Growing up in Commerce City, Colorado, 21-year-old climate activist Alessandra Chavira remembers always adhering to one specific rule: Don’t drink the tap water. “Nobody in Commerce City drinks it,” says Chavira, who identifies as Chicana. “For me, that was normal—and it’s still the case.”
Throughout her childhood, Chavira wasn’t aware of the exact reason why this was such a widely-followed rule, though she got a better sense later on. Located in Commerce City is the Suncor Energy refinery—Colorado’s only oil refinery—which remains one of the state’s largest emitters of greenhouse gasses and toxic air pollutants. The refinery continues to have adverse effects on the air, soil, and water quality in its surrounding neighborhoods, all the way from Montbello to Reunion. “Growing up, I only knew Suncor because we would pass by it and it stank,” says Chavira. “It smelled like rotten eggs—I would know to hold my breath. For a while, I didn’t even claim Commerce City, because everybody would call it ‘Commerce Shitty.’”
While the Commerce City refinery has been in operation since 1931, it was acquired by Suncor Energy—a Canadian oil and gas company—back in 2003. According to Suncor, the facility now houses three plants over two refineries. Plants 1 and 2 are major suppliers of gasoline and diesel fuel in Colorado, while plant 3 is the state’s main asphalt producer. The refinery as a whole processes approximately 98,000 barrels of oil a day, and claims to contribute over $2.5 billion USD to the state’s economy annually. But it’s an output that comes with significant environmental caveats.
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