Credit for the historic $10.5 million settlement agreement with Suncor Energy over excessive pollution goes to the community members and environmental justice groups who organized and took their fight for clean air to the state.
For decades Suncor has operated a refinery in Commerce City with little oversight or scrutiny from public officials, the media and the EPA.
That has slowly changed.
The settlement announced last week is a victory for groups and individuals who have put their time and energy into holding Suncor accountable and gaining media attention, which helped shine a light on Suncor operations.
The agreement requires Suncor to spend $8 million to improve its electrical systems so power outages no longer lead to the plant spewing harmful emissions over nearby communities in Denver and Commerce City. Additionally, Suncor will pay a $2.5 million fine for its past pollution. The money will go to environmental justice programs in an attempt to remediate the harm poor air quality has caused in the communities surrounding Suncor.
Suncor also will finally comply – in 2024 — with a state law requiring air quality monitoring at the company’s fence line – a requirement that was passed by the legislature in 2021 but that Suncor challenged with a lawsuit because it disagreed with the way the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment implemented the new law.
The non-profit organization Cultivando was awarded money from a 2020 settlement with CDPHE to conduct air quality monitoring in the community. The group’s data found troubling spikes in harmful pollution in communities near Suncor.
Suncor and CDPHE say that their data shows that the long-term exposure to harmful pollutants in north Denver does not exceed health and human safety guidelines. The fence line monitoring could finally resolve the question of whether families in the area can blame poor air quality for the increased prevalence of asthma and other poor health outcomes. It is frustrating that Suncor has successfully delayed that testing.
If we are going to give credit to those who have pushed for greater regulation of Suncor we also must listen to what they are saying about this settlement – and it’s not positive.
Earthjustice sent out a scathing press release that included prominent voices in this fight dressing down CDPHE for what they say amounts to a $2.5 million fine for multiple violations on an international company that in 2022 reported $27 billion in gross profits. We agree with Earthjustice that the $8 million is what Suncor should be spending on its own to finally stop exceeding the levels of pollution allowed by Colorado permits.
Renée Chacon called the enforcement attempt “performative.”
Chacon is the executive director and cofounder of Womxn from the Mountain, a group of indigenous advocates formed in 2018 that created a short video called Sundown at Suncor documenting the environmental injustice in north Denver’s poor air quality and pollution.
“In order to truly move the needle away from Suncor repeatedly evading accountability, there must be increased protections to align with what the community has demanded for generations. The state has failed to protect us again with meaningful enforcement,” she wrote.
Suncor received similar treatment in a $9 million settlement in 2020. The company paid $2.6 million on environmental projects for the community, $5 million to improve its own facility and hire an outside team to research ways to reduce emissions and comply with the law and a $1.4 million fine to the state.
Ean Thomas Tafoya, who recently ran for Denver mayor and is the state director of GreenLatinos wrote that “while this enforcement action may be the largest in state history, it does not nearly deliver on the health improvements North Denver residents have been working towards.”
Colorado is moving in the right direction when it comes to Suncor regulation, but no one should think that this settlement means any of the problems are solved.
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