What Suncor could be if it weren’t Suncor
Plus: KC Becker gets a new job, Denver Water will pay you to replace your lawn
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Hello, Temperature readers!
Denver’s new women’s soccer team is already breaking records and they don’t even have a name or a logo picked out yet. The team’s ownership group paid a record $110 million to join the league — or about 55 times the entry fee that Los Angeles, San Diego and Utah paid to jump in. On Tuesday, the team announced it will build its very own, 14,500-seat stadium, marking the “the largest overall investment in a women’s professional sports team in history,” according to Denver NWSL controlling owner Rob Cohen, and only the second women’s soccer stadium in the league.
As far as I know, the stadium itself hasn’t been named yet either — making a third opportunity for some deep-pocketed company to throw cash at the team and have its name go up in lights.
Denver already has some decent stadium names — Ball Arena, Coors Field — that are culturally “Colorado” and thematically relevant. (Look to Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena as a counterexample.)
Luckily, we’re a state rich in homegrown brands that would make a fine addition to the city’s night lights. What do you think — Santiago’s Stadium? Flylow Field? Bobo’s Oat Bars Bowl?
There’s the whistle, let’s get to the news.
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
CULTURE
Denver teens imagine a future without the Suncor oil refinery
Artist Lucy Holtsnider thought she’d spend her winter residency thinking about trees.
“I wanted to talk about climate change, and I was thinking about aspen trees, which are dying off at certain elevations because it’s getting too warm in the mountains,” she said.
Holtsnider was the PlatteForum artist in residence in January and February, a seven-week program that provides studio space and material stipends to four artists per year. The artists are expected to lead weekly workshops with the organization’s ArtLab interns, 50 students from Title I schools, which serve high percentages of kids living in poverty. The residency culminates in a collaborative exhibition between the artists and interns.
So when Holtsnider, a printmaker by trade, applied for the residency, she pitched a student project about aspens. That was last spring.
By the time the residency started, Trump had been elected president and there were fires devastating Los Angeles.
“Things were just looking so dark for environmentalists, I felt like I actually wanted to focus on something more positive and helpful,” she said, “instead of documenting loss and focusing on grief.”
She set her sights on the Suncor oil refinery in Commerce City. Suncor has been accused of polluting the air and water in surrounding neighborhoods for years, despite state crackdowns and lawsuits brought by advocacy groups. It’s not exactly a beacon of environmental positivity. But Holtsnider wasn’t focused on what Suncor is. Instead, she wanted the students to think about what Suncor could be.
During the first of seven Saturday workshops, Holtsnider served the students a prompt to think about while they learned how to use an etching press: Suncor could be …
“They were extremely practical at first,” Holtsnider said. They thought about what it would take to clean up the existing pollution, got caught up in zoning regulations and realistic budgets.
“So we came back the next week and I was like, thank you for all those super practical answers. This week I want to hear your most unhinged, crazy ideas. They can be totally impractical, they don’t have to make sense. Let’s hear it,” Holtsnider said.
“They loved that prompt. There was a lot of ‘Mad Max’ style repurposing of the smokestacks,” she added, referring to the refinery’s tall, cylindrical flares that shoot flames into the sky.
She took the group on a field trip, first to view the Suncor refinery from the nearby Sand Creek trail, where they used a special camera to view otherwise invisible air pollutants, like methane, emitted from the refinery. Then they went to the nearby Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, the 15,000-acre animal sanctuary at the edge of Denver where chemical weapons were once manufactured.
At the end of the seven weeks, the students created prints to reflect their vision for a future without the Suncor refinery — ideas Holtsnider wanted to land “somewhere in the middle” of extremely practical and nearly impossible.
In a small, industrial gallery overlooking the South Platte River, the students’ etched screenprints are on display, the artwork title cards revealing their suggestions.
According to the group, Suncor could be a bug garden, a field of detoxifying lavender, a sunflower theme park, a plant data storage center or an animal sanctuary.
Some more poetic suggestions are for Suncor to become “nature’s revenge” or “an energetic mess.”
One student made a screenprint of an owl and titled the piece “Suncor could be home.”
Holtsnider’s own response to the prompt, “Suncor could be affordable housing,” takes the form of abstract ceramic tiles, created in the shape of existing and imaginary neighborhood borders, which are also on display throughout the gallery.
“They did an amazing job,” Holtsnider said. “During those first few weeks, with the (Los Angeles) fires things just felt so sad and dark. The students were so down to think about positive futures.”
Holtsnider will participate in a panel discussion alongside Laura Martinez, manager of Environmental Justice Programs at Cultivando, and two interns Friday at 6:30 p.m. The exhibition, “Under a Clear Blue Sky,” is on display until March 26.
Find more details about the exhibition here, and the artist conversation here.
Section by Parker Yamasaki | Reporter
WATER
Denver Water is ready to help you tear out that bluegrass
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Customers who Denver Water will pay $750 to replace grass lawns
Denver Water is offering $750 to customers who want to remove thirsty bluegrass and replace it with other forms of drought-resistant plantings. The cash is being offered on a first-come, first-served basis to 150 customers.
“When you look at how things have changed even in the last decade, we know we’re dumping tons of water on invasive bluegrass,” said Bea Stratton, Denver Water’s landscape transformation manager. “But the public is much more aware than it was five years ago, and they want to help.”
Stratton said the water utility, which serves 1.5 million metro area residents, is offering the removal rebates as part of a larger effort to revamp its portfolio of conservation programs. This year it will also offer free native grass seed. Email nativegrass@denverwater.org to find out how to get a bag.
The utility is also launching a pilot program with homeowners associations to help them evaluate old sprinkler systems and design new landscapes that will use less water.
Denver is partnering with Boulder-based Resource Central to offer the turf removal service. To qualify, homeowners must plan to remove at least 200 feet of bluegrass. Applications and more information about rebate requirements can be found here.
The turf rebates come as Colorado lawmakers, in House Bill 1113, consider whether to require local governments to limit the use of turf in new residential developments in an effort to reduce water use.
Section by Jerd Smith | Fresh Water News
SOLAR POWER
KC Becker, the Biden-appointed EPA Region 8 administrator, takes a new job in solar
KC Becker, who as Colorado House speaker authored key environmental legislation and then served as a federal EPA regional administrator, is set to become the head of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association at a time the Trump administration is criticizing renewable energy.
“This is a pivotal moment to leverage my experience in building a climate-safe future for our communities and position Colorado as a top-five solar energy state,” Becker said in a statement.
At the Statehouse, the Boulder Democrat piloted two major pieces of environmental legislation. Senate Bill 181, Protect Public Welfare Oil And Gas Operations, changed the mission of state oil and gas regulators from promoting drilling to protecting public health and the environment.
Becker was the prime sponsor on House Bill 1261, which set targets for reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
As the administrator for EPA’s Region 8, which covers Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and 28 Tribal Nations, among the issues upon which Becker focused was clean air enforcement.
The regional office cited Marathon Oil Company over alleged air quality violations at its operations on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, eventually reaching a $241 million settlement.
Another target was the Suncor refinery in Denver. The regional office rejected several air permits issued by the state as inadequate and launched a compliance review.
Becker will face uncertain terrain in her new job as the Trump administration is looking to cut funding and incentives for renewable energy.
“Now, more than ever, we need strong leadership and influence at the state level,” Mike Kruger, the association’s outgoing CEO, said in a statement. “I believe there is no one better to take over those reins than Becker and look forward to seeing the industry flourish under her guidance.”
Section by Mark Jaffe | Reporter
MORE CLIMATE AND HEALTH NEWS
CHART OF THE WEEK
There was a sense among farmers and food banks that this might happen.
In early March, the Trump administration canceled $1.2 billion in funding that Biden’s agriculture department allocated during a last-ditch effort to secure for local food producers, including the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, or the LFPA for short.
LFPA started as a pandemic-era relief program to stabilize local food supplies and provide fresh food to underserved populations. The funding was replenished in 2023, but was set to expire next month.
In August, with the edge of LFPA funds looming, Wendy Moschetti of the food advocacy group Nourish told The Colorado Sun that food distributors were facing “a really big cliff.” Relief was briefly felt with the December announcement of the billion-dollar bucket, which awarded $5.5 million to Colorado, enough to keep the program going until 2028, but stripped away earlier this month.
The grants came with certain stipulations, setting the program apart from other food security or agricultural programs. There was an emphasis on regional food systems — grantees were required to purchase from producers within 400 miles of the distribution site.
The funds were also intended to support “socially disadvantaged producers,” which, according to the USDA, includes veterans, women, people of color and people with disabilities, among other groups.
Colorado was the first state to sign on to the program, and has since received more than $12 million in funding, which was ultimately distributed to 35 food distribution sites — like food hubs and farmers markets — to purchase food from 220 producers around the state.
The state was still in the process of applying for the funds and had not yet opened a call for applications. In other words, the distributors that received grants in the past, had not been promised the future funds.
Unlike the federal funding freezes that are being challenged in courts around the U.S., LFPA funds are issued by the Commodity Credit Corporation, a New Deal-era financing arm of the federal government overseen by the agriculture department.
The corporation’s broad charter to support U.S. agriculture, along with the ability to borrow up to $30 billion from the U.S. Treasury, has allowed it to carry out agricultural programs for decades while drawing little attention.
In 2018, the first Trump administration used the discretionary nature of the funds to launch the Market Facilitation Program, a $30 billion program to pay farmers hurt by trade wars with China, Europe, Canada and Mexico.
China went toe-to-toe with Trump during that time, imposing steep tariffs on soybeans, corn and pork, a major Colorado export. Colorado farmers received more than $100 million over the program’s three-year stint.
Then Trump left, Biden took office, and the coronavirus hit harder.
The LFPAs were established under the $6.5 billion and follow-up $14 billion Coronavirus Food Assistance Programs opened a variety of funding programs. After a year of running the program using pandemic relief funds, it was transferred to the Commodity Credit Corporation.
Now, the groups that used the money to expand their organizations over the past few years, like Hearty Provisions, formerly the East Denver Food Hub, and the Care and Share food banks in southern Colorado, are left in limbo, wondering what will take the program’s place.
Section by Parker Yamasaki | Reporter
If you made it this far, dear, engaged reader, then you might be interested in our Unaffiliated Meetup tonight at the Denver Press Club. Come hang out with Sun politics reporters Jesse Paul and Brian Eason along with state lawmakers and fellow Sun readers. The event is free and starts at 6 p.m. More information here.
— Parker & John
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