Louisiana communities are left in the dark on toxic air – and industry helped keep it that way

In Louisiana's industrial corridor, residents like Kimbrelle Kyereh endure toxic air fumes with no public monitoring to document it. Per The Guardian, the state's ten heaviest air-polluting facilities operate without a single public monitor within five miles—so Dow Chemical's Plaquemine plastics plant releases the carcinogen ethylene oxide unmeasured, and CF Industries' Donaldsonville facility emits more than seven million pounds of ammonia annually without public measurement. The monitoring gap widened after Louisiana passed an industry-backed law in twenty twenty-three restricting how community-collected air data could be used, even as three key carcinogenic chemicals—ethylene oxide, chloroprene, and formaldehyde—remain unmeasured by the state.

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