How many ways can Suncor screw with the people of north Denver and Commerce City, and now the 143,000 who live in Thornton? The answer: so many ways they’re impossible to count. How many people have been sickened by Suncor’s air and water pollution? That’s a number neither Suncor nor the state government wants to know.

On Aug. 1, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) turned down the state’s attempt to permit Suncor’s air pollution releases related to its Plant 2. EPA accepted objections to the permit submitted by concerned entities, including numerous organizations from Denver’s Globeville, Swansea and Elyria neighborhoods and from Commerce City. National environmental groups pitched in as well.

The permitting out of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has gone on for more than two decades. This particular episode began in August 2022 when the EPA reviewed the permit application and subsequently received objections. CDPHE can’t seem to get to the point where the permit complies with EPA’s requirements for air quality, maybe because the plant’s operations are so inherently unsafe now that Suncor can’t make enough fixes to comply with contemporary air quality requirements.

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According to other reports, Suncor is also polluting Sand Creek by pouring its wastewater into this water way that has irregular flow. The wastewater dumping particularly affects Thornton as well as neighborhoods near the Burlington ditch. Suncor has applied for its water permit for more than a decade. The permit will set how much tainted waste it can put into Sand Creek or wash away from the refinery in ground water from rain and snow. Recent abundant rain hasn’t helped with this aspect of Suncor’s operations.

Currently, benzene and other dangerous carcinogens contaminate Sand Creek through spills, including five incidents this year so far. “Forever chemicals” known as PFAs used as fire retardants also have contaminated ground water that drains into the Burlington ditch and ultimately becomes a water source for Thornton and is used in agriculture north and east of the refinery. These nasty PFAs accumulate in us through drinking water or food creating various health hazards including infertility, slow development in children, and cancer.

Suncor isn’t allowed to put any of its wastewater into Burlington ditch, but it does through seepage. The EPA wants Suncor to line the ditch to reduce or prevent water contamination. Always protecting its shareholders’ equity, Suncor has responded to this requirement through its lawyer by claiming lining the ditch is too expensive, arbitrary and won’t work. Those are Suncor’s explanations for most of its objections to cleaning up its operations. Millions in investment to fix its contamination are millions too many, apparently, to ensure the citizens of Denver, Commerce City and Thornton and the farmers getting their water off the ditch to irrigate their crops have clean, safe water.

The state’s Water Quality Control Division has communicated its unhappiness with Suncor’s inability to clean up its water problems. The division is deciding whether a formal action is appropriate. How much time its decision will take is undecided, as is the amount of time it will take to move to the next stage of the permitting process. The division is not commenting on these issues until it’s made some decisions. The process feels like Alice’s experience with the looking glass.

The 2023 General Assembly didn’t put forward any legislation that would substantially affect Suncor’s operations even though it made claims to great advances in reducing polluting emissions to help with clean air, water and climate change. Gov. Jared Polis hasn’t stepped in, apparently, as his administration and agencies are responsible for air and water quality protections to ensure the people of Colorado are not unduly hurt by the refinery’s operations.

Former Colorado House Speaker KC Becker at the EPA is up against Polis’s libertarian, anti-regulation political perspective on how businesses and the markets should operate. His laissez-faire, “let them eat benzene cake frosted with PFAs” inaction allows Suncor to scoot around its inability to clean up its act. The refinery’s oil, gas and diesel products keep Coloradans’ cars and airplanes running more cheaply and that’s an advantage to the state that the people near the plant get to suck up.

The EPA’s orders to revise the air and water permits don’t close down Suncor’s operations. But at some point soon, some governmental agency or elected official or elected entity may have to gin up the chutzpa to say enough is enough.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.