Colorado took a big step toward regulating a whole new category of toxic air pollutants last week, though some environmental and community justice advocates say the state’s first benchmarking efforts go too easy on industrial pollution sources.
State and local officials have spent decades trying to control air pollution threats from ground-level ozone and curbing Colorado’s contributions to global greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. A 2022 directive from the legislature ordered the state health department to match other states’ efforts in limiting so-called “air toxics,” or specific chemicals emitted from various industries that can harm human health in the immediate surroundings.
The chemicals, such as benzene and ethylene oxide, are often inevitable byproducts or key production materials in industries ranging from oil and gas refining to sterilization of medical equipment. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says air toxics are “pollutants that cause or are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects and other serious health effects,” and international health guidelines are aimed at limiting neighbors’ lifetime exposure.
The Air Quality Control Commission, working largely from staff recommendations, last week voted in limits for how much of the following substances is allowed in local air: formaldehyde, benzene, hexavalent chromium compounds, ethylene oxide, and hydrogen sulfide. State health staff will now spend the next six months figuring out how to set emissions limits for those companies that handle or produce those chemicals, and how to incorporate that into the existing air pollution permitting system.
The commission must send the standards to the legislature for approval in December, then will vote on another rulemaking for the actual emission protocols in April.
Advocates have been fighting for the rules for years, and praised the milestone vote to set health-based standards last week. But they also criticized the commissioners for overriding some staff recommendations and weakening non-cancer risk levels, as industrial lobbyists had asked for.
“We are disappointed that a majority of commissioners deviated from the well-researched proposal put forward by the division,” said Earthjustice Rocky Mountain Office attorney Rachael Jaffe, after the vote. “This was a missed opportunity to protect Coloradans, particularly in light of the deregulation we’re seeing at the federal level.”
“No matter what, this rulemaking was a big deal, and especially the cancer-risk limits are a really solid step forward. So I think communities can take some heart that this is a good first step,” said Ian Coghill, another Earthjustice attorney as part of a coalition including Colorado GreenLatinos and others. “But there’s a lot of work to do to try to actually implement this in a way that is meaningful and provides meaningful benefits to communities.”
These toxins do hit the news on a regular basis — six dairy workers died from suspected hydrogen sulfide poisoning on the job at a Keensburg facility in August. A Colorado State University team said a well blowout near Galeton in April exposed residents to potentially dangerous levels of benzene. Colorado has been a theater for multiple lawsuits over ethylene oxide exposure, with the toxic chemical used as an equipment sterilization agent by Terumo in Lakewood and other manufacturers.
The commission did accept the staff and environmental groups’ contention that airborne toxin levels for substances that cause cancer should be capped at the risk level of only one additional cancer case above the background level in a population of 1 million.
“The one in a million cancer risk is about as stringent as you can see happen,” Coghill said.