Over-polluted communities vow to fight despite EPA’s rollback on environmental justice

Robert Taylor sits outside the two-story brick home he built in Reserve, Louisiana. It’s within walking distance to the Denka Performance Elastomer plant, which announced on May 13 it would suspend production indefinitely. Taylor and some of his neighbors have lived in close proximity to the plant for over 50 years. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR Robert Taylor built his two-story brick house in St. John the Baptist Parish, La., in 1969. He and his neighbors turned pastures for dairy cows into what’s now Reserve, an unincorporated area in between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. “It’s a beautiful community, man,” Taylor, who is 85-years-old, says. “It started off quite naturally.” St. John runs along the Mississippi River where it is also home to a synthetic rubber plant run by Denka Performance Elastomer. The plant started operating in the 1960s as Taylor and his neighbors built their community and the white population began moving out. Sponsor Message “ We had what’s called white flight,” Taylor says. “This area here [in Reserve], which was maybe 10% Black, is right now 99% Black.” A chemical odor started to fill the air and plants, animals and people began to die, according to local residents. Taylor, who’s  the executive director of the Concerned Citizens of St. John, points to the Denka plant as why. A petrochemical company near Donaldsonville, Louisiana. This stretch of the state that runs along the Mississippi River is known as “Cancer Alley” where more than 150 petrochemical companies operate and locals experience high rates of cancer. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR “It’s not a bad place to live except now it’s been turned into Cancer Alley,” he says. Cancer Alley is where more than 150 petrochemical facilities and oil refineries operate along the Mississippi River corridor. People living in St. John Parish — near Denka — are the most at risk of developing cancer from air pollution of residents of any community in the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Denka wrote in a statement it has reduced chloroprene emissions — a known carcinogen — by 85% since it purchased the plant from DuPont in 2015. Denka announced on May 13 it would suspend production indefinitely due to “extraordinary loss in its financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025,” according to a news release. The company also cites declining production volumes, staffing shortages and a “weakening global economic environment for chloroprene.” The Our Lady of Grace school closed in 2015. It sits just three blocks away from the Denka Plant, which until recently produced neoprene, a synthetic rubber that’s used to make wetsuits and yoga mats. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR Taylor says the damage has already been done, and now his community — like others around the country dealing with hazardous air pollution — say the federal government has chosen to ignore environmental harms. People NPR spoke with, who live in the river parishes, say they are especially concerned now that the Trump administration plans to close the office meant to help them and has removed key tools, including one called EJScreen, that they relied on to advocate for change. Sponsor Message “They call this place Cancer Alley” St. John made national news after an EPA tool called EJScreen revealed that the “community had more cancer risk than anywhere else in the nation from pollution,” according to Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist at Tulane University’s Environmental Law Clinic. EJScreen helped academics, environmental justice advocates and regulators pinpoint which communities have been heavily impacted by pollution and climate change. The mapping tool allowed people to zero in on neighborhoods close to specific industries and compare levels of pollution and health impacts on top of numerous other data sets. The Fifth Ward Elementary School is around 200 feet away from the Denka Plant. The school is expected to close in the 2025-2026 school year, but for years Robert Taylor, who lives nearby, says “ they bussed Black kids — into here from all over the parish —into this gas chamber here; from kindergarten through fifth grade, 400 to 500 Black children.” Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR There are about 45 different hazardous air pollutants across parts of Louisiana’s river parishes, including Ethylene Oxide and Chloroprene which the EPA classifies as carcinogens. A 2024 study by Johns Hopkins University revealed much higher levels of Ethylene Oxide than previously reported. “The cancer risk was typically on the order of 10 times higher than what is being modeled by the EPA tools,” says the study’s senior author Peter DeCarlo. None of this surprises Taylor, who grew up in St. John. “ My mother died of this rare cancer,” Taylor says. “My brother, my sister, my youngest sister, she’s got a grandson, he’s 35-years-old that’s been diagnosed.” Taylor points to each of his neighbors’ houses and names off generations of families that have experienced cancer, sometimes multiple times, and scratches them off an imaginary list. “They call this place Cancer Alley,” he says. Taylor says it shocked him the first time he heard the river parishes described as “Cancer Alley.” This region is home to Black residents who have resided here for generations. Many can trace their ancestors to plantations that are now home to petrochemical facilities, according to Jo Banner, the co-founder and co-director of the Descendants Project in Wallace. The nonprofit, which is located in unincorporated St. John Parish, preserves the contributions of the enslaved Africans who once worked the plantations in the area. Jo Banner looks outside the window of the Descendants Project headquarters in Wallace, Louisiana. Banner is the co-founder of the nonprofit, which seeks to  preserve the contributions of the enslaved Africans who once worked the plantations in the area. Banner says the legacy of the plantation system continues through the prevalence of petrochemical pollution that harms the descendants of the enslaved. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR “ That same plantation system that sacrificed our ancestors and sacrificed our health [is] still continuing through the prevalence of petrochemical pollution, and harming the descendants of the enslaved,” Banner says. Sponsor Message Environmental justice comes to the forefront EJScreen was released to the public in 2015 under the Obama administration, but it received numerous updates under the Biden administration, including the incorporation of socioeconomic and environmental indicators from the Census and upgrading particulate matter 2.5 numbers with more recent EPA data. PM2.5 exposure is linked to heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and other diseases. “It was really under President Biden that you saw the government really start to evolve towards being more equitable and more just,” says Matthew Tejada, the former director at EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights under the Biden administration. Many people living in St. John and St. James, Louisiana, feel like the federal government has chosen to ignore environmental harms affecting their communities. People living in St. John and St. James have some of the highest cancer rates in the nation. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, for example, was meant to ensure that federal agencies, including the EPA, deliver 40% of “the overall benefits of climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, clean water, and other investments to disadvantaged communities.” EPA Administrator Michael Regan met with communities disproportionately impacted by pollution, including Louisiana’s river parishes on his Journey to Justice tour in 2023. Tejada, who’s now the Natural Resources Defense Council’s senior vice president of environmental health, says money to address climate change and environmental harms flowed through the agency. “We need to rethink entire systems for how we distribute benefits because they’re not making it to the folks that deserve those benefits the most because they’re the least protected,” Tejada says. The river parishes felt seen for the first time by the federal government under the Biden administration, according to Gail LeBoeuf, the co-founder of Inclusive Louisiana, an environmental justice nonprofit. LeBoeuf is a lifelong St. James Parish resident, which is about a half hour drive from St. John. “When Michael Regan came, we did notice a lot of things happen,” she says. Gail LeBoeuf is the co-founder of Inclusive Louisiana, an environmental justice nonprofit. Her organization and others have been fighting to stop Formosa Plastics from building a complex that will house 14 petrochemical facilities in St. James, Louisiana, which is located about a 30-minute drive away from St. John Parish. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR LeBoeuf points to Ethylene Oxide getting added to the EPA’s National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), which set national emissions standards for pollutants that are known or linked to cancer, reproductive health and birth defects and cause environmental harm. Sponsor Message Pushback on environmental justice The Trump administration removed EJScreen in February after signing an executive order called “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” The EPA put nearly 200 employees who worked at the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on paid administrative leave in February. Then the agency sent nearly 300 letters to staffers in the Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights office on April 28 warning they could be fired. EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said in an email these moves are “organizational improvements” that meet President Trump’s executive orders and will “ensure the EPA is best positioned to meet its core mission of protecting human health and the environment, and powering the great American Comeback.” Vaseliou also said that environmental justice has been used primarily as an excuse to fund left-wing activist groups instead of addressing specific environmental issues. “When President Trump speaks about a Golden Age for America, that is for all Americans regardless of race, gender, creed, and background,” she says. “Under the Trump Administration, EPA is affirming our commitment to serve every American with equal dignity and respect.” Andrea Issod, a senior attorney at Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program, says despite what the Trump administration says, the data is clear. “They’re exposed to hazardous waste, industrial pollution, and toxic emissions due to unfair policies like redlining and segregation,” she says. “So this problem the Biden administration set out to prioritize and we only made minor progress.” Robert Taylor recalls growing up in St. John Parish, Louisiana, where he would run up and down the Mississippi River as a boy. Taylor says, “ it’s a beautiful community, man. It started off quite naturally.” Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR But environmental advocates say that “minor progress” is quickly getting reversed, including a recent congressional rollback of a Biden-era rule that tightened emissions rules for some particularly dangerous pollutants. Environmental and public health experts say that being exposed to small levels of these toxic pollutants, including mercury and a form of lead, are incredibly dangerous John Walke, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a statement the resolution ends EPA rules protecting people against cancer-causing air pollution. Sponsor Message “This unprecedented weakening of clean air protections will directly harm public health, leading to more cancer, birth defects, brain damage, and premature deaths,” Walke wrote. Melvin Weddington spent 20 years working as a boiler maker at several petrochemical facilities throughout the river parishes where he says he was exposed to a number of chemicals at all times. Weddington says “ Mostly the minorities, African Americans got the bad jobs, and we got to feed our families, so we just took the job because we wanted to be good parents.” Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR Walke says more than 1,800 facilities across the country will be able to increase hazardous air pollution like dioxins, mercury and more, if President Trump signs the resolution. The road ahead Another petrochemical company, Formosa Plastics Group, plans to set up a complex that would house 14 petrochemical facilities in St. James. That’s the unincorporated area about 30 minutes from St. John. The air permits Formosa needed were vacated in 2022 after a judge ruled that the plastics company failed to show how the plant would impact air quality in an area that’s around 90% Black. A Louisiana district court determined — with EJScreen data — that the plant “violated” the Clean Air Act. However, a Louisiana appeals court overturned that decision in 2024. Now the Formosa project is moving forward. FG LA LLC, a subsidiary of Formosa, said in an email that it will uphold its commitment to operate safely and listen to community concerns. “We are constructing this project with advanced emissions reduction mechanisms in place and extensive measures to protect the environment, and also plan to keep pace with technological advances that may enable the company to further strengthen those measures,” said Janile Parks, a company spokesperson, in an email statement. “As the project continues forward, FG will uphold its commitment to operate.” Cows grazing outside the Donaldsonville Complex in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, which sits just outside of St. James, where residents are fighting to stop a plastics company from building a complex that will house 14 petrochemical companies. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR But the process has dragged on so long that Kim Terrell with Tulane, says the air permits Formosa needs to operate have come up for renewal. “ I think EJScreen sort of remains relevant to this case because pollution burdens have only increased over the last couple years, but now the public has one less tool than it had before for making their case,” Terrell says. Researchers, including those at the Environmental Data Governance Initiative, helped archive EJScreen, but if federal data isn’t updated, the tool becomes obsolete. That’s why the Sierra Club and other groups have filed a lawsuit against the federal government to get EJScreen back on the EPA’s website where it can be updated with current data. Sponsor Message The Sierra Club and its co-plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on May 16 that, if granted, would require the EPA, Department of Energy and other federal agencies to restore public data to their websites. That’s important for Gail LeBoeuf, who was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2022. She and others in the river parishes have built a community where neighbors helped build each other’s homes and children play outside. Many of the families in the river parishes, she says, can trace their lineage back hundreds of years to this land. That’s what keeps her and others motivated to fight for clean air and water. “The fight is about democracy and equal justice under the law,” LeBoeuf says.