Residents pursue litigation to address Centennial Airport concerns

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Following months of residents raising concerns about aircraft noise, tra c and lead emissions coming from Centennial Airport, a group has taken it a step further and created an organization called Safe Skies Colorado, Inc. to pursue legal action.

“We’re preparing to move forward with litigation,” said Nathan Winger, the president of Safe Skies Colorado. e organization has retained a law rm that is helping examine di erent legal avenues it could pursue, Winger said.

Safe Skies Colorado has directed its attorneys to prepare a complaint, but it is still “up in the air” about who to bring the complaint against, he said.

“We are looking towardhow are we going to approach this situation? Does it mean pursuing legal action against the airport authority board, the county commissioners, individual ight schools?” Winger said. e organization is looking at all angles, intent on pursuing whoever the residents believe they can get relief from, he said.

“We want to make sure that we’ve done our due diligence and that we’re bringing claims that we believe we can prevail on,” Winger said.

Winger says aircraft over homes ‘has increased significantly’

Centennial Airport, lo- cated in Arapahoe County near Dove Valley Regional Park, is one of the 25 busiest airports in the nation, averaging 1,000 takeo s and landings per day, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

It is home to “numerous ight schools” and has “signi cant business jet and helicopter tra c,” according to the FAA’s website.

For months, residents have been attending meetings to raise concerns about increased air tra c, noise and lead pollution impact- ing the community, speci cally those living north of Arapahoe Road. Some formed a group, Quiet Skies Over Arapahoe County, to advocate for changes to be made to address safety and noise concerns at Centennial Airport.

Winger, who moved to Greenwood Village about a year-and-a-half ago, believes something changed at the airport, saying there are more planes ying near residential homes now than there were one year ago.

“We knew we live by an airport, and so we understood that there would be some tra c, you know, in and around our home and in and around our neighborhood — and that was ne,” Winger said. “Over the last year or so, it has increased signi cantly to the point where being in our backyard can sometimes be di cult.”

His two young children are routinely disturbed by aircraft while playing in the backyard, covering their ears from the noise, he said. Everyone in the neighborhood seems to talk about the planes, he added. e roundtable is made up of local elected o cials from Arapahoe and Douglas counties, appointed community representatives,

“We really do feel the impacts, and we know that our neighbors do as well,” he said.

Winger and his wife began attending the airport’s community noise roundtable meetings, typically held the rst Wednesday of each month.