In a significant federal lawsuit that seeks to significantly reduce the emissions of the plant in the United States, the US justice department has sued two petrochemical giants that were located behind a facility in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ for increasing the risk of cancer by causing air pollution.
The lawsuit, which was made public on Tuesday, claimed that the pollutants at the Pontchartrain Works facility in Reserve, Louisiana, violated the Clean Air Act and put ‘public health and welfare in an imminent and severe danger.’
The move reflects a significant escalation in the enforcement action of the Biden administration in the Cancer Alley region and was instantly appreciated by the members of the Black community living around the plant, who claimed it to be a major victory in their campaign for clean air.
The justice department sued the companies on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is now looking out for a federal court order to force Denka (DPE) to ‘immediately take all necessary measures’ to curb emissions of the chloroprene, which has been labelled as a human carcinogen by the EPA.
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