Dale Turnacliff was diagnosed with asthma in 2004 after he moved to Erie, Colorado. He had spent several years in Southern California’s Inland Empire, which these days is full of warehouses and logistics operations, before he decided to surround his family with a more natural landscape.
Erie is a rural town of about 30,000 residents about 45 minutes north of Denver. It offers wide-open views of the Rocky Mountains and is just small enough so that you can see the stars when the city lights dim at night. But the town also has a long history of fracking and oil extraction, something Turnacliff, 44, wasn’t aware of when his family resettled in the area.
Turnacliff said he began noticing something was wrong with his breathing one day when he was exercising. He started having a coughing fit, and it became hard for him to catch his breath. The problem only got worse after he contracted COVID-19 last year, Turnacliff said.
Now, his 12-year-old son is experiencing similar symptoms.
“Colorado is a terrific state, but I am sure our family would be healthier without the bad air,” Turnacliff told Capital & Main in an email.
Like many other Colorado residents, Turnacliff says the state’s dirty air has diminished his quality of life. Medium-to-heavy duty trucks account for 59% of nitrogen oxide emissions in Colorado despite making up just 10% of the vehicles on the road, according to research from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Three-quarters of heavy duty trucks have diesel engines, whose emissions have been shown to cause higher rates of heart disease, cancer and respiratory disorders, according to the advocacy group EarthJustice.
Even though the state is set to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in its effort to meet the goals of its aggressive greenhouse gas reduction plan, more permanent solutions seem miles away.
How to Create the Right Incentives
One way that the state is trying to clean up its air is by reducing diesel pollution from fleet vehicles and school buses. To that end, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment launched the Colorado Electric School Bus Grant Program and Clean Fleet Vehicle & Technology Grant Program on March 29.
The two grant programs can provide up to $375,000 towards the cost of electrifying buses, up to $8,000 toward each light-duty vehicle, and up to $30,000 towards scrapping certain older, fuel-dependent vehicles. CDPHE estimates it will spend about $27 million on incentives during the first grant period, with $20 million of that total going toward electrifying school buses.
The programs dovetail with federal incentives created when President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in November 2021, part of the White House’s bold new economic paradigm, putting the government to work to rebuild infrastructure and transition the economy from fossil fuels to clean energy.
For instance, the law allocated $5 billion toward expanding the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus grant program, which helps states purchase electric buses for school districts. Colorado received more than $2.9 million from this grant program in October 2022. That money went toward purchasing school buses for the East Grand, Big Sandy, Sangre de Cristo and Primero school districts.
Local clean air advocacy groups such as the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project and GreenLatinos say the grants are “a great additional tool” for Colorado to reduce its air pollution. It could be most impactful in cities like Pueblo and Grand Junction, which have some of the highest rates of greenhouse gas emissions and diesel pollution in Colorado, according to data from CDPHE.
Ryan Gallentine, director of transportation for Advance Energy United, a clean energy advocacy group, told Capital & Main that Coloradans probably won’t see the impact of the electric bus and fleet vehicle grant programs for several years. But he estimates the programs will spur innovations in Colorado’s electric grid because of increased demand for electricity. They could also force electric car battery manufacturers to up their game by increasing demand for gas-free automobiles.
“You want these kinds of incentives to be out there for commercial entities to look at,” Gallentine told Capital & Main. “These cars are going to be out on the road for the next 10 to 15 years, and it takes time to turn over a fleet.”
The rollout of electric buses and fleet vehicles in Colorado has not always gone as smoothly as expected. For instance, the school districts in the small towns of Durango and Kremmling both deployed electric school buses in March 2021 and found that the cost of operating these buses is about 16 cents per mile versus about 43 cents per mile for a comparable diesel bus, according to a study by the Environmental and Energy Study Initiative. But the Regional Transportation District, a quasi-municipal company that operates Denver’s public transportation system, has had trouble moving toward electric buses. In April 2023, the agency canceled an $18 million contract to acquire 17 new electric buses because RTD doesn’t have enough space to maintain, charge or store the buses, the Denver Post reported.
These efforts also come at a time when Colorado is set to spend about $1.2 billion over the next decade to expand local highways like Interstate 70 and Interstate 25 in hopes of reducing traffic congestion, according to data from the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Highway expansion projects rarely achieve the aim of reducing congestion and can increase local particle pollution, according to a 2020 study from the Institute of Physics. Similarly, the American Lung Association’s 2023 State of the Air report found that the Denver metro area is the 18th-most polluted in the U.S. for short term particle pollution and sixth most polluted for ozone.
“The City Is No Longer Safe for People Like Me”
Colorado is also trying to address its poor air quality by adopting a California-style Advanced Clean Trucks rule. The state’s Air Quality Control Commission, a division of CDPHE, adopted the rule on April 21, about three years after local climate groups initially proposed it.
The new rule requires light and heavy-duty truck manufacturers to sell electric models starting in 2026, while the Low NOx Truck rule mandates a reduction of diesel emissions by 90% from today’s standards. The rules will eventually apply to vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells, even though those vehicles are years away from mass production.
While the rules may seem stringent, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law expanded federal grant programs designed to mitigate the financial impact for vehicle manufacturers. For example, the Department of Energy invested about $199 million in grants available under its Super Truck 3 program, which went to support the development of battery-electric and fuel cell-powered medium- and heavy-duty trucks.
Proponents of the Clean Truck Rule like Eagle County Commissioner Matt Scherr said in a press release that the clean trucks strategy is “an important and powerful step towards addressing climate change, environmental justice, and public health.” Dr. Tony Gerber, a pulmonologist in Denver, added that the rule will help improve air quality in some of metro Denver’s poorest neighborhoods, which are lined by warehouses and highways.
For some people who live in Denver’s poorest communities, however, the damage may have already been done.
Maeve Azoulay, a 28-year-old student, told the AQCC during a public comment session on April 19 about how pollution from diesel trucks has upended her life.
When she was a newborn, Azoulay said her family moved to north Denver near the Denver Coliseum and National Western Complex. The neighborhood is just down the street from Denver’s Purina pet food plant and the Suncor oil refinery.
Azoulay said she was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 5 and has been under care for the condition ever since. Now, she said she is one of the youngest patients being treated by pulmonologists at National Jewish Health for severe progressive asthma. She also has to check Denver’s air quality daily to measure how much time she can spend outside, Azoulay said.
“I wanted to go to university, but instead I am paying medical bills,” Azoulay told the commission. “This city is no longer safe for people like me who suffer from long-term respiratory issues.”
