The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently finalized a settlement with Mosaic Fertilizer and Tampa Port Services over alleged violations of the chemical accident prevention provisions of the Clean Air Act at Mosaic’s facility in St. James, Louisiana.
Residents of Cancer Alley are the victims of deadly environmental pollution from the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry. They face severe health harms including elevated burdens and risks of cancer, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health harms, and respiratory ailments. These harms are disproportionately borne by the area’s Black residents.
A federal judge in Lake Charles has at least temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing so-called “disparate impact” rules in Louisiana that require industries to reduce toxic pollutants in minority and low-income areas, such as the so-called “Cancer Alley” region along the Mississippi River, to lower levels than in majority white areas.