DENVER— Environmental and health groups today called on officials in Gov. Jared Polis’ administration to confront ongoing clean air violations at the West Elk coal mine in western Colorado.

“It’s time for the Polis administration to finally put an end to lawless air pollution at the West Elk coal mine,” said Jeremy Nichols, a senior advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Every day the mine is allowed to violate is another day Coloradans are denied clean air.”

The call to clean up the emissions comes amid revelations that methane gas venting at the coal mine — the largest in Colorado — led to violations of limits on volatile organic compound air pollution. Those compounds are a group of gases that are harmful to people’s health and to the environment. They also react with sunlight to form ground-level ozone, the key ingredient of smog.

The volatile emissions are released as methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from mine ventilation shafts and venting wells drilled above the underground mining operations. The West Elk mine is the state’s largest single industrial source of methane, releasing the equivalent of nearly 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide in 2023.

Monitoring reports show the mine has released nearly four times the amount of volatile compounds legally allowed under the mine’s air pollution permit. Unchecked methane venting led to the release of so much pollution that it triggered strict requirements under the Clean Air Act for the mine to install and operate the best available pollution controls to limit emissions of the compounds.

In spite of this, the mine continues to vent methane with no controls in place.

On Aug. 20 the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division provided the mine with notice of VOC violations. However, this notice did not address the mine’s ongoing failure to limit the compounds as required by the Clean Air Act.

In a letter to the directors of the Department of Public Health and Environment and the Air Pollution Control Division, the coalition called for full and immediate enforcement of all clean air laws at the coal mine. While acknowledging the state’s efforts to enforce limits on the compounds, the groups called on the state to further ensure the mine controls ongoing pollution in accordance with the Clean Air Act.

The groups joining today’s call include the Center for Biological Diversity, 350 Colorado, WildEarth Guardians, High Country Conservation Advocates, and the Sierra Club.

More information about the Center for Biological Diversity’s fight against air pollution is available at Protecting Air Quality Under the Clean Air Act.