Robert Taylor (right) and Lydia Gerard in Japan, protesting health risks – Tokyo, Ota Ward on September 18th (Photo by Hiroshi Maetani)

Reposted from Mainichi Newspaper

The residents living next to a Japanese-owned chemical plant in the southern US state of Louisiana have been demanding a reduction of chemical emissions. Their long-standing fears were confirmed when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study on air quality showed that area adjacent to the plant had the highest risk of cancer in the entire country. A further look into the residents’ concerns unearths the US’s systemic problem of “environmental racism.” (by: Hiroshi Maetani)

“There is still an active elementary school with 500 students right by the plant. But the level of chemical emissions continues to exceed what is deemed safe under EPA standards. We’ve been fighting for 3 years, but we keep on being ignored.” Robert Taylor, Executive Director of the Concerned Citizens of St. John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana, expressed his anger during a press conference held on September 17th of this year at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Tokyo. He was in Japan, where the parent company of the plant is located, to raise awareness about the health hazards.

Mr. Taylor lives in Reserve, a community in St. John the Baptist Parish, next to a neoprene chemical plant opened in 1968 by US chemical industry giant DuPont. The plant was bought by a Denka Co. Ltd. subsidiary (HQ in Tokyo) in 2015 and is the only plant in the country producing chloroprene, a chemical used in synthetic rubber.

Mr. Taylor’s wife suffers from cancer, and his daughter has been unable to work due to immune system disorders. Through years of witnessing neighbors getting ill, they suspected that the chemical plant was the cause.

Recent studies show cancer risk “50 times the national average”

What turned their suspicions into certainty was the EPA study. In 2010, EPA revisited the toxicity of chloroprene, labeling it a “likely human carcinogen,” and called for emissions to be reduced under the guideline for maximum chloroprene air concentration, 0.2 micrograms/cubic meter (µg/m³). The follow up study released in 2015 showed the Denka plant surpassing this guideline, and that Reserve had the highest risk of cancer in the entire country.

The most recent study released last year again found Reserve in the same position, finding that 1505 people per million had cancer risk—50 times more than the national average of 31 per million. EPA monitoring throughout this year has continued to find emission rates around the plant to greatly exceed the maximum limit, some areas with 28 micrograms/cubic meter.

Chemical plant owned by Denka subsidiary at the center of resident concerns about chloroprene emissions – Louisiana (photo courtesy of University Network of Human Rights)

The company has objected to the EPA findings. Denka executives responded to press at their headquarters in Tokyo, stating, “The EPA is basing their guidelines on animal experiments that use female mice that are particularly susceptible to chloroprene, resulting in overly harsh results.” The EPA is currently considering using a different assessment method suggested by Denka. If this new method is approved, Denka executives say that “there would be no problems with the current emission level of the plant.”

The EPA evaluations do not hold any legal enforcement power, and a separate legal proceeding would be necessary in order to limit emission levels. There have been no visible efforts pushing for such regulations. According to residents like Mr. Taylor, it is rare that local elected officials show up to any of their meetings. Top state officials have even criticized them, saying they are “fearmongers.”

Ruhan Nagra, Executive Director of the University Network for Human Rights, an organization supporting the residents, characterizes such reactions as “environmental racism” that have deep roots in US history.

“Cancer Alley,” an area with high concentration of Black residents

St. John the Baptist Parish and the land bordering the Mississippi River were historically rich with sugarcane plantations, and where Black slaves were brought in large numbers. The area remains predominantly Black today. Throughout the years, a building frenzy of chemical plants happened on what was once farmland, resulting in more than 200 factories in the 140 km stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

According to the EPA, these factories were found to not only emit chloroprene, but other human carcinogens such as ethylene oxide and formaldehyde. The environmental study released last year found that the top 20 areas nationally with the highest cancer risk included 10 communities in St. John the Baptist Parish, one of them being Reserve, and 2 communities in adjacent parishes. This area continues to see high numbers of cancer patients and was dubbed “Cancer Alley” 30 years ago.

The story looks different in areas that have majority white residents. According to US news site The Intercept, response was swift to protests by local residents living around a chemical plant in Illinois deemed to have the 19th highest rate of cancer based on the same EPA study. The state’s elected officials and agencies immediately took to regulating ethylene oxide emissions, forcing the plant to stop operation in just 6 months.

The Intercept shows that this area is about 80% white with a median annual income of $71,266. Contrast that with where Mr. Taylor lives, where close to 90% of the residents are Black with a median annual income of $10,700. Lydia Gerard (65), another resident who lost her husband to cancer last year and has continued to fight alongside Mr. Taylor, says “Nobody pays attention to poor Black communities.”

Last year, the University Network for Human Rights conducted a survey of approximately 500 households around the Denka neoprene plant. The survey, which excluded smokers, found that 12.4% of those surveyed living within a 1.5 km radius of the plant were cancer patients. This number was higher than the expected prevalence of 6.9%, adjusted to reflect the same demographics.

In response to this finding Denka denies that it is in any way connected to the plant’s operation, stating that “based on Louisiana’s key statistics informed by reports from medical institutions, the prevalence of cancer around the plant is similar to the numbers statewide.”

The Trump administration has been passive when it comes to environmental regulations, pulling out of the Paris Agreement, the international framework that lays out a strategy to combat climate change, and making wide cuts to the EPA budget. Chemical manufacturers, including the Denka subsidiary and other industry groups, have continued lobbying efforts calling for the reassessment of chemicals, and residents fear that the EPA will accept these demands.

Ms. Gerard says, “Corporations pollute the air solely for their profit, and residents have to bear its burden. We just want everyone in Japan to know this reality.”

Vocabulary: Chloroprene A colorless liquid with volatile characteristics, made by reacting acetylene with hydrogen chloride. A main ingredient for synthetic rubber with high heat resistance, used widely in car parts and wetsuits. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization and based in Lyon, France, has categorized it as a “likely human carcinogen;” this is third on a scale of five, due to insufficient evidence of its effects on the human body. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has labeled it as “deemed to be carcinogenic,” but there have been no emission regulations.

Vocabulary: Environmental Racism Acts such as building structures that emit hazardous substances in areas with high concentration of minority or certain racial groups, or pursuing environmental plans that negatively affect such populations. The term was coined in the US in the 1980s, when protests broke out against the construction of a hazardous waste disposal site in a predominantly Black neighborhood in North Carolina. It has been used to understand a wide range of situations, including the construction of nuclear plants near Native American reservations and the severely disproportionate damage from Hurricane Katrina experienced by low-income Black communities in the lowlands. In 2015, it was revealed that a budget cut resulted in lead contamination of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, a city with majority Black population, and was criticized as an issue of racism.

“Cancer risk, worst in the nation:” Residents living next to Japanese-owned plant object to health risks, highlighting concerns deeply rooted in US history (Mainichi Newspaper)