Denka Performance Elastomers

People living in Louisiana’s petrochemical corridor say they’re worried about air pollution under the Trump administration. The EPA says companies can request presidential exemptions from Clean Air Act rules.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is asking a federal judge to require St. John the Baptist Parish School Board to relocate students from an elementary school located right next to a chemical plant.

An employee for Denka Performance Elastomer died Thursday after they were found unresponsive at the company’s neoprene plant in St. John the Baptist Parish, according to a company spokesman.

Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” has no shortage of Black communities overburdened by pollution. But years of protest have begun to bear fruit. We travel the Mississippi River to learn what has allowed industry to flourish on its banks, see how the tide might turn in one neighborhood’s fight for clean air, and ask what’s next for a growing environmental justice movement.

The Department of Justice asked a federal judge for an injunction that would require a St. John the Baptist Parish industrial plant to cut emissions of a chemical that likely causes cancer.

Louisiana will receive about $2.4 million to monitor air pollution from the Environmental Protection Agency. On Thursday, the agency announced that it will funnel more than $50 million into expanding air monitoring within communities dealing with pollution nationally.

Federal officials will open investigations into complaints of racial discrimination against two of Louisiana’s agencies over the handling of air pollution and permits in St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes.