Colorado issued a $10.5 million penalty on the Suncor refinery in Commerce City over three years of air pollution violations, calling it the largest-ever action against a single facility, and also settled a lawsuit with an agreement to double monitoring of air pollution at the fenceline of the troubled fuel plant.
The agreement announced Monday surpasses a $9 million deal in 2020 for similar releases. Colorado director of public health Jill Hunsaker Ryan called it an “historic enforcement package” to “demonstrate our unwavering commitment to environmental protection and the health of our residents.”
“We will continue to use every tool available to prevent Suncor from having future violations,” Hunsaker Ryan said. The $5 million in required plant improvements in the 2020 settlement have made a measurable difference in Suncor violations since then, and the new settlement requires $8 million more in plant changes, she said.
The new $10.5 million settlement includes a $2.5 million cash fine, which will be split between environmental justice grants and the general fund.
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The violations settled Monday lasted through June 2021. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment investigates Suncor violations on a two-year cycle, and is still probing air pollution releases from the past two and a half years, said Michael Ogletree, director of the department’s Air Pollution Control Division.
With Canada-based Suncor reporting $2 billion in profits from the third quarter of 2023 alone, “it’s a really good question” whether a $2.5 million fine is enough to change Suncor’s behavior, Hunsaker Ryan said.
“What I would say is, we are limited in the penalties that we can assess by law,” she said. It’s also important, she said, for the state to protect the community by reaching a reasonable settlement “that’s not going to drag out a long time, but get some meaningful action.”
Hunsaker Ryan said Colorado regulators are supporting proposed state legislation that would give them more local control over refineries, in addition to the powers in the EPA’s Clean Air Act permitting and regulation process.
Suncor has “already achieved some environmental improvements, including total hours of exceedances decreasing around 26 percent in 2023 compared to 2022,” said company spokesperson Leithan Slade.
The fenceline monitoring settlement “was the result of successful dialog and negotiation with the CDPHE. While the lawsuit was pending, Suncor voluntarily installed an interim fenceline monitoring system that was launched on January 1, 2023, and met the requirements of the fenceline monitoring law.”
The toxins covered by that law, Slade added, have “remained below detection since the program began.” The expanded system under the settlement will be operating by the end of 2024, he said.
A coalition of environmental groups that had intervened in the settlement talks, represented by Earthjustice, called the fines a “slap on the wrist.”
“We’re glad to see that Suncor will finally be required to make changes to prevent future violations, but residents should not have to wait over four years for Suncor to be held accountable,” said Ian Coghill, senior attorney for Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Suncor’s repeated air pollution violations have harmed the surrounding community for decades. While the fenceline monitoring requirement is finally resolved, Suncor successfully avoided monitoring its entire fenceline for two years by filing this lawsuit.”
“Enforcement cannot be bought and cannot be performative,” said Renée M Chacon, executive director and cofounder of Womxn from the Mountain, in a statement from the coalition. “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 settlement is not part of Suncor’s application for a renewed air pollution permit for part of the sprawling Commerce City refinery, which is still pending revisions at the state health department.
State officials said the violations from July 2019 through June 2021 often involved power disruptions. Violations cited include:
- Exceeding EPA and state emissions limits on sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.
- Exceeding hydrogen sulfide concentration caps.
- Exceeding opacity and visible emissions standards.
- Violations from causes other than power outages.
Suncor, the only vehicle and airplane fuel refinery in Colorado and one of the few in the West, has long been a target of environmental and community groups, and state regulators for both local pollution violations and greenhouse gas emissions. Suncor has responded that it has made continual improvements to both refining and monitoring equipment to better protect the community, and that the plant is an important economic engine for the neighborhood and Colorado.
A fire at the refinery in December 2022 disrupted operations for months, and may have contributed to an increase in fuel prices for Colorado drivers. Some environmental advocates have called for an outright denial of future permits for Suncor and a closure of the refinery, but state officials have never endorsed those calls.
The latest settlement also include a deal for more intensive fenceline monitoring and community alerts about air pollution releases in Commerce City. A 2021 state law required Suncor and three other large facilities to implement fenceline monitoring of certain toxins and sharing data with the public. Suncor had sued the state in 2022 over how Colorado was applying monitoring regulations to the refinery.
The deal will have Suncor doubling the number of monitors from its latest proposal to the state, officials said. Suncor will also expand the number of toxins monitored from the minimum list in the 2021 law. Colorado had required covered facilities to monitor and alert for hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulfide and benzene. Suncor has agreed to also monitor toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, state officials said.
Suncor will also alert the public sooner than previously required when certain pollution thresholds are crossed, Ogletree said.