Location, location, location. Location is the No. 1 rule in real estate. It’s also the No. 1 rule with ozone. Stratospheric ozone is the “good” kind in the upper atmosphere that protects against the sun’s ultra violet radiation. Tropospheric ozone is the “bad” kind at ground level that causes smog. The Front Range has the seventh worst ground level ozone problem in the nation which is why the EPA is on our bum.

Gov. Jared Polis announced last week that the state will reduce the nitrogen oxide (NOx) part of ozone by 30% by 2025 and 50% by 2030. He will enlist the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and the Air Quality Control Commission to do the hard work of regulating NOx into smaller amounts by cracking down on the oil and gas industry.

Though none of us should hold our breath on the outcome, this announcement suggests if the governor wants a crackdown on air polluters, he can make it happen.

When Polis talks up his actions, there’s a guaranteed reaction, just like in chemistry, from Dan Haley of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Haley objects to more pollution regulations on his industry by asserting the drilling business needs regulatory certainty. According to him, oil and gas extraction has been on the butt end of uncertainty, as if most businesses live in some other privileged context where they can predict what’s going to happen in their future.

Polis cited SB19-181, landmark legislation to protect us and the environment from pollution harm, as the basis for his NOx proclamation. Unfortunately for us, he has just now gotten around to the impact of NOx on our air. That’s three years after SB19-181 passed and many slogs of COGCC regulatory hearings with consequent small tweaks here and there on drilling regulations. Most revealing to how the governor sees the industry is his lack of intervention on the orphan well problem.

As many in the environmentalists’ world have noted, Colorado’s oil and gas operators put in woefully low amounts of money as bond to protect against the inevitable clean-up of abandoned wells. The impact of the COGCC’s mild modifications to abandoned/orphan well bonding will be felt long after the governor is out of Colorado office, but within the living timeframe of many individuals now 30 or younger who will pick up this nasty tab about a decade or two out.

Just as bad is the governor’s lack of effort on Suncor Refinery pollution that has put north Denver and Commerce City, locations closest to the huge oil and gas operator, into pollution muck day in and day out.

Perhaps some remember the yellow powder that covered cars in 2019, just after SB19-181 passed the legislature. Suncor called the event an “operational upset” as if it had a tummy ache. The powder was “catalyst” that Suncor finally admitted could cause “short term discomfort to eyes, and coughing and wheezing.” Raise your hand if you want to live where you’re forced to suck catalyst powder into your lungs that will cause “coughing and wheezing.” That’s the ongoing fate of north Denver and Commerce City residents.

As part of an agreement with Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment, Suncor had to make money available to Commerce City residents as remuneration for its pollution troubles. Cultivando, an organization that serves the Latina/o community in Adams County, received funds to measure the pollution coming from the Suncor Refinery. It recently provided results from its first year of continuous monitoring from multiple sites outside the plant to capture measurements of the many elements that form ozone and other health-harming pollutants.

The results aren’t pretty for the people who live near the refinery. The governor is focused on NOx. According to measurements announced at the Cultivando news conference, Suncor had 65,203 exceedances of greater than 53ppb in a recent six-month period at Cultivando’s fixed monitor site and 33,199 exceedances of greater than 53ppb from the mobile facility. More than 53ppb is bad. If the governor manages to reduce NOx by 30% in 2025, Commerce City residents can still count on about 45,400 exceedances over six months.

Particulate matter (PM2 and PM10) that contains health-harming volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) showed thousands of exceedances as well. These particles get sucked deep into the lungs causing wheezing, coughing, asthma attacks, bronchitis, high blood pressure, heart attacks, stroke and premature death.

No wonder the children from Commerce City and north Denver miss school due to lung ailments. They’re breathing out of a chemical cauldron. NOx is only one part of Colorado’s air quality stew. Summer is coming. The air will heat up. The ozone will accumulate. Don’t leave your windows open at night. That’s when the ozone pollution is at its worst.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.