EPA opens civil rights investigations over pollution in Cancer Alley

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has opened a series of civil rights investigations into state agencies in Louisiana to examine whether permits granted in the highly polluted industrial corridor, known locally as Cancer Alley, have violated Black citizens rights.

The news, first reported by the New Orleans Advocate, marks further enforcement action taken by the federal agency in the region since the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, visited the area late last year.

The civil rights inquiries will investigate Louisiana’s environment department (LDEQ) over a series of permits approved in both St John parish and St James parish and elsewhere in the region, where chronic air pollution in majority Black communities have led to a wave of activism and international attention.

One investigation, targeted at the state’s health department, will examine whether the department violated the rights of Black residents and schoolchildren living near a neoprene facility in St John “by allegedly failing in its duty to provide parish residents with necessary information about health threats”, and whether the department failed to make recommendations to community members and local government over how to reduce exposure to pollution.