North Denver activists fighting air pollution who hosted Jane Fonda for a pep talk Monday do get starry-eyed talking about the celebrity, but not just because of her two Oscars, bestselling books and 1980s workout-queen status.
They pay homage to the left-leaning celebrity because, they say, her presence gets results. And when it comes to environmental activism, Fonda is no one-hit wonder, they add. The same groups held a listening session with her in Elyria-Swansea in February, and Fonda on Monday said she’d return soon.
“Nothing elevated our platform like her February visit,” said Harmony Cummings, a former oil and gas industry employee who now leads a community center effort against air polluters that is based a mile south of the Suncor oil refinery.
“People reach out to us when they see her name,” Cummings said. “Instead of getting ignored, people come to us. It puts us on the map.”
Fonda is 86, and decades away from her Hollywood celebrity peak, but continues steady work as an actress and author in between political and policy efforts. She has been arrested multiple times at climate change protests, and has focused recent visits on “cancer alley” cities associated with oil and gas and petrochemical industries, that report high incidents of health problems among minority and low-income residents.
Commerce City and north Denver neighborhoods, bracketed by Suncor, electrical generation, the Purina plant, multiple interstate highways and historic Superfund status from metal smelting, have high rates of asthma and heart problems. Activists and their supporters in Denver and state health departments want tighter regulation of Suncor and other documented polluters.
Community members who took the small stage as Fonda listened targeted a current rulemaking at the Air Quality Control Commission establishing restrictions on the worst airborne toxins, rules meant to carry out past state legislation.
“We hope they hear that the pressure is on,” said Guadalupe Solis with the nonprofit community activist group Cultivando. “A lot of things are in their power.”
Fonda went beyond listening, asking specific questions about Colorado’s oil and gas drilling setback rules and whether they have matched recent California restrictions demanding 3,000-foot-plus buffers for residents.
After hearing a summary of efforts by the nonprofit legal center Earthjustice, in partnership with the community, to fight Suncor, Fonda told a packed room of volunteers to not lose their courage.
“I’m trying to give it my all,” she said. “So I’m not depressed. I’m hopeful. We are focused on Commerce City, and we will keep coming back.”