DENVER — A nonprofit that has monitored air quality near Suncor Energy's Commerce City refinery will no longer continue that work.
Air monitoring equipment used by Cultivando, a community organization based in Adams County that predominantly serves Latino people, was shut off late last week.
The project was initially funded by a portion of a $9 million settlement between Suncor and Colorado in 2020, which followed several air pollution violations at the refinery.
Cultivando worked with the company Boulder Air to keep track of the local pollutants. In March, Cultivando released their gathered data. Among the key findings, the group said Suncor is a source of airborne radioactivity, multiple types of pollutants, and high variability in pollutant concentrations based on season and time of day.
As the settlement funds began to run dry, the Environmental Protection Agency in November awarded Cultivando a $500,000 grant for its program.
According to Detlev Helmig, the owner of Boulder Air, that would have been enough money to fund the project for another year, but the organization turned down the grant.
"Cultivando now has decided to not accept this funding, which then also means that there will be no funds made available to Boulder AIR to continue the monitoring. Therefore, unfortunately, we had to turn all the air monitors off last week since we were already well beyond the original, one-year funding cycle, but had been keeping the instruments running in anticipation of the renewal/continuation contract be put in place very soon," Helmig said to 9NEWS via email.
In their own statement, Cultivando Executive Director Olga Gonzalez said the organization has opted to reorganize their efforts.
"In response to the community’s request for Cultivando’s involvement in furthering environmental justice, we made the decision to transition out of air monitoring efforts in order to fully center our advocacy and social change priorities," Gonzalez said in an email. "We are very proud of the work we did in leading the air monitoring project, in collaboration with scientists and organizational partners."
Gonzalez went on to say the group is "deeply disappointed by the response from governmental and corporate players, from inaction to dismissal, even in the face of sobering data regarding toxic exposure and environmental racism impacting our communities. Having completed the year-long air monitoring work we committed to doing, it’s time for Cultivando to leverage our organizing and grassroots force to demand change."
A spokesperson for the EPA said using these federal dollars came with certain stipulations, suggesting Cultivando asked for those to be waived.
"EPA cannot waive federal grant requirements that would allow Cultivando to sole source through one air monitoring provider. Cultivando must also complete a quality assurance plan to ensure valid air quality data is collected which is a requirement for federal grants. EPA has been offering Cultivando support as they attempted to work through these issues and we will continue to work with them in the future to see what other resources we can provide," Taylor Gillespie, the public affairs director for EPA Region 8, said via email.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also has air monitors near the Suncor refinery. Earlier this year, CDPHE told 9NEWS it reviews Cultivando's data and "acknowledge[s] it as part of a larger school of information that informs what is going on in the community surrounding Suncor."
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