COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — Commerce City residents and a local advocacy group are demanding accountability from Suncor after thick, black smoke poured from the facility Monday.
Lucy Molina has long lived near the refinery.
"I could literally walk, I'm that close," Molina said.
When smoke filled the sky, she said the response from Suncor fell short.
Suncor's initial notification to the public was short.
It read: "Increased smoke and flaring may be visible at Commerce City Operations. No action by the public is required."
The company later revealed a third-party electrical power issue knocked out operations at the facility, and that increased flaring was anticipated as the refinery restarted following the outage.
CDPHE told Denver7 in a statement Tuesday that several monitors "show air pollution has remained well below levels where people may experience health impacts."
But advocates say that response from both Suncor and the state is not enough.
The group Cultivando, which is dedicated to clean air in Commerce City, is coming forward with demands — including a full disclosure of what was emitted and how much, and an overhaul of Suncor's alert system.
When asked what a better notification system would look like, the representative said the community should be part of building that answer.
"I'm not sure that I have all the answers, right, but I think that that's the power of community organizing, is that we can come together to co-create solutions," said Manuel Marquez, climate equity policy fellow with Cultivando.
Molina said she wants to be part of that solution — but says it starts with better communication from Suncor.
"I'm not going to say I'm hopeful, because I need to see some work done. I need to see some real accountability, some real justice," Molina said.
Denver7 reached out to Suncor about Cultivando's demands, but has yet to hear back.
Meanwhile, CDPHE provided a statement which said in part, "We are committed to providing transparent information about incidents like this one...we value community feedback and remain committed to ongoing engagement with residents surrounding the refinery."
Read the full statement from CDPHE below:
We are committed to providing transparent information about incidents like this one. Colorado requires Suncor to share air monitoring data on its website [suncor.data.spectrumenvsoln.com]. We also have online resources to generate reports [colorado.gov] from our community air monitors, such as the CAMP monitor on Broadway[colorado.gov] in the area. If air monitors were to show findings that may impact people’s health, we would notify the nearby community and investigate further.
We are also currently reviewing a report [oitco.hylandcloud.com] from Suncor that was submitted to us today, which CDPHE requires following incidents like what happened yesterday. The report is available in our online public database. We also upload any documents related to our enforcement actions to our online public database, and community members can stay informed by subscribing to our “air quality compliance and enforcement updates” email list [cdphe.colorado.gov] to receive monthly updates. You can find more information on our website about air monitoring near Suncor [cdphe.colorado.gov] and enforcement actions against Suncor on air quality[cdphe.colorado.gov].
We know that seeing smoke can be stressful for nearby residents. While emergency services, like the fire department, lead on any emergency responses, we work to provide timely air quality information based on monitoring data and available details.
We value community feedback and remain committed to ongoing engagement with residents surrounding the refinery.
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