The Magellan-Dupont oil gas storage facility (top) is located across the street from Dupont Elementary School (bottom) and in the middle of a neighborhood in Commerce City, Colorado, as seen on Friday, June 21, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
A pipeline company is seeking permission to expand its gasoline storage facility north of Denver. The expansion would increase air pollution near an elementary school in a neighborhood already considered one of the most polluted in Colorado.
Many people in the community, including elected officials and prominent environmentalists, say they were unaware of Magellan Pipeline Company’s proposed expansion across the street from Dupont Elementary School in unaffiliated Adams County.
They are frustrated by the lack of communication about the plans between the company and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division, which is charged with reviewing the permit and must approve, deny or modify it.
A basketball court at Dupont Elementary School is near the Magellan-Dupont oil and gas storage facility in Commerce City, Colorado on Friday, June 21, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Several people interviewed by The Denver Post said they were unaware of the project until approached by a reporter.
“Not only has Magellan not reached out to us, but CDPHE — the regulatory agency — has not reached out to us. It’s disgusting, quite frankly,” said Joe Salazar, chief legal counsel for the Adams 14 School District, which includes Dupont Elementary.
The Magellan project is one of three proposed or completed oil and gas expansions in Adams County. All three fall under the Colorado Environmental Justice Act, which means a community impact assessment must be conducted as part of the application process.
The applications will be a key test of the new law, which was passed by the state Legislature in 2021. People are already worried that the requested expansions will be approved, allowing more pollution to be released. Environmentalists were critical of the way the state drafted the environmental justice rules when they were finalized in 2023.
“It’s another example of how children in our community, who should be our priority, who should be our future, are being sacrificed for oil, gasoline and profit,” said Guadalupe Solís, director of the environmental justice program at Cultivando, a grassroots organization that advocates for clean air and better health in Commerce City and North Denver.
Kate Malloy, a spokeswoman for the Air Pollution Control Department, said the applications are still in the early stages and that there will be public comment periods in the future, but it is too early to say when that will be.
“We will absolutely communicate with the community when we have something to review,” she said. “This is all extremely preliminary.”
Magellan says it needs to expand its Dupont Terminal at 8160 Krameria St. to store reformulated gasoline — a special blend needed on the Front Range from June to September to reduce ozone pollution, according to a permit application filed with the Air Pollution Control Division. The company wants to build five additional storage tanks — it already has 20 on site — which would increase emissions of volatile organic compounds, benzene, toluene and other hazardous air pollutants.
Annell Morrow, a spokeswoman for Oneok, Magellan’s parent company, said the project meets all federal, state and local air quality requirements. The company plans to install a system that will minimize vapor space in the storage tanks and reduce potentially hazardous emissions.
“This expanded storage will allow Magellan to better meet the increasing fuel needs of the growing Denver metropolitan area,” she said.
Holly Energy Partners, which also says the requirement for reformulated gasoline is the reason behind the proposed expansion, is asking to increase the amount of gasoline it pumps through its terminal at 8581 E. 96th Ave. in Henderson. Holly Energy’s application includes a request to increase volatile organic compound emissions to 12.6 metric tons per year, nitrogen oxides to 10.1 metric tons per year and carbon monoxide to 25.1 metric tons per year.
The Magellan and Holly Energy projects are still under review by the Air Pollution Control Division, Malloy said. There is no timeline for when they will be completed.
Suncor Energy also expanded its Commerce City oil refinery to meet its need for reformulated gas, spending $45 million to make and store the special blend. As a result, the refinery’s volatile organic compound emissions rose by 0.81 metric tons last year, according to state data.
Concerns About the Environmental Justice Act
Adams County Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio has raised questions about all three projects because of their location in an area already struggling with too much pollution. But he said he’s particularly concerned about plans to build more gas storage near the elementary school.
“This project is a perfect example of forcing one community to bear the burdens of everyone else,” O’Dorisio said. “And that’s what all of these environmental justice efforts were supposed to be about.”
Storage tanks at the Magellan-Dupont oil and gas facility tower over a nearby home in Commerce City, Colorado, on Friday, June 21, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The reformulated gas should help the nine-county northern Front Range region reduce summer air pollution because it releases fewer toxins when burned in car engines. But O’Dorisio said it’s not fair that Adams County should breathe dirtier air to benefit everyone.
He said the lack of communication from regulators in Magellan and Colorado is causing people to lose confidence in the state and federal agencies that are supposed to look after their interests.
“I’d like to see how all this talk about improving environmental justice actually produces results instead of just talk,” he said. “And if projects like this are allowed to increase emissions for already underrepresented neighborhoods under the premise that it’s going to benefit the entire region, then I’m not sure we’re going to get the results we’re going to get.”
Magellan submitted its application for expansion to the Air Pollution Control Division in September. The division continues to review the application and the environmental impact an expansion would have.
The pipelines and storage tanks are already emitting pollutants into the air.
Magellan indicated in its application for the expansion that the five additional tanks would emit 16.5 tons of volatile organic compounds annually. On hot summer days, these compounds bind with nitrogen oxides and form a smog that blankets the region.
The tanks are also said to be releasing benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, all chemicals that cause a variety of health problems in humans, including breathing difficulties, eye and nose irritation and inflammation.
Adams 14 school officials are already concerned about how much air pollution is affecting students’ academic performance, Salazar said. Last April, the Suncor refinery emitted an excessive amount of pollution on the same day that students were taking district-wide exams, he said.
Last school year, 314 of the district’s 5,219 students suffered from asthma, according to data from Kids First Health Care, a nonprofit that provides services to students.
Children living in Commerce City are 22 percent more likely to be admitted to the emergency room for asthma than children in the region as a whole. Additionally, young people in Adams County are admitted to the emergency room for asthma more often than the state average, according to data from the Adams County Health Department.
“We are disproportionately affected by pollution in this district and Magellan’s expansion would be a concern for us,” Salazar said.
“We already know that our air is polluted”
Rufina Contreras, who lives about a mile from the Magellan site and whose 13-year-old son attends Dupont Elementary, said she worries about air pollution in her neighborhood. Residents already breathe dirty air because of pollution from the Suncor refinery and a nearby gravel pit, she said.
On July 11, as temperatures neared 100 degrees, Contreras said her eyes were watery and she suspected it was ozone pollution, which has blanketed the region during the recent heat wave. Her family often complains of a bad smell that seeps into their home in the evenings, and they don’t know what’s causing it. She has friends who suffer from asthma and complain of frequent nosebleeds.
Rufina Contreras, 53, poses for a portrait at her home in Commerce City, Colorado on Friday, July 12, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Contreras hopes the state will ban Magellan’s expansion.
“They should deny it because we already know our air is polluted,” she said. “We already know that what’s in the air makes us sick.”
Renee Chacon, leader of the environmental group Womxn from the Mountain and a Commerce City City Councilwoman, said residents need to know how the expansion projects will impact the health of people in an already polluted ZIP code.
“There needs to be a health assessment and analysis if the industry wants to do something like this,” Chacon said. “And to make matters worse, it’s right across the street from an elementary school.”
In the community where the terminal is located, nearly 45% of residents are low-income, 79% are people of color, 31% struggle with high housing costs and 12% speak limited English, according to an environmental justice summary filed with Magellan’s permit application.
Malloy said these statistics mean Magellan is subject to stricter permitting requirements and that the environmental justice summary will be considered when regulators review the application.
The state’s Environmental Justice Act requires Magellan to use what is described as “reasonably available control technology” to reduce air pollution, she said.
Magellan indicated in its application that it planned to provide copies in English and Spanish and that it would reach the community through notices at site entrances.
That’s not enough, said Solis of Cultivando.
“The fact that we haven’t received any outreach from Magellan about their environmental justice impact speaks volumes about the outreach they’ve done,” she said. “I have serious doubts that that environmental justice report is realistic and gives a clear picture of what the residents of that storage facility feel.”
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