SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
When President Joe Biden entered workplace, he promised to make sure environmental justice for communities of colour which were disproportionately harmed by air pollution. The head of Biden’s EPA, Michael Regan, is the primary Black man to steer the company, and he instructed CNN again in 2021 that he sees this as a precedence.
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MICHAEL REGAN: This administration and this EPA will function otherwise than we ever have. You know, systemic racism is a matter that this nation is coping with. This administration is going through it head on.
DETROW: The high of Regan’s record? An notorious 85-mile-long chemical hall in Louisiana nicknamed Cancer Alley. Last yr, the EPA launched a high-profile investigation into whether or not the state discriminated in opposition to Black communities there. A podcast referred to as “Sea Change,” produced by stations WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana, took a have a look at all of this. We’ll discuss to the podcast co-host Halle Parker in a bit, however first, we’ll hearken to a part of that podcast, a go to she made to a city referred to as Reserve.
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AUTOMATED VOICE: Continue for 3 miles.
HALLE PARKER, BYLINE: Reserve is a 40-minute drive from New Orleans. It sits on the financial institution of the Mississippi River.
So I simply went by means of LaPlace. And now I’m occurring a winding highway simply alongside the levee. I’m passing by a variety of little homes, very, like, countryside.
I’m driving down what’s referred to as the Great River Road, which is subsequent to the Mississippi and runs for about 70 miles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In some elements, it is lovely, these bucolic nation scenes. Farmland coated in sugar cane strains the road. But that is interrupted with stretches of business crops additionally right here due to the river.
I’m approaching a plant. It’s made up of a bunch of various, like, metal buildings. There’s some orangey lights. It’s really – now that I can see the label on one of many storage containers, it is the Denka plant.
This is how I do know I’ve made it to Reserve, after I see the Denka Performance Elastomers plant. It’s a chemical plant, the one this story is all about. It sits on about 250 acres on one fringe of the neighborhood. The firm has the rights to 600 acres, and a variety of the remainder of that land is leased to a farmer who grazes his cows in addition to burros, oddly sufficient, you understand, these mini donkey-like animals from Africa.
And when you’re driving, you are really going beneath these pipelines which are lifted above the highway after which go throughout from the ability over the levee and down towards the place they load the fabric onto barges.
Denka produces neoprene, the stuff used to make issues like wetsuits or beer koozies, though most of it’s utilized by the automotive and building industries for every thing from hoses to roofing. It’s warmth resistant, waterproof and sturdy. But neoprene’s key ingredient can also be a reasonably poisonous chemical referred to as chloroprene. Quick historical past lesson right here. The plant did not all the time belong to Denka, which is a Japanese chemical firm. The American chemical large DuPont first constructed the plant within the Nineteen Sixties.
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UNIDENTIFIED ADVERTISER: Brought to you by DuPont, makers of higher issues for higher residing by means of chemistry.
You and DuPont. There’s a variety of good chemistry between us.
PARKER: DuPont really invented each neoprene and chloroprene. And at one level, DuPont really owned two crops manufacturing neoprene, the one in Reserve and its primary facility in an space of Louisville, Ky., referred to as Rubber Town. But in 2008, the Rubber Town plant shut down. Why? Because of immense political stress from native officers and residents who feared the air pollution coming from that plant. So that is why this plant in Reserve is now the one neoprene plant within the United States, and Robert Taylor lives a few half-mile from it.
ROBERT TAYLOR: Good morning.
PARKER: Hey. How are you doing? I’m Halle.
TAYLOR: Halle? OK.
PARKER: Robert stands about 5’10” and wears glasses. He’s a slim Black man, and for 82, his pores and skin stays comparatively uncrinkled. He strikes slowly however intentionally, the identical approach he pursues his work as the chief director of the Concerned Citizens of St. John. He based the group six years in the past to stress the state and the corporate to chop emissions in Reserve and throughout St. John the Baptist Parish. We hop in his truck, and we go on a tour of Reserve. First, we head even nearer to the plant. It’s not an extended drive. Just two streets over is the plant’s fence line.
TAYLOR: I simply wished to allow you to see that the fence behind these properties, that is DuPont-Denka operating all alongside right here.
PARKER: Robert’s needed to take care of this for thus lengthy, he names each corporations to explain the plant now run by Denka.
So that is actually the fence line neighborhood…
TAYLOR: This, oh, yeah.
PARKER: …The streets.
TAYLOR: Yeah, this avenue right here. Well, that is fence line proper right here, however the fence line strikes with the neighborhood as a result of we…
PARKER: We hold driving, following the fence because it winds by means of the neighborhood. Most of the properties are modest, all single-family properties. It’s quiet. We take one other flip after which see an elementary college constructing, the one I instructed you about with the air monitor outdoors, Fifth Ward Elementary School.
TAYLOR: Yeah. That’s Fifth Ward there.
PARKER: Oh, OK.
TAYLOR: See? And that is the place the property turns and goes across the playground.
PARKER: This college and its playground are nearer to the Denka plant than virtually anything on the town. The plant is simply past a tree line. About 400 college students go to highschool right here, prekindergarten to fourth grade.
TAYLOR: Every day we’re busing Black youngsters from everywhere in the parish to this elementary college.
PARKER: And like Robert says, many of the youngsters are Black, similar as Reserve. The college lengthy precedes the plant, so does the neighborhood. When Robert went there within the Fifties, it was a highschool. Now, it is all little youngsters. Most are youthful than 9. And relying on which approach the wind blows, they’re respiration air that may have 30 to 180 occasions extra chloroprene than what’s thought-about secure. That’s in keeping with information from the air screens, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, arrange on the college and across the parish. For Robert, it is astonishing.
TAYLOR: I actually cannot discover the phrases. I’m simply flabbergasted, you understand, at what these individuals are being allowed to get away with.
PARKER: But the plant won’t get away with it for for much longer. This college and the neighborhood are on the heart of a historic civil rights investigation and a brand new federal dedication to slash air air pollution. And this groundbreaking investigation may change every thing. It may push the state to relocate Fifth Ward college students to a college that is safer. That may show troublesome, although.
Driving round with Robert, I see that the Denka plant is not the one petrochemical plant that residents are compelled to dwell with. There’s the Denka plant, two grain elevators and a large marathon petroleum oil refinery. It’s not one thing you solely see in Reserve. I see it on a regular basis after I drive alongside the Mississippi River. Which raises the query, how did Denka and all of those crops get right here anyway? What’s made this area alongside the river so engaging for chemical manufacturing, and why are they so usually concentrated round areas like Reserve, areas which are Black?
DETROW: That was a portion of WWNO and WRKF’s podcast “Sea Change,” co-hosted by reporter Halle Parker, who joins me now with some updates, some large updates on this investigation in Louisiana. Hey, Halle.
PARKER: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: Why do not we begin with that final query you left us with? Why are so many chemical crops situated in locations like Reserve?
PARKER: Yeah. So again after I was reporting this episode, I really discovered lots concerning the historical past of business improvement alongside the Mississippi River. So I discovered that the reply to that query actually dated again to slavery. You know, these large plots of land owned by plantations have been the right websites to construct these large oil refineries and petrochemical crops close to the river. And it got here with all of those perks, perks like solely having to take care of one landowner and quick access to the river for transport and export of their items. But the land close to these plantations can also be the place the individuals who was enslaved settled. So when the crops got here to city, it additionally put these Black communities proper up in opposition to the fence line.
DETROW: Interesting. So a type of large updates – because you and your workforce put out this episode, the EPA really dropped the civil rights investigation into Cancer Alley. Have they defined that in any respect?
PARKER: Yeah. So they’ve given some clarification. They’ve stated they weren’t going to have the ability to end their investigation by their deadline, so that they ended up simply dropping it. But I’ve tried to get a greater understanding of all this, they usually have not responded to remark.
DETROW: Have you, by means of your reporting, been in a position to get any indications elsewhere of what they have been considering in doing that?
PARKER: Yeah. So, you understand, I’ve been following this for a very long time, so I actually wished to study extra. So I filed what’s referred to as a Freedom of Information Act request, on the lookout for public information. And that is as a result of the EPA had launched a preliminary report that discovered proof that the choices of two Louisiana businesses did result in the discrimination of Black residents. And, you understand, the EPA and Louisiana’s environmental regulator and its well being division had entered negotiations to attempt to map out some modifications everybody may comply with.
So the information that I obtained again from that FOIA gave me a glimpse into what the settlement they labored on would have included. I discovered that it could have required the state to do sturdy research and analyses on proposed industrial initiatives to determine if that proposal would worsen racial disparities. And that is one thing Louisiana had by no means achieved earlier than.
DETROW: And that will have been a giant change.
PARKER: Yeah, that will have been an enormous change. And that is one thing that attorneys and advocates say would have made a giant distinction, as a result of they have been asking for it for some time. But whereas the EPA and the state businesses labored on that settlement settlement, it began to hit some snags. Louisiana’s lawyer basic, Jeff Landry, employed attorneys to take part within the talks, they usually additionally represented a chemical firm that was named within the investigation, which led to issues a few battle of curiosity.
And Landry additionally launched a serious lawsuit in opposition to the EPA over its civil rights investigation, mainly arguing that the EPA had overstepped. His lawsuit partially hinges on this argument that the EPA’s investigation would discriminate in opposition to Louisianans who aren’t Black. Yeah. That’s just like a reverse racism argument that we heard within the lawsuit that led to the tip of affirmative motion in schools earlier this yr. So just a few weeks after Landry sued, the talks began to disintegrate, and the EPA simply closed the case with out decision.
DETROW: I’d actually like to know what a number of the folks you talked to consider all of those developments, like Robert, that resident and activist in Reserve. What has he stated?
PARKER: Yeah. I’m glad that you just stated that, as a result of I did discuss to Robert within the months after the EPA dropped the case, and he instructed me that he was actually shocked at first. This case was one thing that introduced a variety of hope to residents who’ve opposed the air pollution of their neighborhood. The EPA has stated, you understand, Robert’s neighborhood has a most cancers threat that is 50 occasions increased than the nationwide common. So now he is pissed off as a result of Regan, the top of the EPA, has promised to make use of his full energy to assist residents and hasn’t.
TAYLOR: He said that he was going to make use of all of the instruments in his toolbox. Well, I need to maintain him to that.
DETROW: I imply, that fifty occasions increased is such an astounding statistic. You hear the EPA is perhaps coming to assist, it finally ends up not. I imply, what does Robert need to see occur subsequent?
PARKER: Robert actually simply needs to be sure that the EPA is held accountable. And he says he is not giving up, together with a variety of different native activists. But, you understand, in the meantime, the EPA has sued the Denka plant close to Robert’s house. And they did that earlier this yr, saying that it poses this substantial and imminent hazard to residents. So if that is profitable, the lawsuit has the potential to require the corporate to pollute approach lower than it’s now. And a listening to for that case goes to be scheduled within the subsequent few weeks.
DETROW: That is Halle Parker, a co-host of “Sea Change,” a podcast from stations WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana. Thank you a lot.
PARKER: Thanks, Scott.
DETROW: Carlyle Calhoun is the challenge’s managing producer, and you’ll hear extra of their observe up reporting concerning the EPA and Cancer Alley in more moderen episodes wherever you discover your podcasts.
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