COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — A new study monitoring the air near the Suncor oil refinery in Commerce City has found a contaminant you might not expect: radioactivity.
While Suncor’s repeated air pollution violations at the refinery have already led to multiple million-dollar settlements over the years, this emerging research suggests another health-harming substance is floating in the air.
“We live on a radioactive planet. The Earth is essentially breathing up, venting the radioactive gas, radon, continuously, said Justin Nobel, one of the authors of the recently published study. “The new thing here is that there's actually radon also coursing through the natural gas and the oil production and processing system."
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With a couple of air monitoring tools set up northeast of the refinery, the researchers monitored radon, in the form of gas and particulates, for more than a year.
“The industry has known that they have radioactivity coursing through their system,” said Nobel, citing multiple research papers published by the oil and gas industry in recent years.
But this is the first time an air monitoring study has tracked that radioactivity downwind of a facility near communities.
The researchers found “radioactive emissions were about two to three times higher in the direction of the oil refinery,” Nobel said.
Along with the toxic chemicals expected from the oil and gas industry, including benzene and ethane, the study detected elevated levels of radon.
“The [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] and health agencies are very worried about radon. Radon is considered the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States behind smoking, responsible for an estimated 21,000 lung cancer deaths a year,” Nobel said.
Those health concerns are top of mind for community members. That’s why this study was paid for by Cultivando, a nonprofit community organization serving Latinos in Commerce City.
“This is our community, and if anything needs to change, we need to make it happen,” said Laura Martinez, the manager of Cultivando’s environmental justice programs.
Martinez said the funds for the study came from state enforcement against Suncor.
Since 2011, Suncor has settled multiple times with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) over violations of air pollution regulations. Earlier this year, Suncor agreed to pay Colorado's biggest-ever penalty against a single facility: $2.5 million in fines and $8 million for community projects. Suncor paid the state’s previous record settlement of $9 million in 2020, also for air pollution violations. Suncor also settled with the EPA last year over air pollution violations — the fine was $300,000.
Martinez said as part of these settlements, Suncor had to set aside funds for “supplemental environmental projects.” This air monitoring study is one of those projects.
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Colorado does not currently monitor for radioactivity or several other contaminants, which Cultivando wanted to know about. So they hired Boulder AIR, which partners with governments and nonprofits to monitor air quality on the Front Range.
Dr. Detlev Helmig, who leads Boulder AIR, said his team set up two distinct tools for tracking gas and particles. That’s because radon gas quickly breaks down and its by-products easily latch onto particles like dust or water.
Dr. Helmig said their year-long monitoring data provided “convincing indicators” linking the measured radioactivity to the refinery. The researchers found a “tight correlation” between radon and ethane, “a very volatile hydrocarbon that's very specific for natural gas emissions,” he said.
Researchers also studied the potential source of the radioactivity by tracking the wind direction and measuring other contaminants like ozone, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile organic compounds such as benzene, toluene and hydrogen sulfide.
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Based on these measurements, the researchers believe Suncor is the likely source. However, their study is limited in that it only measured radioactivity from one location, which may receive lower or higher amounts of radon than other communities in the area.
While this study focused on only downwind measurements, Dr. Helmig said upwind measurements for comparison would help clarify more about where the radioactivity is coming from and going.
“There's no safe levels of radioactivity,” he said. “We would want to identify [where the radioactivity is coming from] and find ways to reduce those emissions.”
Dr. Helmig hopes this study will spark interest in further research into radioactivity from oil and gas operations, and the potential effects on nearby communities.
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Currently, U.S. regulatory agencies do not require a study of the oil and gas industry’s radioactivity emissions, even though radon is considered a hazardous air pollutant and is enforceable under the Clean Air Act.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes that naturally occurring radioactivity below the earth’s surface can come up alongside oil and gas during operations. The EPA calls these substances technologically enhanced naturally-occurring radioactive material (TENORM). The radioactivity can come up as a solid, liquid, sludge or gas. But no “single, comprehensive, federal TENORM regulation” exists, according to the EPA.
“What we see is that the accountability isn't as strict or as stringent as it should be,” said Martinez from Cultivando. “The state needs to make sure that these industries, specifically Suncor, in this case, is really held accountable to the point that they're motivated to change, that they're motivated to do something to protect the community."
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Currently, Suncor is facing a Clean Air Act lawsuit brought by environmental groups in Colorado. Suncor did not respond to Denver7's request for comment.
Martinez said she hopes to see the community continue to come together around holding Suncor accountable.
“The strength is in numbers, and the more united we are, the stronger we become,” she said.
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