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 different 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 toward - how 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, located 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 impacting 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.

“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. e roundtable is made up of local elected o cials from Arapahoe and Douglas counties, appointed community representatives, airport sta , and others, according to Centennial Airport’s website.

Its purpose is to work with the airport to nd ways to reduce and mitigate the impact of aircraft noise on surrounding communities, per the website.

“We’ve been going for quite a while and we, and others, have become very frustrated with what we perceive as the lack of progress in trying to achieve any of these goals … of just trying to nd some common ground to be able to live and enjoy our home,” Winger said. “ at’s all we want.”

Centennial Airport’s e orts to address community concerns e reason why more aircraft are ying over nearby neighborhoods remains unclear.

During the February noise roundtable meeting, the FAA explained its analysis found that the primary factor was increased aircraft volume in the tra c pattern, causing the tra c pattern to elongate.

Centennial Airport Executive Director and CEO Mike Fronapfel said the airport disagrees with that initial analysis. The airport thinks that after a 2021 mid-air collision occurred, the FAA local control tower changed the way it managed the aircraft in the pattern, resulting in the pattern getting extended more frequently over the community.

“Obviously, the FAA and the airport have disagreements about how we got here and why we’re having a problem,” Fronapfel said at the June noise roundtable meeting. “But at the end of the day … we both acknowledge that the tra c has increased over the community.”

“Instead of focusing on what’s happened and how it happened, let’s focus on the solution and then move forward,” Fronapfel added.

One of the steps Centennial Airport leaders have taken to address community concerns is hiring e Normandy Group, a lobbying and advocacy rm based in Washington D.C.

Louis Dupart, founding partner of the Normandy Group, spoke during the June noise roundtable meeting. He said he has been working with the airport, Centennial, Greenwood Village and Arapahoe County to get the FAA to join a sub-roundtable technical working group to address noise at the airport.

“Our goal is to have something happen quickly,” Dupart said.

Regarding concerns about lead pollution, airport and community leaders celebrated in early May when Centennial Airport became the rst in Colorado to o er unleaded aviation gas.

Aviation gasoline is the only transportation fuel in the U.S. to contain lead and is the fuel most commonly used in piston-engine aircraft, a ccording to the FAA’s website.

It was a step several o cials credited, in part, to residents who raised concerns.

For example, Arapahoe County Commissioner Jessica CampbellSwanson said Centennial Airport would not be the rst airport in the state to make unleaded aviation fuel available without the community raising its voice.

Residents generating their own solution

Winger said he thinks it is great that the airport has taken steps such as o ering unleaded fuel and getting a lobbyist.

“Not to totally detract from the airport’s e orts — it’s just not enough, and it’s not fast enough,” he said.

Safe Skies Colorado provides an opportunity for residents to generate their own solution, in a sense, Winger said.

“If this works, or it’s a combination of other things which work to give us some relief and help us achieve our goal of coming to some resolution … that’s what we want,” he said.

“ at doesn’t mean one thing is better than the other,” he added.

“ is is just something else to help move this process along.” e idea to create Safe Skies Colorado came about after many conversations with people who were frustrated with what was happening at the airport, Winger said.

“We started with the idea of, you know, hiring attorneys and that was kind of the stated goal, was to look for … attorneys to represent us and other people to be able to advise us,” he said.

The purpose of Safe Skies Colorado, in part, is to be able to serve as a representative for residents who are affected by issues arising from the airport, he said.

“The mission, though, is really to represent the community’s interest and make sure that our voices are heard,” he said.

The organization has garnered a lot of interest from the community, Winger said. It has hosted several community meetings and is raising donations to fund its legal efforts.

When asked what he would like for community members to know, Winger said, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“We believe that it’s possible to live … in unity or with an agreement with the airport and also be able to enjoy our communities and our neighborhoods,” he said. “ ere can be a way to live in harmony with an airport next to you.”

Winger said members of Safe Skies Colorado are open to having a dialogue with airport o cials.

“We now have this common problem,” he said. “It’s our hope that we can kind of work together to … get some kind of relief here.” ose interested in learning more about Safe Skies Colorado and how to donate can visit www.safeskiesco. org or contact the organization by emailing info@safeskiesco.org.