The people who live - and die - there don't count. They are neither rich enough or corrupt enough for our ruling regime to notice them - and helping them would have a negative effect on profits. To paraphrase, let them eat carcinogens.
88
There should be more of these reports about literally toxic air that could be remedied but aren't, because of Republican policies.
Of course, cancer is the most serious environmental health hazard that their policies cause. But for every cancer diagnosis, there are dozens of other Americans also suffering from serious respiratory diseases that are worsened by toxic air -- asthma, among them.
But then, this all fits in with Republicans' "social policies". Disregard health risks of citizens, don't provide for affordable health care, and then just let people die lingering, painful deaths. This result isn't an "unfortunate result" of Republican policies. This is literally what they want.
Now, one might say that toxic air affects us all. But the very rich live in areas where the effects are much less than locations where the rest of us live. And they have easy access to the best health care in the world. So the 1% have no serious concern about toxic air in other places, you know, where "those other people" live.
Now, many of "those other people" are Trump's base -- willfully ignorant about climate change and toxic air. And they frankly don't mind if their own children choke to death on poison air, as long as Trump and the Republicans continue to target ethnic and religious minorities, the LGBTQ community, women who don't know their place.
Yes, Trump voters would rather see themselves choke to death, before they would ever want to see the rest of us as their equals.
61
What saddens me is the lack of reader traffic and comments an article such as this receives compared to an article about something Joe Biden said regarding working with segregationists in the 1970’s that received 2,000 comments. It shows just how few people really care about something that doesn’t affect them personally.
Trump and his lobbyist appointees in cabinet positions, and many local and state representatives, (also worth recognizing that the pollution in this particular small town has been known of since Obama was in office) have been placing corporate interests in the form of company/shareholder profits above the health and well-being of people ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age and we won’t ever see any real change in this. Monetary greed will always win out. A few minor victories in white populated, well-off, communities don’t amount to much.
The poorer the community the less anyone will care. The vast majority of us, the working class living week-by-week, and the poor who have to decide whether eating or paying the rent is more important than the medications they take, have always been the disposable ones. The ones who are sent to die in wars, have deadly pollution factories built in our neighborhoods, and have every regulation that may have eventually been put in place rolled-back by a republican who convinces the ignorant that regulations are responsible for government over-reach and cost jobs and jobs are much more important than some people lives.
101
The U.S.A. as a state shows little regard for human life. The thousands of deaths in the desert of migrants and this is evidence of that. The government simply does not care about loss of life unless they can be directly implicated. If they did, for example, 737 Disasters would be averted ahead of any deaths.
30
Follow the money. How many lives is it worth before shareholders have to take a hit? Apparently the body count isn’t yet high enough to overcome plausible deniability and the efforts of professional lobbyists.
39
Anything that interferes with the business of making money, including environmental protections, has to be deregulated. That's Trump's mantra and now the Republican mantra. The EPA has become the Environmental Pollution Agency, coal is king and industrial contaminants are once again finding their way into our air and water. The only way to fight this horror is to VOTE like never before. Americans who don't vote in 2020 should know they may be committing suicide.
48
So is the cancer risk of chloroprene higher than another "likely human carcinogen" like the acrylamide in coffee?
1
Even in relatively pollution-conscious Germany, economics is often more important than people's health: in the former East Germany polluting open-cast mines are to be closed - in 20 years' time. The government minister announcing this seemed proud.
In the US things are obviously worse, for it's not just the so embarrassingly ignorant President who pooh-poohs the very word "pollution". But how many people in St. John Parish will vote for Trump again all the same?
21
A deep Southern Poor State — check
A corporation polluting —check
Victims are poor — check
Victims are black —check
I appreciate the article, but a quick summary of the four points above would have led me to the conclusion faster.
People have to vote. Somehow, African Americans in the South have got to overcome suppression, apathy and lack of knowledge and vote in larger numbers than they currently do.
Otherwise, the formaldehyde and other chemicals will keep on coming.
As you can see, marching and protesting only gets you far if you already have power.
38
A sobering account. Having just driven across Pennsylvania I came away shaking my head in disbelief at the political beliefs I encountered in small, poor communities in oil and gas areas. People were thrall to Trump and his ilk. In one small town (I won't say which) the only Democrat and activist I found was a baker who explained to me that schools deplored critical thinking in their students. A guy came into her bakery shop and then left. She said that this man, a fierce Republican, was 'carrying'. I asked what he was afraid of. Her answer came back very quickly: Black people. Besides the poisonous influence of right wing propaganda (Murdoch's people) there is a powerful race and class dynamic at play, one observed as long ago as in at De Toqueville's day. Very effective for keeping in their place!
48
We can expect many more stories like this as the criminal republican administration and the Supreme Court dismantle the EPA. Cash is king and corporations are the bank.
28
Thank you, NYT, for rare articles like this and the one about residents along the fire-burning river in New York. One problem is that most people never hear of the toxins that are causing that are causing our health problems. We need pnational ublic awareness campaigns about our air and our water.
28
The most dangerous cancer-causing material is money.
43
If Sharon Lerner's article is true, this warrants the death penalty for the owners of Denka, the company named in the story, and perhaps, life in prison for the managers. We need to find out whether this story is true or hyped-up.
14
All of you who continue to vote for Republicans and your Messiah Trump, do you think Trump and any of the rich Republicans like McConnell and sleazy Lindsey Graham would live here?
28
So when are we the people going to put a stop to this raping, pillaging and murder of our environment and ourselves? I like what is happening in Hong Kong, a million plus people in the streets. This is what it will take here, multiple millions of us on the streets of both Manhattan and D.C. . We are all so willfully ignorant and cowardly to continue to allow this devastation of our families our communities and our planetary ecosystem. We need to fear not what others around the world are or might be doing to us but what we, in our vast stupidity, are doing to ourselves. Death wish anyone?
28
The fox is guarding the henhouse. Vote Democrat in 2020.
32
@Stephen Holland
I strongly concur!
Vote Democratic!
15
A Japanese company named Denka now operates the former DuPont facility in St. John’s Paris According to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, “ Denka voluntarily agreed to take initiatives to reduce plant emissions. LDEQ worked with Denka to craft an Administrative Order on Consent (AOC), a legal contract, in which Denka agreed to install a series of new control technology and measures designed to reduce emissions of chloroprene by 85 percent from the facility’s 2014 baseline chloroprene emissions. Denka and LDEQ signed the document Jan. 6, 2017. EPA supports LDEQ setting an enforceable schedule to make the needed changes to the facility. Denka has voluntarily committed to spend more than $17 million to reduce chloroprene emissions.
“Under the AOC, emissions reductions devices were installed on a set schedule, culminating with the installation of the Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) by the end of the fourth quarter of 2017. All phases have been installed and are operating.
Over the course of approximately 18 months, monitoring date gathered by EPA has shown an overall downward trend in average chloroprene emissions at monitors around the Denka site.”
Charts on the LDEQn website chronicle the downward trend.
https://deq.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=pagebuilder&tmp=home&pid=denka&id=2425
7
people affected by thiss toxic pollution seem to be mostly poor, and black. How surprising in the US.
13
Lousiana is a mostly fetid putrid corrupt crony capitalist corporate plutocrat oligarch welfare politically bipartisan garbage human waste sanitary sewer disposal dump.
The people love their poltical rogues from the Long Brothers to Edwin Edwards to Bobbie Jindal to not that John Kennedy.
17
It should come as no surprise that the government does little to alleviate hazardous pollution. After all, transportation and energy production, two things ALL Americans fully utilize and have failed to rein in to one extent or another, account for the most dangerous pollutants of all, greenhouse gases. If you think industry and the government haven't noticed this, you haven't been thinking.
We're now at the stage where our current government is backing away from what little progress we've made. It's at the point where a voter revolution is probably needed if we are to avoid a catastrophe that will make the Chernobyl near miss seem like a blip on the radar screen.
Our choices (more explicitly demands) or our continued silence will not be forgotten by history.
14
It's all interconnected. Industry makes money because they can shift the true cost to society at large. Ex your car. The tail pipe spews exhaust in the air everybody breathes. If you could put a dome over your car or the chemical plant it would force industry ( and us as the ultimate consumers) to clean things up. When this is done, industry can just shift things to a country with more lax regulations. It's further complicated because politicians don't get elected for proposing more expensive regs. Only by having honest truthful fact based discussions and politicians willing to take a courageous stand and then making sure that, for example, we don't import products from countries that violate our regs to save money by getting around them will we get anywhere. This will cost money. It's also why we're are unlikely to solve most of these problems.
5
@Al I believe economists refer to costs placed on someone else as "externalities". Ironically, some people who promote the "free market" and the "invisible hand" of capitalism are unwilling to correct the problem, perhaps not realizing it is a perversion of the free market as it does not take into account the true costs of an activity. I don't like being this analytical about a tragedy, but bringing this up and pointing it out is sometimes a way to get through to some people who care more about the free market than they do about people dying.
12
Going to war with Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 is estimated to have cost $5.7 trillion. In those attacks approximately 3k Americans were killed.
Trumps proposed changes to EPA regulation around coal is estimated to result in an additional 1.5-3k premature deaths PER YEAR. The clean power plan was also estimated to save $14-34 billion per year in health costs. The cost of implementing cap and trade is estimated to be $22 billion per year.
We spent 5.7 trillion dollars ( approximately 335 billion per year) and had about 4.5k soldiers die in our wars with Iraq and Afghanistan and got what in return? We can save many more American lives and money by eliminating carbon fuels. What is there to debate?
The conversation around pollution must be reframed. It is a bigger danger than isis or al qaeda. It is a winnable battle. And while not without costs the ROI of crushing carbon emissions and reducing pollution will be huge.
Many Americans wonder about the wisdom of the post 9/11 wars. I doubt anyone will wonder 20 years from now about the wisdom of going green, but I am sure we will wonder why we didn’t.
26
I have close friends who lived in this community in Louisiana before coming to Southwest Virginia (the part above Tennessee--the gorgeous but untrendy part). The man grew up in the same parish six miles away, then they moved to St. John as a couple. The woman started spending more time in an emergency room than at home, so they searched for a place with far less pollution. They bought a large acreage here, and they and I are far enough away from the removal of mountaintops by Big Coal to at least have hopes of having breathing fresh air for a few years more.
I grew up in the same neck of the woods, right over the state line in a Texas swamp that was filled in with sand and dirt to create towns for oil refinery workers. A consistent memory of my childhood is watching my mother boil water in a large pot and putting a towel over the head to make a tent above the water so as to be able to breathe. But her problems are nothing compared to what is going on these days.
What will it take to change this situation? I see people commenting, "Vote!" Yes. But that whole area voted Democrat when I was growing up, and change still proceeded at a snail's pace if at all. We need to do more than vote. We need to get the money out of politics and force elected officials to actually do their job. That means listening to residents, not companies. As is, their main "job" is caving to big money. That should not be acceptable anywhere in this country.
36
In the Four Corners where there are coal fired electric plants, the rate of asthma and other respiratory problems are statistically off the charts. These are low-income, marginalized people economically but they sure do know how to organize politically and show up at committee hearing after committee hearing. Many have been working for years to clean up and/or shut down these plants. IT is happening but very slowly.
18
The lowest common denominator in the environmental equation is social class. It’ll be a long time before anyone mentioned in this article will be driving a Tesla. The privileged will live in sanitised worlds, breathing the best of air, far from the toxins that generate their profits. The EPA will serve the population faithfully while its leadership will scorn the sacred work of its subordinates. The lower classes will suffer as they are and as they must in this social order.
The environment has been damaged by laziness: the easiest way of doing something is usually the filthiest or most destructive. CFC’s In aerosols are a prime example. If the internal combustion engine had been designed to run on hydrogen instead of hydrocarbons, how different would our planet be now? Would there be Big Hydrogen? How hot would the Middle East burn?
We make the rods for our own backs. However, the rods are wielded by individuals inured to the suffering of others where they feel entitled to live in aloof abandonment of responsibility towards the planet and our species.
The rich are an environmental problem.
36
@Marcus Brant. True to an extent. If you look at poor countries they are inevitably the most polluted. Rich western countries have extra money to save parks and cute animals. Poor countries often with huge populations are either corrupt and run by the elites for their own enrichment or just basket cases doing whatever they can to stay alive. The privileged western lifestyle is a two edged sword as is grinding poverty.
5
The problem, as with nearly every other, is money in politics. As long as those with the most money get to write the rules, the public good is not important.
We need mandatory public campaign financing for every election so our elected representatives work not for the money, but for the people.
Why isn't this a bigger subject? Ask the media how much money they make from the endless election-industrial complex.
26
The solution is simple. VOTE. Everyone must vote. The NRA uses money as a stand in for votes. But real votes, in overwhelming numbers, need no stand in. Put the fear of God in the hearts of every last local, state and federal politician. Dont vote and the public gets what it deserves for abdicating the thing so many have fought to create and defend: democracy.
We reap what we sow. No effort, no harvest. Vote. Stop acting the victim. We have NO excuses.
51
@rg: The Supreme Court may declare that regulations enacted by federal agencies violate the Constitution's separation of powers, and are thus void. Meanwhile, Republicans are finding innovative ways to suppress voting by the poor. This occurred because folks thought voting didn't make a difference.
Given this, it's critically important to vote in every election, and to vote for candidates that will protect your individual rights. Voting is like everything else: use it, or lose it.
30
When I look at candidates I see corporatists on both sides. Sure the right is worse, but there is little to no Green Party in this country. Money has seen that we don’t see anybody too far off the beaten path of special interest politics. Until someone stands up and starts speaking truth and facts are choices are limited.
2
@rg Totally agree. For 42% eligible voters in 2016, inconvenience trumped future health
2
This kind of situation is what you get when "prosperity" and jobs are more important than humanity. The burden is very often shifted to the poorest communities where fighting back is difficult or close to impossible.
29
At the moment, the title of this piece is "When Pollution Is a Matter of Life and Death." I think that title is misleading in a way because it suggests that pollution is often not a matter of life and death. But pollution is commonly a matter of life and death. For example, fine airborne particulate matter and ground-level ozone are estimated to cause tens of thousands of premature deaths per year in the US, as indicated in https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/18/15003/2018/ and other studies.
25
Another love canal.
18
Thank you for raising awareness to the differences in the cases of St John LA and Willowbrook IL. We need to protest and demand that the EPA treats the rich and the poor the same. Black and white people need to be safe from Koch Chemical Co. Towns need more power to close down these polluters
32
The current Environmental Polution Agency is losing scientists & gaining lobbyists while striving to remove Obama 'rules' which hamper profits. Not surprised this is a minority town. I wonder where the workers & owners of the chem plants live?
197
@Mike Bossert owners don’t live here and most the workers don’t either. The people of this town were always here before that plant was thrush on them. I loss my mom to cancer and my dad to respiratory problem. They live close to the fence line. Please keep everyone in your prayers because everyday someone in this community is either dying or being diagnosed with cancer or many other illness.
205
@Yvonne Perkins-Thank you for writing about the personal costs. This pollution is sanctified murder.
54
Friends who still work for EPA tell me that their hands are tied in doing much of anything where oil and gas are involved.
And environmental justice , as shown in this article, is a huge issue. In 1998, then Representative Bernie Sanders, cosponsored legislation to send radioactive waste from Vermont’s Yankee nuclear plant to a poor town in Texas, Sierra Blanco. When asked by people there to at least visit the proposed site, Sanders said “Absolutely not. I’m gonna be running for re-election in the state of Vermont.” He also said “ my position is unchanged and you’re not going to like it.”
The Texas legislature did reject that site and Vermont’s nuclear waste eventually wound up being shipped to a facility in the Texas desert. My point is that environmental justice is a huge issue and I was really glad that that article is bringing it to the fore.
My town, Billings , used to be second in the country for sulphuric dioxide from oil refineries and it was way worse in lower income parts of town . We got that improved but it took a lot of work. We used state regulators to help. I think this might be very hard to do in a state like Louisianna.
76
We can all do the ultimate rejection of oil and gas special interests- stop using it. Of coarse our lifestyle and economy run on oil and gas. Not the internet, not Amazon or FB or any of the " new " economy. And there in lies the problem. We hate the stuff but we love what it does and can't live without it. BHO, remember him, the green guy? He Increased oil and gas production to the highest levels since the early 70s. Why? Because nobody gets elected in this country with 5$ gas. I don't remember anybody complaining about obamas sucking up to oil and gas to boost production. Until we are ready to take the hit in lifestyle and taxes to truly change how we live, we are all hypocrites.
7
I and my family are truly blessed to live in rural area called The Quite Corner, and The Last Green Valley.
Our propriety is a protecting the air we breath, water we drink and keeping at bay any pollution that harms our landscape.
A while back Walmart wanted to build a distribution center in our town believing it would be a slam dunk for we are in need of jobs. Our concern was air pollution, which also took into account the noise pollution from the trafficking of numerous diesel trucks. They made a presentation supporting the claim that this facility presented not harm. We did our own investigation debunking their report and they lost the vote to build.
Saving our planet is the work of one community and one state at a time. Pay attention to those you vote into local and state offices. Let your voice be heard because here is the power to help stop the destruction of our planet.
89
@mary. Shutting down Walmart? A real good plan for rich people to force on poor people
@Scott G Baum Jr
First; I do not live in a rich community.
Second: we shut down a distribution facility that would pollute our community for more reasons than I shared.
Third and most important:
The jobs offered our community members were warehouse staff and we have enough businesses to supply these hourly wages. Walmart had a fleet of prospective well paid employees they would recruit from within, and had on the table a substantial tax break over about 5 years.
Such an influx of residences has a negative effect on the over all population of our town and if you would like to discuss this, I am open.
I have yet to meet a neighbor that regrets our decision.
26
Walmarts reputation is horrible with its workers.
Walmart came to our town, so did Amazon. They dont pay their workers well, limit weekly hours so they dont get benefits. Dont let these companies come in and exploit your poor people. @Scott G Baum Jr
16
We’re long overdue on holding industries fully accountable for the environmental damage they cause. There should be an environmental protection tax placed on all polluting industries — a tax that is Not subject to write-offs, loopholes, etc. — a tax that must be paid. Polluting industries must no longer be allowed to externalize the costs of environmental pollution/damage, including the costs of healthcare for those afflicted by such pollution/damage.
153
@Donna Nieckula
"We’re long overdue on holding industries fully accountable for the environmental damage they cause."
Do you think that this will happen under the current administration? We need to vote out this corrupt administration and its neo-robber barons. While we're at it send the entire GOP house members to the unemployment agency and by all means, kick out Mc
Connell and his ilk from the senate in 2020.
7
And you are aware I assume, that just like the much mocked trump tariffs, these taxes, penalties whatever you want to call them will be immediately passed on to the consumer? There is no free lunch.
2
My constructive criticism is this:
Since Love Canal in New York, the population is immune to these kinds of reports.
Love canal?
Everyone knew but did nothing.
Largely, nobody knows about anything they can do to change this.
We can complain about the ineffectiveness of the EPA, but even at its height of power, would the EPA have changed this?
It's pretty shocking, but most of us have no answers. Can you give us some possible answers that we can get behind?
5
Yes. The first line of managing a chemical plant is to have the engineers do their jobs. Plant managers needn't play political and financial (typically for cents on the dollar) games waiting for gov't regulators to step in. The same is true for drilling and developing fracking and other wells. Perform routine operation monitoring and maintenance (O&M) and fix the leaks! Heck, you even recoup wasted chemicals along the way. Shame on such sloppy industries that violate the public trust. Cudos to industries that ARE responsible ( See https://www.hpba.org/Initiatives/Woodstove-Changeouts/Success-Stories/Libby-Montana-Changeout)
2
This anti regulation of chemicals that are literally killing people has to go. I am surprised no one has sued the company for gross negligence and homicide. These companies need to be regulated!
19
@kay Meanwhile, at the very least, charge the polluting companies for the suffering citizenry's ongoing healthcare -- apart from the horrible human cost, there's a financial one, surely not covered by the offending companies. Where's Erin Brockovich?
8
@kay
There is no private cause of action for homicide. Try wrongful death.
1
When we read that "90 percent of residents are African-American and per capita income is just over $17,000 a year" we can anticipate the lack of response from "our" government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
28
This community is where the Whitney Plantation is located. It is the first plantation to devote its tours to the history and stories of the people who had been enslaved. I have been there several times.
When I look at the pictures in this article, almost certainly I am seeing people whose roots trace back to those who endured the degradations of the Whitney and other nearby plantations. Stories such as this should make the case for why reparations should be a present concern.
24
Read the book Strangers in Their Own Land for a possible explanation
3
All forms of pollution are by definition toxic. Some are active poisons. Some are passive poisons, like carbon microparticulates. Some are cocktails of chemicals which haven't even been classified. The problem is that an agency won't enforce its own statutory obligations, at the price of people's lives and health. Is there an ideological excuse? A regulator that doesn't regulate doesn't deserve funding or any kind of credibility.
Life and death for the townspeople, but also for the fools who don't get basic facts. Most of these anti-regulatory geniuses will wind up suffering from the toxins they permit to fester around the world. It's pretty common for people to get chemically induced and/or respiratory problems in the oil industry, for example.
4
Why is it that the local authorities have not issued murder indictments?
2
Re: '...The E.P.A. found that a small town in Louisiana was overloaded with carcinogens. Why didn’t that mean the government had to act?..."
Placing polluter-lobbyists on / in charge, of the EPA is like trying to rescue people stranded on R.M.S. Titanic's stern by sending an ice making machine for their cocktails!!
9
Making money is the highest morality in this country and may be all of the world. As long as what you do makes money it is good. From selling illegal drugs to selling produce at the grocery store, as long as it is profitable it is good.
Since corporations are people they should also be good citizens. Corporations should leave their communities in better shape than they found them. Corporations, while pursuing the highest morality, should be held accountable for their transgressions.
Remember, you cannot serve mammon and god. Oh yeah, mammon is our god.
13
@Rich Pein So, now that corporations are 'people' in the eyes of the law, why are they not charged for homicide-by-poisoning, at the very least, egregious assault?
11
Of course Trump wouldn't lift a finger but I would have liked to have seen an analysis of why Obama did nothing over a 5 or 6 year period. There seems to be something missing in this article.
6
@ZHR. Most people seemed stunned when it is pointed out that the US had any problems before 2016. At least those on the left are.
As I suspected the community was an African American community in the south. African Americans don't count down there nor do they have any kind of legislative say so.
We have an ethylene oxide problem where I live and no one seems to care..........and we are in the north, mixed community, lower income community and we also find it hard to impossible to get the EPA (federal, state and even local) to do anything.
Don't worry, air pollution, water pollution, food pollution, and climate change will soon make it impossible for anyone to live on the planet earth.
Ahh the billionaires will be able to move to Mars and pollute that planet.
8
This fits the category of fake news. The first sentence says Trump but none of what happened has anything to do with him. It should have said “In 2017 I visited”. But by using his name you tried to blame him for decades of pollution.
@Rich Murphy
I understood just the opposite. At the mention of previous administrations doing nothing, I immediately wondered why 8 years of Obama rule never helped this little town, and others. Everyone knows this damage could not occur in the 2 years Trump has ruled. But the people he has hired to head the Agencies includes mostly lobbyists, indicate to me this problem will get worse, and soon.
2
For a more detailed narrative of this environmental crisis in Louisiana, I recommend reading Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild. She also spent a great deal of time interviewing the affected residents.
The takeaway from this is that many of the residents here would rather take their chances with carcinogens than have what they see as the evil federal government in the form of the EPA intrude into their lives. As for state agencies in Louisiana, their priorities seem to be much more about being business friendly than environmentally friendly.
3
@Tony Polombo
The book doesn't seem to answer why, sadly. Perhaps what the author misses is the deluge of propaganda directed at poorer people, the elevation of the super rich (and why their lives, by comparison, are unimportant) and the fact that such people are actually dependent on the industries that poison them.
Class warfare, part and parcel with red-lining neighborhoods.
What is the number? 200,000 deaths in the USA each year directly attributed to air pollution? This article focuses on hot spot communities attacked by discrete chemical exposure. Horrible. Tragic. Isolated.
The big problem is that everywhere poor communities exist you see industrial pollution. Lower income families experience the majority of sickness, but it is widespread and not necessarily attributable to a single source.
We must cut air pollution emissions. It’s killing us and our atmosphere.
4
I’m sure Mr Fox - uh, Dunlap will do a great job guarding that henhouse.
4
Trump and the GOP: killing Americans, enriching themselves.
6
We need a regime change.
#VOTE2020
14
The residents of this small town are expendable to the Trump administration because they are 1) poor and 2) almost all black.
Our history has another word for their situation. They are compelled to live in a place by economic shackles and circumstance.
They are slaves.
4
This is a perfect illustration of America. If you do not have millions of dollars (of blood money) you are expendable. Possibly even a social parasite.
8
This encapsulates who America has become. Profit over all else. White over black. Rich over poor. Corporations over citizens. Nepotism, impunity, corruption and legal ambiguity to cloud facts to continue to cheat for short term profits. Now let’s go celebrate our independence with noise polluting fireworks, body polluting alcohol and environment polluting factory farmed animals on the grill. Yeehah ‘merica’!
6
The blame placed on the Trump Administration is impossible to miss. The EPA though reclassified the toxicity these compounds during the Obama Administration which quite obviously did nothing about the issue either. Can we at least be proportionate in assigning blame?
5
I would like to see Lerner pose her question to Wilma Subra, a Macarthur Foundation Fellow based in New Iberia who used to work for the EPA and now serves as a pro bono expert for the very communities that Lerner is talking about. Few people have as nuanced and layered an understanding of the pollution problems facing Louisiana as Subra. Lerner would do well to foreground Subra rather than keep posing what are essentially rhetorical questions.
6
@JET III Please read the stories linked in the article, both of which feature Wilma Subra
1
There are many states living year after year with a budget they don't balance. The Federal Government, aka we tax payer, take care of what they don't. I think enforcement for polluters is local. Since there is no money nothing is done. The time honored solution to poor living conditions is to move where it is better. However, as we face mother nature making living impossible in parts of Louisiana due to flooding, would this be a time for the federal government to step in? I do think local authorities should kick out the bad actor corporations with their ongoing pollution.
@pointofdiscovery The sad part is most people in locations like these can't move. If they own their home who is going to buy it from them? Any money they had saved is going to medical bills.
Putting people in charge who have priorities of companies instead of the locals is definitely not helping.
7
“The E.P.A. found that a small town in Louisiana was overloaded with carcinogens. Why didn’t that mean the government had to act?”
You mean State government? Why doesn’t the State government act? The ones who sanctioned, enabled, and authorized this mess?
The Federal government should NOT pay the State anything in reimbursement.
These backwoods, backwards, local and State governments, let them pay.
5
Perhaps the core reason for failure is right in the essay.
In a largely white suburb of Chicago, protests over ethylene oxide pollution led to the closure of the factory. No one in government looked at investment that would contain the pollution but allow the business to continue?
What people want is to be safe, healthy AND employed, and for whatever reason, we don't see that as a government function. If a business cannot afford mitigation, it shuts down.
People die when it is cheaper to ignore them than to fix the problem. Government can fix that - not just by shutting offenders down, but by funding technology to actually fix the problem. Our love affair with small government actually kills both jobs and people.
11
Richard Nixon created the EPA by executive order to protect people from environmental threats to public health.But that was back when Republicans used to be conservatives, instead of radicals, which is what they've become.
44
To my mind the whole idea of government in societies more complex than that of the hunter gatherer is that it exists to fulfill a societal mandate. Government is an entity by which the needs of the many are addressed in the fairest way possible; not the needs of the few. Unfortunately this article points out that oft-times, and these are such times, the latter aspect holds sway.
John~
American Net'Zen
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@John
What government are you writing about? Surely not our present one that has perverted the system to further enrich the uber-rich.
Thank you for this report. It seems to me that legitimate news (like the Times) has spent too much time ignoring the killing effects of pollution. There are also unseen risks from hidden chemicals. How long will these persist in this community? How far will they travel? What about the effects of these pollutants on the development of children a hundred miles away? Small amounts of pollutants are toxic to small people. Is there an increase in genetic disease? A change in the genome? Those who have been in the health care field for decades can attest to the alarming rise of disease among infants and children in places with "dirty" air and water. Who cares about these kids? Republicans in Congress? Conservatives on SCOTUS? How long can the public wait for the EPA to act? And what about the effects of pollutants on bacteria or viruses? Will they change, too? Can we imagine they will not? If pollutants cause cancer in humans, or change the genome, they will also change the microscopic world. The public must know about these hidden threats. Can the Times list the biggest polluting industries and those who is benefit in Congress? Can we ask Mr. McConnell who pollutes in Kentucky, and who contributes to his re-election campaign?
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Even though the EPA's hands are politically tied, the states can still act since they all (except Wyoming) have primacy for enforcement. Putting pressure on the state air quality divisions is an avenue still open. Local legislators must get on board. Staying silent won't help.
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This is what continues to happen when we ignore polluants. Being a retired RN, with 50 + yrs of practice, note that 2 of these are/were used a lot in hospitals. Nurses & healthcare workers have much more potential exposure with their use. Guess what, I have pretty bad breathing problems.
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@graceD.
Thanks for your insights. That healthcare workers suffer from exposure to these chemicals is tragic. I'm so sorry about your breathing problems.
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Thanks for this excellent article. For some landmark historical documents on air pollution control and EPA see article and links at
https://www.legalreader.com/50-years-of-legal-climate-change/
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@louis v. lombardo
Links to landmark historical documents in chronological order are at
https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/1970s-polution-control-efforts/
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People need to ask Trump, his Republican enablers and wealthy sponsors, "What if this were your neighborhood? What if it were your family members, friends or yourself suffering from chronic terminal illnesses and cancers? What if this were happening near "Mar a Lago" and members were leaving in droves? Would you still allow this pollution to continue?" Then they have to make sure that all those who fail to help provide for a cleaner environment and healthcare from those who suffer get voted out of office and elect officials who will put the rights of citizens above the rights of corporate elites.
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@DCWilson. These are their voters
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@MEH Sadly, you are probably right.
Noise pollution, which causes high blood pressure and heart attacks, is just as bad as chemical pollution, and also subject to haphazard regulation. Indeed, the FAA, which regulates the airline industry, gives it almost no consideration.
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If our laws and elected officials refuse to assist a community where corporate greed ‘Trumps’ the health of poor citizens, what is the moral, just and right path? These people need action now, and the system has failed (or rather, has been bought). What would Jesus do? What should Jesus’ followers do? What would a superhero from the Marvel or DC universe do?
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The cancer risk was assessed in 2010. The EPA under Obama did not act, and the EPA under Trump also has not acted. There appears to be a bipartisan consensus that the risk is not as high as this article would have us believe.
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@Ernesto
You may quibble about the decimal points in the statistics but the health risks of the chemicals cited are very, very, real. The lack of action by the US EPA almost certainly reflects political and economic pressure, rather than a lack of appreciation of the risk.
Formaldehyde has been recognised as a carcinogen for decades: check with the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
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How about the good folks of Louisiana put some pressure on that nice Democratic governor and use state resources to get this under control. I am sick of using hard earned national tax money to fix local problems.
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@Unhappy JD
Why? Genuinely, I don’t understand. The EPA is a federal agency. What’s the difference to you between a community on the other side of your state vs. a community in a different state? Do you just think the US should be broken up into state-sized countries? Because if not, why wouldn’t the federal government be involved in this? This response genuinely makes no sense to me.
Is it just a matter of these people being geographically far away from you? If so I wonder, again, if you are more connected to a small town several hundred miles away in your own state. If you lived in Louisiana would you feel the same way? And why is this an inappropriate use of federal tax money compared to any other use?
I’d love some answers because I truly don’t understand the sentiment.
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@Unhappy JD. Because people often do not trust the government. Or believe them. Rugged independence remember?
1
Wow, whatever happened to compassion for the suffering of others? If you do not help another in need who will help you in your time of need? In your time of need, how would you feel if someone reduced the value of your life to an object in a fiscal transaction as you are doing here?
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Best of luck to the people of St. John and the rest of Cancer Alley in Louisiana.
Details not mentioned in this article about the Willowbrook, IL shutdown of the Sterigenics plant that had been releasing ethylene oxide: The February shutdown happened after a transition in governors. Jay Pritzker was sworn in and banned use of ethylene oxide at the facility. Outgoing governor Rauner was moving rather slowly on the issue, odd, since he had a financial interest in the company.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-sterigenics-bruce-rauner-lisa-madigan-20180920-story.html
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Formaldehyde is, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a class 1 human carcinogen. Its respiratory effects are also well known. A smaller body of research suggests that there are associated neurophysiological and neuropsychological decrements as well. In short there exists more that enough evidence to support ending the exposure(s) now. In a rational world this would have been done, studies undertaken, results published, and remediation underway shortly thereafter.
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Only when those responsible for poisoning communities become personally affected by their poisons will there be much hope for change. That day will not arrive so long as polluters live in pristine environments, those subjected to the pollutants are economically disadvantaged, and the people charged with keeping us all safe either represent the polluters or are being paid by them.
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Drain the swamp, fill with corporate insiders, donors smile, others continue to suffer, get ill and die.
Though I recognize the EPA has been hampered and conflicted during many administrations, the blatant installation of pro-industry executives in critical roles at the EPA appears to be yet another aspect of the Trump/Republican power and legacy.
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