By: Shaina Oliver, Colorado Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force and EcoMadres
Date: December 10, 2024
About: Limited revisions to Suncor Plant 2 Title V operating permit
To: Air Pollution Control Division
Thank you for your careful consideration of this process and for this time to share my comments.
I’m Shaina Oliver, a Northeast Denver resident and community member living within 5.5 miles radius of Suncor Refinery Plant 2. I am also a field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force-EcoMadres Colorado Chapter, a national organization of over 1.5 million moms, dads, and caregivers united for children’s health and their right to breathe clean air.
Importantly, I am a mother of four, a family of six and we are the survivors and descendants of the genocide known as the Indian Removal Act known to the Dine as The Long Walk of the Navajo. As a Tribal member of the Navajo Nation, I know the health impacts of extractive and exploitive practices of mineral resources such as oil & gas, coal, power plants, uranium, and other critical minerals are extremely harmful to our children’s health. Indigenous community members are now at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease because of air pollution, reported in the National Tribal Air Association Status of Tribal Air Report - National Tribal Air Association (ntaatribalair.org).
And, according to reports by the EPA https://echo.epa.gov/air-pollutant-report?fid=110032913024, over a 5-year period (Jan ‘10-Dec ‘23). Suncor Refinery reported over 1,000 emissions or violations of emissions standards or limitations and emitted unhealthy air pollutants including hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide, hexane, toluene, xylene, and benzene which has no safe limits of exposure.
There are nearly 70,000 residents living within a 3.1-mile radius of Suncor exposed to harmful air pollution that has direct correlation to human health.
As an advocate, organizer, and community member I’ve knocked on doors of this community and learned community members are being impacted and children are experiencing nose bleeds, nausea, headaches, cancer, cardiovascular disease, adverse birth outcomes, mental illness, and premature deaths. I live just outside of 5 miles of Suncor and can often smell the emissions polluting the air we breathe; Somedays I can’t even go outside without my eyes burning and getting headaches. Sometimes I receive alerts, but the alerts always say I don’t need to take action.
Community members are counting on strengthened protections and enforcement that protect the public health and safety of all children, community members, and workers. Thank you for your time and consideration.