When Charlene Willey and her husband Jim built their home in the Green Knolls subdivision in Westminster over 30 years ago, she had no idea that her new next-door neighbor would eventually try to kill her.
Willey is a lot more clear-eyed these days about the dangers posed by Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. The piston-powered aircraft that take off and land from the airport are fueled by the lead that now dusts her home, schools, and playgrounds all under RMMA’s flight path, she said.
Exposure to lead can lead to brain and organ damage, seep into bones and be especially damaging to children, say health officials. Willey’s worry about lead exposure prompted her to get tested and she found lead levels in her bloodstream were 3 times higher than normal.
“Something like that can lead to permanent damage,” the 73-year-old grandmother said. “That can really jolt you.”
Noise generated from low-level flights from RMMA is just as bad or even worse than the threat from lead, she said. Persistent noise levels can destroy sleep and worsen conditions such as Alzheimer’s and other disorders, Willey said.
“Lead is certainly easier to understand than the noise from constant touch-and-go operations at Rocky Mountain,” Willey said. “But the damage from noise to people who live in the airport’s flight path is profound equal to or more so than the lead.”
“Think of it as a compounding effect,” she said.
As the airport has grown, so has the damage it has rained down on residents, Willey said.
“It’s noisy and dangerous and I am right under the flight path,” she said.
Almost as disheartening, she said, is that local and state officials have often brushed off the perils posed by the airport. This is even after Willey and other airport critics have demanded that city councils and state lawmakers curtail activities at RMMA.
“To be dismissed,” Willey said, “is maybe the biggest stress I deal with.”
“It’s been awful and overwhelming,” she adds. “But I also want to contribute to this society around me, I want to leave a legacy of working hard and not giving up.”
“And in some ways, I guess I have kind of gotten used to it…the fighting,” Willey said. “I still think this is the best way to spend my time.”
Her husband Jim died in 2008 of esophageal cancer from exposure to radon at the now-shuttered Rocky Flats Plant near Golden, Willey said. Rocky Flats once produced nuclear weapons parts. Willey said she battled a tangle of suffocating red tape to wrest a claim over Jim’s death from a reluctant federal government.
She eventually won and she used the money to place a downpayment on a condo in Broomfield for her daughter who has lifelong disabilities. Willey said her daughter’s condition is not unlike those seen in children exposed to lead early in life and she continues to depend on Willey for support.
“I speak as one who truly understands the lifetime harm that aviation causes to those of us who must endure its toxic effects. My entire family lives that life,” Willey recently told a state legislative committee.
Willey is among neighbors of local airports pushing for the passage of HB24-1235 which allow the state to give a state income tax credit for owners of aircraft who transition from using lead fuel to unleaded. The bill would also call for the state’s aeronautical board to expand from seven to nine voting members by requiring the appointment of two residents who are affected by general aviation traffic.
In her testimony last month, Willey said the RMMA, which is owned and operated by Jefferson County, “has a long and checkered history of ignoring public welfare in its relentless pursuit of growth.,”
She told lawmakers that Jefferson County failed to buy up surrounding land in 1960 for the airport and in 1979, the facility expanded resulting in several homes being placed in the airport’s critical zone, where most plane crashes occur.
Operations have increased by over 80% since 2017 and the increased air traffic includes regularly scheduled commercial flights that operate under a regulatory loophole without TSA security or qualified crews, Willey said.
“Clearly, the community needs help from this legislature to bring this disregard for public welfare under control,” Willey told the lawmakers.
ADK Consulting and Executive Search are currently working to hire a new director for RMMA, after the abrupt departure of Paul Anslow in November. Anslow left his position after disparaging comments he made about neighbors of the airport were disclosed to county officials.
Anslow called people critical of airport operations “nut jobs” and brushed away concerns about airport noise, according to a 2021 transcript of a private conversation given to KUNC News as part of a public records request.
ADK officials said the new airport director must work well with the surrounding communities and be transparent in any decisions regarding the airport.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recently told the Westminster city council that children living within two miles of 12 airports in Colorado – including RMMA – had only slightly heightened levels of lead in their blood.
Willey has also asked the Westminster city council to exert more influence over operations at the airport. Councilmember David DeMott, a member of the RMMA Community Noise Roundtable, said via email: “I appreciate our citizens’ input on any issue and welcome their involvement.”
Donna Urban said Willey’s work has influenced other airport naysayers. Urban is a member of Quiet Skies Over Arapahoe County & Elected Officials, which is critical of operation at Centennial Airport.
“…Charlene has been doing a really good job of communicating what has been happening to the communities around RMMA,” Urban said via email. “She’s also been very helpful to our area, as we are experiencing the same situation with lead and noise pollution.”
The irony is not lost on Willey that Jim had a memorial service at RMMA, a place he loved since he was a “pilot wannabe,” she said.
“I didn’t think the airport was such a big deal, but Jim really loved it,” she said. “I told him, ‘Oh, ok’ whatever.”