Public Lab Research note


Plant Pollution

by jerejack0507 | April 14, 2021 14:33 14 Apr 14:33 | #26235 | #26235

Introduction:

My name is Jeremiah Jackson. I am currently a resident in St. John the Baptist Parish where we currently have a chemical plant based in our area called Denka, which was firstly called DuPont. This chemical plant has caused major pollution problems in our area.

Our main concern:

The exhaust from Denka/DuPont has caused high pollution levels across my parish. This has caused high cancer levels in our area that many lawsuits have tried to be filed against the plants to fix this problem. This problem has been affecting many generations and will affect many generations after mines if this problem isn't fixed.

Obstacles and supporting information:

There are many causes of the pollution levels: However, the main reason for this is the crazy amount of chloroprene that Denka lets out. These toxins have been affecting this parish for many years.

Who is engaged in this concern?

Our parish as a whole is engaged in this concern, because it affects all of us.

What are the initial questions?

What can we do to reduce the amount of toxins that are put into the air?

[Power tag:  Denka, chloroprene, St. John Parish, cancer]


3 Comments

Try to monitor the amount the company is polluting and also, what the exact chemicals are. For example, while chloroprene is off gassed, there are probably other related chemicals discharged, as well. These could be solvents used in manufacturing. Some could be listed in EPA documents.

But testing might also need to be done. And doing testing will cost money. Just so you are aware. Everyone is looking for inexpensive, accurate tests that anyone can do. These do exist, but often with interferences, or other problems.

Usually, for the testing to be accepted in court, you may have to go to approved labs, which adds to cost. That doesn't mean all the testing needs to be done at the high cost labs, but some probably will.

It's a challenge. But you can do it!

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Sharing this post from @eustatic using minivols for monitoring in Plaquemines parish. https://publiclab.org/notes/eustatic/06-11-2020/previous-use-of-the-minivol-in-preventing-the-spread-of-cancer-alley

The EPA was previously doing chloroprene monitoring at Denka though, to my knowledge, this continuous monitoring has come to an end despite the finding of chloroprene emission spikes at the plant: https://www.epa.gov/la/denka-air-monitoring-data-summaries

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Please correct me if this is wrong. The EPA is being petitioned to increase the level of chloroprene allowed to be air discharged, per a pier reviewed paper ( this gets into an iffy situation of who sponsored it and how neutral they were). Is this correct?

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