President Donald Trump addresses the 2025 Republican Issues Conference at the Trump National Doral Miami on Jan. 27, 2025 in Doral, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Kaitlyn Joshua is ready to move out of Geismar. The community organizer has lived in the Ascension Parish community for the past four years, but her and her children’s asthma, along with the high levels of toxic air pollutants in the area, have pushed her to the brink.
“I’m pretty staunch in my decision to put my family first to make sure their health comes first and put them in an area that doesn’t necessarily have such inundation of industry and such polluted air,” she said.
Located in “Cancer Alley,” an industrial corridor that spans from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and is known for its high rates of cancer and air pollution, Geismar is home to 42 industrial facilities listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory because they emit harmful chemicals above a certain threshold. At least three emit ethylene oxide, a small molecule that can cause cancer at low concentrations in people who are exposed to it over their lifetimes, Johns Hopkins University environmental health and engineering professor Peter DeCarlo told Verite News.
Last June, DeCarlo and his team released a study showing that ethylene oxide levels in Cancer Alley are above limits that are safe for long-term exposure. Some of the highest levels of exposure were found in Ascension Parish, where Joshua lives. Most hazards that come from air pollutants can be attributed to ethylene oxide, according to the paper.
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The EPA started to tighten rules to limit community and worker exposure to ethylene oxide last year by requiring fenceline monitoring in some plants and strengthening emissions standards. In its most recent decision, released earlier this month, the agency is requiring facilities to lower the amount of ethylene oxide workers are exposed to from 1 part per million (ppm) to 0.5 ppm by 2028 and to 0.1 ppm by 2035. The new rule also calls for continuous monitoring of ethylene oxide in facilities that use and store it.
But environmental researchers and advocates like Joshua and DeCarlo don’t think the new rules will eliminate the hazard of ethylene oxide exposure. It’s unclear, too, whether the Trump administration will keep the rules or roll them back. During Trump’s first term, he rolled back more than 100 environmental rules, most of them dealing with air pollution and emissions.
“Even though the rules are there — [I’m] hoping that scales down some of the pollution — it would take years to pull back the amount of pollution that is currently being emitted into the environment,” Joshua said.
The EPA requires industries to self-monitor their toxic air releases, which could also lead to the use of measurement techniques that may not be fully accurate, DeCarlo said. In the rules created last year, the EPA required industries to share their fenceline monitoring with communities. Verite News contacted to the EPA to ask about how chemicals will be continuously monitored and whether the new rules may change under the Trump administration, but no one from the agency responded in time for publication.
How will the EPA enforce the new ethylene oxide rule?
DeCarlo said the laws are well-intended, but he is hesitant to say they will bring about actual change in ethylene oxide levels in the area, given that monitoring and emission control may not be as effective at bringing down levels as regulators hope.
“I think that rules that we write and specifications on paper are often more optimistic than the situation in the real world,” DeCarlo said.
Joshua said she doesn’t believe that the rules go far enough. But Joshua said it is important stricter rules still exist at the federal level, even if they don’t change her mind about staying in Geismar.
“Under Louisiana’s political infrastructure, we do not have lawmakers that push back or advocate for these rules,” Joshua said. “And so that would have to be something that the industry themselves are looking to do.”
The EPA’s decision also includes increased protections for workers who may be exposed to ethylene oxide, including required use of respirators in areas with high levels of ethylene oxide and separate HVAC systems in areas where the chemical is used.
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Shamell Lavigne, the chief operating officer of environmental advocacy group Rise St. James and a resident of Ascension Parish, said she is thankful that the rules target worker exposure. Lavigne, too, believes that rules limiting pollution should go further and said that ethylene oxide is a chemical that Rise St. James is “always concerned about.”
“In addition to lowering standards for existing plants, we need to make sure that new plants are not built that will further increase the emissions,” Lavigne said.
Environmental advocates in Cancer Alley are keeping a close eye on existing and upcoming plants. Petrochemical manufacturing accounts for the majority of ethylene oxide emissions. Lavigne said she is concerned about ethylene oxide pollution from a proposed Formosa plastics plant in St. James that could emit up to 7.7 tons of the chemical every year. Formosa has already begun construction after being locked in legal battles over air permits with environmental activist groups, including Lavigne’s.
In a written statement to Verite News, Formosa said it does not expect actual emissions to reach the levels specified in the permits. The company said the project will not produce or store ethylene oxide as a product and will work to vent any leftover chemical through emission control equipment.
Even though rules surrounding emissions have gotten stricter, Sharon Lavigne, the founder of Rise St. James and Shamell Lavigne’s mother, said she thinks the polluting industries will violate the rules. Last October, the DuPont chemical plant in Reserve was fined $480,000 for emitting levels of cancer-causing benzene higher than federal rules allowed.
“I don’t care if they put it on paper, these industries are going to go over the limit,” Sharon Lavigne said. “Industries don’t care, as long as they make that money.”
Shamell Lavigne said she is worried about how new regulations may hold up now that Trump is in office. Trump has already pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement for a second time and reversed Biden-era orders that were aimed at improving the environment in low-income communities and communities of color. These rules were meant to target decades of discriminatory permitting practices that have placed polluting industries in minority communities. Now, officials will not be required to consider how new facilities will impact historically overburdened and disadvantaged residents already living alongside polluters.
“These are serious concerns for us living here in Cancer Alley,” Shamell Lavigne said. “There were some things that were put in place, and there are some things that are being dismantled, and our overall protections are at risk.”
Sharon Lavigne said she is also worried about rules being rolled back, but thinks that Congress should do more to protect communities.
“The Democrats and the Republicans need to get together and try to work on these issues,” Sharon Lavigne said, “and not let Trump do whatever he wants to do.”
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This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.