“We go to the hospital everyday”: The Suncor oil refinery, environmental injustice, and contested illness

Abstract

Suncor’s refinery in Commerce City is Colorado’s only oil refinery—processing about 98,000 barrels per day—and one of its biggest greenhouse gas emitters. Since 2005, the facility has been formally cited for nearly 60 environmental violations, even operating without certain necessary permits. Nearby residents experience disproportionate health impacts, including comparatively higher rates of respiratory problems like asthma, reproductive issues and birth complications, diabetes, and cardiovascular conditions—and a 24 percent higher death rate than other Denver-area residents (Armijo and Hook, 2014; ENVIRONS, 2024). Yet, community members face contested illness. Medical practitioners, buttressed by the state, reject people’s observations linking their health problems to exposure to refinery pollutants like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), benzene, and assorted volatile organic compounds. People are told that their lifestyles, genetics, diets, and pets are the real drivers of poor health outcomes. We present findings from our community-based, multidisciplinary study. We examined the health outcomes of living or working near this refinery—and how the medical establishment and the state contest environmental health claims. Utilizing data from 53 in-depth interviews, we document: (1) how people living or working around Suncor understand the refinery's impacts on their health; (2) experiences of residents in relation to responses of medical practitioners; and (3) how their observations and understanding of environmentally related illness were contested by medical and state institutions. We illustrate the environmental health and environmental justice (EJ) impacts of living near oil refineries and cultures of contested illness that seek to negate them.