An environmental group has threatened to sue the EPA over the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division's failure to meet an EPA deadline to rewrite permits for a Weld County oil and gas complex. The contends the EPA and state regulators failed to act quickly on the issue.
The Colorado Sun editor David Krause joined KUNC's Michael Lyle, Jr.
"A spokesperson didn't really give us a details on the why they missed it, other than a response that they are evaluating the EPA concerns," said Krause. "Now that there's potential for litigation, the division says it doesn't comment when issues move into litigation."
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Krause also touched on the main concerns the nonprofit is suing over.
"It goes to the air quality issues in the nine-county region of the Denver metro area and northern Front Range, which according to the EPA has for decades been under dangerous levels of ground-level ozone," said Krause. "The mixture of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds leads to the smog and brown cloud we see more of over Denver and to the north along the Front Range. We’re talking about roughly 4 million Coloradans."
Krause also said representatives for the Center for Biological Diversity say the state is effectively giving the oil and gas industry a free pass to pollute under illegal permits.
"They want the EPA to intervene to ensure public health and the environment comes first and put an end to what they call 'Colorado’s dangerous foot-dragging,'" said Krause.
Krause said it's now a matter of waiting to see how the state responds to the initial EPA order and whether that satisfies the environmental groups enough to retract any litigation.
