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The environment desk at Aspen Public Radio covers issues in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the state of Colorado including water use and quality, impact of recreation, population growth and oil and gas development. APR’s Environment Reporter is Elizabeth Stewart-Severy.

Aspen to renew air quality monitoring

Elizabeth Stewart-Severy/Aspen Public Radio News

Aspen City Council is scheduled to discuss renewing its contract to monitor air quality today. As Elizabeth Stewart-Severy reports, this is part of an ongoing effort to reduce pollution.

Longtime residents can remember a brown cloud over Aspen in the 1980s — one that garnered attention from the EPA. Because of Aspen’s history with air pollution, the environmental agency requires continued monitoring of air quality.

Environmental health director CJ Oliver said Aspen faces some challenges in keeping air clean.

“We have kind of a closed-end valley, and we have a very low ceiling, so we’re very subject to inversions that would basically trap our pollution here at ground level and not let it dissipate naturally,” Oliver said.  

Oliver said city programs like mass transit and regulations on wood burning fireplaces are working, and Aspen’s air is consistently high quality.

The latest contract with the company Air Resource Specialists is for three years at a total cost of just over $50,000.

Aspen native Elizabeth Stewart-Severy is excited to be making a return to both the Red Brick, where she attended kindergarten, and the field of journalism. She has spent her entire life playing in the mountains and rivers around Aspen, and is thrilled to be reporting about all things environmental in this special place. She attended the University of Colorado with a Boettcher Scholarship, and graduated as the top student from the School of Journalism in 2006. Her lifelong love of hockey lead to a stint working for the Colorado Avalanche, and she still plays in local leagues and coaches the Aspen Junior Hockey U-19 girls.
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