EPA tells Colorado to get tougher on Suncor refinery: "It's pay-to-play for them. But this is life or death for us."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Administration Tuesday sent a message to Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment to do more to monitor the Suncor refinery in Commerce City and the pollution it emits in Adams and Denver Counties.
"It is a stronger decision than we were necessarily anticipating," said Ian Coghill, senior attorney with the Denver office of Earthjustice, and environmental organization.
Many times, the EPA denied petitions filed over the renewal of operating permits. But this time the EPA reacted favorably to one of two petitions filed by environmental groups, rejecting the CDPHE's Clean Air Act Title V operating permit for Plant 2 at the Suncor refinery. There are three plants at the refinery. Plant 2 has the capacity to refine over 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day, creating about 40% of the transportation fuel used in Colorado.
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The EPA's move was a partial agreement with Earthjustice's filing, though a rejection of another filing from another group, 350 Colorado. It requires the CDPHE to resolve EPA's objections before issuing a revised permit. The plant can continue to operate while the permit is revised.
"They need to put us first in protecting our health," said Ean Tafoya, state director for GreenLatinos, one of the groups represented by Earthjustice in its filing. Tafoya believes the action meant the state wasn't doing enough. "When you have an entire air model division acting under the guise of not truly doing enough to protect the community that's wrong. And the EPA recognized that."
Also represented by Earthjustice was the Elyria Swansea Neighborhood Association.
"We've been here 26 years or so and it wasn't as bad but now as the time is going on it's getting worse," said Frances Hernandez as she stood in her front yard within view of the Suncor plant in the distance.
"Some days it smells really bad," she related. "You walk out, but you want right back in."
Suncor has faced numerous problems. In December 2022, it shut down Plant 2 after a cold snap damaged equipment. A fire injured two workers. There have been 57 violations by Suncor since the year 2000.
Suncor did not respond to CBS News Colorado's attempts to get comment via phone and email Tuesday. Earlier this year, Suncor said it planned to spend more than $100 million on improvements at the plant, including reliability improvements designed to reduce air emissions, and "integrity checks" of equipment.
In the order, the EPA directs the CDPHE to look at more operational requirements that are needed to "assure compliance with carbon monoxide and opacity limits at the plant's fluid catalytic cracking unit," according to an EPA statement. "It also directs CDPHE to determine whether previous plant modifications were analyzed properly and, if necessary, to incorporate additional applicable requirements into the permit."
"If what the state was doing was enough, then Suncor wouldn't continue to violate its permits. So the status quo clearly wasn't working, so they needed to do something else," said Coghill.
Records show the refinery operated by Calgary-based Suncor does not comply as well as other refineries.
"There's a big difference between Suncor shutting down and Suncor being held to the same requirements that are supposed to apply to everyone," Coghill continued.
The shutdown of the plant in December though was followed by an increase in prices at the pumps in Colorado in the months after the December closing, which Coghill noted was likely going to be temporary.
RELATED: Suncor to bring portion of refinery back online as Coloradans continue to face high gas prices
"I moved here from the Northeast a year ago and there's no oil refineries anywhere in New England and our gas prices were no more expensive than they were in Colorado," said Coghill.
Tafoya believes Suncor's compliance is merely the cost of doing business for the refiner: "That's what happens. It's pay-to-play for them. But this is life or death for us."