We need full disclosure, accountability regarding Suncor
Re: “Suncor’s obtuse response to pollution,” Jan. 29 editorial
Your editorial rightfully raises questions about the company’s continued presence in Commerce City.
For years, my family, my friends, and my community have suffered because Suncor has failed to show any concern for its neighbors’ health and well-being. I live in the shadow of Suncor’s refinery and have witnessed violation after violation that leaves all of us guessing as to how it could be impacting our health.
With its temporary shutdown, many of us thought we might have a reprieve from the facility’s impacts, but instead have been left to worry about gas leaks, benzene spills or releases, and pollution emission violations. This is what we are forced to live with – because state and federal regulators refuse to hold the company accountable.
It is time for the strongest possible permits to address its pollution and for some answers on what went wrong with the facility’s shutdown and how its emissions have been impacted. We deserve to know whether we are safe or not.
Our community is tight-knit — we take care of one another. Being a good neighbor means sharing information, being open about each other’s concerns, and protecting those who are most vulnerable. Suncor continues to fail to do all of these things. As your editorial points out, if Suncor can’t run a clean and safe facility to protect its workers and all of us, its time in Denver might need to end.
Lucy Molina, Commerce City
Molina is a community activist and former candidate for Commerce City Council.
Your editorial details the toxins that the Suncor Energy oil refinery is unleashing into the urban area in which it operates–including cancer-causing benzene and PFAS. The editorial rightly underscores the utter lack of transparency around each successive public health scare, each adding to the cumulative health impact for residents like me and my family, who live just a few miles downstream of the refinery.
With its long history of violations and failure to notify the public at critical times, Suncor has lost the trust of the surrounding communities. Every day, we live with the stress of knowing that our families are breathing polluted air and drinking contaminated water — and we worry about how it may impact our health, both now and long term.
We need regulatory action, enforced protections, and full accountability starting now. To start, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) must take steps to inform the public about what risks remain and how emissions were impacted during its recent shutdown, and how CDPHE is going to stop Suncor from ever doing this again. Meanwhile, it’s our lives and health that hang in the balance as we fight this environmental injustice. Your editorial title questions Suncor’s future, but we, the residents, desperately want a future in Denver too.
Shaina Oliver, Denver
Oliver is a Tribal member of the Navajo Nation living in northeast Denver with her family of six where she serves as one of the Colorado organizers for Moms Clean Air Force.
Tobacco danger needs attention fentanyl gets
Re: “Five ways to make criminals stop dealing fentanyl,” Feb. 5 commentary
I keep reading reports in the Denver Post about the perils of fentanyl and the high number of deaths attributed to fentanyl use in the USA; Doug Friednash’s column on Sunday was just the latest in a long line of such stories.
According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control, fentanyl was responsible for about 71,000 deaths in the year ending in April of 2021. That same data source lists smoking as being the cause of death of some 480,000 Americans in an almost identical period.
Talking and anguishing about fentanyl is the sexy thing to do, but the health impacts from smoking are many times that of illicit drugs. And smoking has measurable, serious health impacts on the general population, not just on smokers.
I think the USA should tackle smoking and tobacco use with at least the same purposeful elimination strategies as it seems wont to do with opioids. There is a lot greater opportunity for significant positive results in such a program addressing something that is the cause of one of every five deaths in the USA each year.
John Beauparlant, Nor Hachn, Armenia
Portugal’s approach to drug use
Doug Friednash’s article, Five ways to make criminals stop dealing fentanyl, is baloney. If “getting tough on crime” worked, there would be absolutely zero crime.
The death penalty has existed for centuries. So, the death penalty means no one commits crimes that could get the perpetrator death? Right, no one kills because of the penalties. Right?
There is another solution for solving crime: In Portugal, heroin use isn’t illegal. The country had 100,000 daily users when the laws changed. Now the country has 25,000 daily users. The drug’s use has been reduced by 75%. Crime in the country has also been reduced significantly. Portugal once had the highest crime rate in Europe but now has the lowest crime rate in the European Union.
Instead of spending billions upon billions of dollars being “tough” on drug use, look at the model in Portugal. Helping addicts has a better success rate than punishing them. And that’s what we want. Reduce drug usage and crime.
Mike Enright, Lakewood
Nothing illegal about Wolfe’s lion hunt
Re: “Derek Wolfe’s sad excuse to kill a lion,” Feb. 5 commentary
It seems that Deanna Meyer’s characterization of the hunt as a “trophy hunt” misses the point that hunting mountain lions, when done properly, for whatever reason, is legal. She doesn’t have to agree that it is a good thing to do, but integrity would demand that she recognize that Derek Wolfe didn’t need an “excuse” to hunt that lion. And fact-checking his perceived excuse assumes he was doing something wrong and feels the need to supply a reason for the hunt.
The article did appear in the Opinion section, which is appropriate, but she lowers herself to the attention-seeking, clickbait-focused, virtue-signaling charged emotionalism that degrades our society and is a poor substitute for genuine dialogue on important issues. But she sure can pat herself on the back for all the insight she uncovered about another person’s motives.
Jim Brown, Longmont
If Deanna Meyer is so concerned about the killing of the mountain lion that Derek Wolfe hunted and killed legally, she should take her complaints to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Wolfe did what he was allowed to do.
Jim Davies, Longmont
Cumbersome label for “people”
I am a 68-year-old white male. As the years go by, I try to stay current on social change occurring around me and keep an open mind, but I am having trouble keeping up with the current designations for gender identity. I understood “LGBT” (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender). Then “Q” (queer) was added, followed by “I” (intersex), “A” (asexual) and finally “+” (?). Pronouncing the “LGBTQIA+” acronym requires eight syllables and a good memory.
I would like to propose that we come up with a single, simple word to take its place.
How about “people”?
Daniel Wasner, Highlands Ranch
The balloon story doesn’t float
Something doesn’t add up to this saga. The accounts being propagated by the administration do not make sense. I ask, why would we allow a known military adversary to charter a course for their spy balloon to violate thousands of miles over our air space, gather their intelligence locations of military air bases with ICBM missile silos and shoot it down after it has gathered and transmitted the data it had been sent to collect? Mission completed!
Have we forgotten the rules adopted after the Gary Powers U2 spy mission shot down with the pilot captured over Russia? Spy air missions are conducted at their own peril. We should have standing orders to shoot down any identified adversary manned or unmanned aircraft, plane, missile, balloon, or drone.
The story of not shooting down the balloon over our land territory for fear of possibly injuring civilians or property is BS. Could that balloon have been shot down over Alaska? The fighter pilot chooses the time and place.
Peter Bruno, Arvada
No insulting greeting cards for me
Re: “Alternatives to “over-the-hill” cards,” Feb. 5 business story
Thank you for the article about Laurie Brock’s efforts to create and promote non-ageist birthday cards. I am 71, and decades ago, my mother taught me that it was extremely unkind to give someone a birthday card that made fun of their age!
I have not adhered to or even remembered everything my mother taught me — not by a long shot — but I took this rule of civility to heart. It is just plain rude to ridicule someone’s age. I look through the birthday cards at my local grocery store, thinking, “Nope. Nope. Nope.” Half of them are nasty and ageist.
You don’t necessarily need a special card, like the kind Brock promotes, but it is nice to have that option when there are so many insulting cards. Best of all is to just stop buying unflattering cards for anyone. No need to ban such cards. Vote with your wallet. If someone gives you one, call them out! Make a dent in the greeting card industry in the interest of civility. Don’t be mean. My mother said so.
Christine Whittington, Leadville
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