Is the poor ozone AQI in Golden worth worrying about? (Highlands Ranch: air quality, castle)

[nele]

Interesting. I always thought Suncor's refinery and the feedlots in Greeley were big contributors.

[pikabike]

Originally Posted by nele

Interesting. I always thought Suncor's refinery and the feedlots in Greeley were big contributors.

Traffic is one of the biggest contributors. We lived on the west side long enough to see the degradation rise together with development’s movement in that direction.

The first year of COVID, which resulted in much lower number of miles driven in the Front Range, also shows that vehicle emissions play a big role in the BC’s presence and severity.

[sammy87]

I think it's all those factors that attribute to the cloud. Im at about 6k ft in West Arvada and you can see it all up and down 25. Not sure how far east and west it goes but its there.

The past 2 summers an on and off those winters Ive noticed the air being really bad. I am worried about the long term effects on my kids.

[jweb29]

In the winter, there is the browncloud, and PMI2.5. In the summer, there is ozone. The hypochondriac in me hates that

[Wheatridger]

I'm sorry to say that, because I love Golden. I was there today. Thirty years ago I was a newspaper reporter covering Golden and the rest of Jefferson County. In a conversation with the director of the Regional Air Quality Council, he said that the area around Lookout Mountain was consistently the smoggiest on the Front Range. More recently I've seen supporting statistics: 90 Ozone Action days per year at the Golden measuring station, vs. 60 in Bolder, 40 in Denver and 25 in Aurora (IIRC).

The Denver cyclone operates all along the Northern front Range like this: prevailing westerly winds leave the mountain foothills at 2000+ feet above the urbanized plains. That creates a partial vacuum that sucks in polluted air from the east, at the surface level. It's like a river eddy turned on its side. On inversion days, this blows in all the pollution created by a 40-mile wide urbanized area and piles it up against the stone wall of the foothills, where it stews into smog. Golden itself is in a deep, steep fault valley, that makes matters worse.

This makes for a dilemma: Live on the west side and enjoy short commutes to the mountains, but poor air quality; or move out east for cleaner air (and, ironically, better mountain views), but you're an up to an hour farther from the place you want to be on the weekends.

[Wheatridger]

Originally Posted by pikabike

The nasty Brown Cloud frequently enveloped the urbanmost portion of the Front Range when I moved there in the late 80s. Over the following decades, after a horrendous and visible worsening, it slowly got better, partly due to regulations and partly because sand-and-salt road deicer was used less often in favor of liquid deicers. I remember looking out from an 8th floor workplace on Union Blvd (at the base of Green Mountain) and seeing Denver entirely obliterated. Then each year that cloud crept farther west. Earlier, it had never gone west of Sheridan. It grew to extend past Wadsworth, Kipling, and finally one day we were IN it on Union Blvd. That had never happened before.

There was a period of fewer BC days, but it began worsening again. This is not a new thing at all. Despite use of liquid deicer instead of sand and rock salt, despite newer cars having stricter emissions limits, one factor overwhelms the mitigation: MORE PEOPLE DRIVING MORE MILES. That is aside from unpredicted incidents such as wildfires.

As I've watched it here for 43 years, Denver has traded its particulates and carbon conoxide problem for a growing ozone problem. From the Brown Cloud to the Silent Strangler, to coin a phrase. We have all the essential ingredients for brewing up ozone: heat and intense sunlight, plus sulfur dioxide from every-growing hoards of vehicles. Plus a wild card that took us by surprise. Over 50,000 oil and gas wells near Denver that have been blamed for 20% of our ozone problem. I wish I had better news, but I'm planning to leave here for my health.

[sammy87]

The poor AQ was one of the factors in us leaving. We have 2 young kids and didnt feel long term after the fires on top of hte AQ was a good long term idea.

[jweb29]

Millennials inherently grew up VERY aware of these issues, way more than the prior generations.

They are now buying houses, and establishing home bases -- they finally have good jobs. I'm invisioning a future where we have Electric Vehicles, charged by solar panels on our roofs, and solar farms throughout the city. Only smally supplemented by wind, and combustable fuel.

So I see hope in us electrifying, and moving away from natural gas, and oil. It won't happen overnight though. One day, Denver may be air pollution free. I only hope we will still have enough water by the time we hit that point.

All I can say is that my house will contain solar panels a level 2 electric charging outlet

[COcheesehead]

I lived in central Denver for many years. I could count like clockwork getting a sinus infection in Fall and again in Spring almost every year.
I moved out south to Highlands Ranch at one point and from our higher vantage point watched the brown dome develop as the weather cooled. I often thought that is what I used to breath.
We now live on the western slope and I haven’t had a sinus infection in probably 10 years.

[jweb29]

I feel that it is worth worrying about....

So I decided that the best place for me is Englewood.

Walkable suburbs to anything: climbing gym, diner, bars, the gothic theatre. South (far from smelly puppy chow factory and whatever other smelly things are up north), and to me very importantly: at LEAST 10-20 aqi points lower than the vortex of ozone that occurs in the west side during the the summer.

And most importantly an old geriatric house that was under 500k. Just passed the inspection phase, closing march 30th, it'd be hard to get out now.... My 4 year journey on finally committing to a house is finally coming to an end!