attachments/2811420/Complaint%20for%20Injunctive%20Relief.pdf
[additional information] “Toxic Fuel”, Quartz Series, https://qz.com/series/avgas, June 2022, includes four articles:
- Leaded airplane fuel is poisoning a new generation of American children
- Living with the risks of childhood lead exposure: A day in the life
- Do you live close enough to a small US airport to have lead exposure? Check our maps
- 50 years of research shows there is no safe level of childhood lead exposure