An air monitoring station at Vance Brand Airport that supplies key information about atmospheric and greenhouse gas emissions is being moved to make way for the construction of new airport hangars.
The city council last month approved a lease to Western Airport Development, which wants to construct hangars for aircraft storage, according to a city staff report.
The construction will take place next to the monitoring station operated by research scientist Detlev Helmig and his company, Boulder Atmosphere Innovation Research LLC, or Boulder AIR. Helmig is under a nearly $500,000 contract to monitor local oil and gas emissions as well as greenhouse gases from vehicles in and around Longmont.
Helmig has been sampling and reporting atmospheric emissions at Vance Brand Airport and at the east side of Longmont near Union Reservoir since 2019. Boulder AIR, at boulderair.com/longmont.htm, posts online reports detailing level ozone, methane and carbon monoxide at Vance Brand and the levels of carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitric oxides, ethane, propane, benzene, acetylene and toluene at the Union Reservoir station, according to city staff reports.
Erecting a hangar next door to the air monitoring station will interfere with its operation, forcing the move, said Jane Turner, air quality and oil and gas coordinator for the city of Longmont.
“Measuring the wind speed and direction is an important part of air monitoring,” Turner said in an email. “Having a large building near the air quality monitoring station will have an impact on the accuracy of the wind measurement.”
The city is looking at alternative locations for the station, with plans to move the facility in August, Turner states in her email. The station and its readings will be offline during the relocation, which will likely take two-to-three days, she said.
