Erie council narrows air-quality monitoring program, preallocates $300,000 for 2026; supplemental for 2025 to follow

Erie Town Council voted unanimously on May 20 to preserve a reduced air-quality monitoring program that keeps a Boulder Air regulatory-grade station at the Erie Community Center and a smaller triggered-canister network for neighborhood and oil-and-gas pad monitoring, with a plan to preallocate about $300,000 for the 2026 budget and to return a supplemental appropriation for 2025 to cover immediate shortfalls.

Background: Town staff and contractors described a monitoring network launched in 2021 that combines a regulatory-grade Boulder Air station (continuous measurements of methane, ozone, many VOCs and PM) with Ajax Analytics' triggered canister stations (10 smaller sites moved as necessary near pads, roadways and the landfill). Presenters told council that the program produced a rich multi-year dataset used in research and legislative testimony and showed local issues: ozone and PM spikes, repeated benzene/ pentane VOC spikes tied to oil-and-gas operations, and a persistent methane hotspot that aligns with the Erie landfill.

Key findings presented: Boulder Air and Ajax reported that (a) Erie's ozone exceedances can be tied to daytime transport from the east and regional chemistry; (b) PM 2.5 spikes at the Erie Community Center have been higher than at nearby sites on many observed events; (c) ethane and other oil-and-gas tracers showed signals in Erie that have not declined at the same pace as other jurisdictions; and (d) aggregated monitoring analyses used in research suggest oil-and-gas emissions may be about 2.5 times higher than state/industry inventories indicate.

Costs and council action: Environmental Services told council the program cost roughly $720,000 in 2024 and that the 2025 budget of about $500,000 was already nearly two-thirds spent in the first half of the year (roughly $404,000 spent through six months). To preserve monitoring capability while reducing recurring costs, staff proposed a set of options ranging from a consolidated vendor/hybrid approach to deeper cuts. Council directed staff to negotiate a budget package that preserves the Boulder Air station plus a reduced triggered canister network for a ~ $300,000 annual allocation and to return a limited supplemental appropriation (approximately $50,000) to close the 2025 shortfall; the motion passed 7-0.

Why it matters: Council framed monitoring as both a public-health/operational need (to detect short-lived VOC plumes and benzene spikes) and a research asset that has informed state-level understandings of emissions. At the same time, council members expressed concern about the town bearing most of the program cost for regional research value and asked staff to pursue grants, collaborations and cost reductions.

Who spoke: David Franks, director of Environmental Services, and contractor representatives from Boulder Air and Ajax Analytics reviewed four years of data and described technical tradeoffs between continuous regional monitoring and high-frequency, site-specific triggered canisters; Ajax stressed the value of minute-scale PID data and triggered canisters for capturing short plume events that weekly averages miss.

Next steps: Staff will negotiate vendor packages for a ~ $300,000 annual program, return a supplemental appropriation request for 2025 (estimated around $50,000), and continue outreach to state agencies and neighboring jurisdictions regarding data-sharing and grant opportunities.