SusCox to tEst Anx vuApnty sEAx tpAst
Suncor Energy, the company that owns a large refinery in Commerce City just north of Denver, is emitting more pollutants than allowed under its permit in Colorado, and, amazingly, residents living within a mile of this heavy industrial processing facility have no idea what that means for the air they breathe.
We are optimistic that is going to change as the vice president of Suncor’s refinery in Commerce City, Donald Austin, has pledged to fund third-party air quality testing in the community.
It’s astounding to us that a refinery that has been in operation since 1940 has never been required by the federal Environmental Protection Act or the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to test and report air quality in surrounding communities. While there is a buffer of industrial zoning around Suncor in every direction, residential areas are within a mile of the refinery’s pollutionemitting smokestacks.
And if The Denver Post’s Bruce Finely hadn’t started investigating pollution from the plant in 2018, it’s possible Suncor would still be applying for an increase in certain emissions rather than working with the community to reduce emissions and clean the air. But Finley’s reporting alongside hard-working community members have forced change.
In Commerce City, children run track outside at Kearney Middle School, located about a mile east of the plant, and over the decades, parents have never been told what the levels of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide or hydrogen sulfide are on any given day. South of the refinery, the Elyria-Swansea community has been kept in the dark about the risk to the community when the plant suffers mechanical problems and releases more toxins into the air as a result of restarting the refinery.
We are encouraged that Austin is looking to empower local residents with the information they need to protect their health and the health of their families and neighbors.
He and Suncor should pull out all the stops to ensure that testing can begin in just a few months rather than waiting for this summer. Testing is just the beginning and it can actually inform the other actions Suncor is taking to protect its neighbors.
Austin said the plant is committed to spending more than $1 billion over the next five years to improve operations at the plant, particularly around reliability to prevent restart emission events that can cause the plant to exceed permitted limits for pollution. That endeavor, we think, should be informed by data about the pollution levels in the community, not just the levels being released from the plant, which is what is currently known.
“We’ve been going in the right direction,” Austin said. “But we’ve a ways to go … We’re driving these emissions down,” Austin said, referring to the emissions events caused by plant reliability issues. “Our intention is to get to zero. That’s what we believe is the right level for us.”
Austin says before they begin testing, he wants to have a conversation with the community about the testing so they can earn trust and respond to how the community wants the monitoring to occur. That’s laudable, but the community understandably also has a sense of urgency.
Colorado for far too long has failed to safeguard our air quality. Suncor deserves credit for starting down this road, and we hope, depending on what the results tell us about air quality, the company will step up to do the right thing to protect Coloradans.
Members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are Megan Schrader, editor of the editorial pages; Lee Ann Colacioppo, editor; Justin Mock, CFO; Bill Reynolds, general manager/ senior vp circulation and production; Bob Kinney, vice president of information technology; and TJ Hutchinson, systems editor.