Tag Archives: Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ)

‘Death Sentence’: Reports Call for End to Big Oil’s US Sacrifice Zones

“People’s lives and the environment are being devastated at the hands of big business,” one human rights researcher said.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 1-25-2024 by Common Dreams

*Cancer Alley. Photo: Gines A. Sanchez/flickr/CC*

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both published reports on Thursday detailing how the fossil fuel industry has harmed the health and environment of communities in Texas and Louisiana, and how state and federal regulators have failed to protect them.

The Amnesty report, The Cost of Doing Business? The Petrochemical Industry’s Toxic Pollution in the USA, focused on the Houston Ship Channel, which has some of the worst air pollution measurements in the U.S. The HRW report, “We’re Dying Here”: The Fight for Life in a Louisiana Fossil Fuel Sacrifice Zone, looked at the state’s Cancer Alley, an 85-mile zone along the Mississippi that reportedly has the highest concentration of fossil fuel and petrochemical plants in the Western Hemisphere.

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Locals Celebrate ‘Tremendous Victory’ Against South Louisiana Methanol Petrochemical Complex

The company “finally threw in the towel having learned that our community will not back down in the fight to protect our health and well-being from more industrial pollution,” said Sharon Lavigne of RISE St. James.

By Jessica Corbett Published 9-9-2022 by Common Dreams

Sharon Lavigne, founder of community group RISE St. James in Louisiana, was the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for North America. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Community organizers and their supporters are celebrating that after years of local resistance, South Louisiana Methanol won’t complete a stalled $2.2 billion petrochemical complex in a region known as “Cancer Alley.”

In a statement Friday, the environmental law organization Earthjustice and groups it has represented in challenges to the project—RISE St. James, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, and Sierra Club—highlighted a letter to the company from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ). Continue reading →

Heavily Polluted Louisiana Community Asks EPA to Step In

“Louisiana has failed to protect fenceline communities, including St. John residents, from the harms of highly polluting facilities,” said one local advocate.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 1-20-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Julie Dermansky

A pair of local advocacy groups in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, submitted a civil rights complaint to the U.S. EPA on Thursday, accusing two state agencies of failing to protect residents of the low-income and predominantly Black jurisdiction from toxic air.

According to the complaint—filed by Earthjustice and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on behalf of Concerned Citizens of St. John (CCSJ) and the Sierra Club—the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits entities receiving federal financial assistance from engaging in activities that subject individuals to discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ)