Longmont City Council may ask state Attorney General to investigate air quality agency

City council tonight may ask Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to investigate allegations that the state’s air quality watchdog falsified data and approved permits for industrial operations “at all costs.”

Council members last week agreed by a 6-1 vote to consider sending a letter to Weiser requesting an investigation into allegations against the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division, or APCD. Council members will vote on the contents of the letter Tuesday night.

Mayor Brian Bagely, whose signature will be on the letter, was the lone dissenting vote last week, telling the council he did not want Longmont to get involved in a state-wide issue.

Councilmember Marcia Martin, who drafted the letter, told the council Longmont has a vested interest in the conduct of the APCD. The data collected in the city’s air quality monitoring stations are shared with the state, Martin said.

“...In that respect, I think Longmont is a stakeholder in this,” she told the council.

The letter highlights allegations filed with the EPA by the Public Employees for Retirement Responsibility and reported by the Colorado Sun. The whistleblower complaint includes a “sample list of unlawfully issued permits to Colorado industrial operations that range from asphalt plants, to coal mines, to oil drilling pads, to meatpackers to a gold mine,” according to the letter.

 “The complaint describes in detail a leadership culture of ‘approving permits at all costs,’” according to the letter.

The letter also asks Attorney General Weiser to order the APCD to halt issuing all permits that violated modeling requirements and review all Air Pollution Emissions Notice, APEN, permits granted since 2011.

Longmont is paying “eminent” atmospheric scientist, Detlev Helmig, to provide air quality monitoring in and around Longmont, the letter states. 

“We are therefore particularly distressed by the alleged behaviors of some in leadership at the APCD and CDPHE (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) that, if true, represent a profound betrayal of the state’s responsibility to protect the health and well-being of its citizens and may constitute unlawful conduct,” the letter states.