Nestled in a series of bends in the Mississippi River 80 miles northwest of New Orleans, Baton Rouge is in the heart of what local environmentalists call the "chemical corridor." Surrounded by the refineries and plants of companies like Dow Chemical and Exxon-Mobil, the residents of Baton Rouge breathe some of the dirtiest air in the nation -- and it's only getting worse. Two years ago, the city ranked 24th on the American Lung Association's list of most ozone-polluted cities. This year, it's climbed to number 16.
Like Port Arthur, Texas (see No Clear Skies) and scores of other cities and towns around the country, Baton Rouge is the kind of place that should have been helped by the 30-year-old Clean Air Act. Many were helped. Under a provision known as New Source Review, older industrial plants which exceeded the Act's strict emissions guidelines were required to be brought into line if any of their core equipment was upgraded. Companies that failed to meet the requirement faced stiff federal penalties and the likelihood of local lawsuits.
But the Bush administration has decided to exempt thousands of old plants from the New Source Review rules, meaning that the owners of many of the oldest, most-polluting plants will be able to spend as much as they want to make their operations more profitable without spending a single cent to make them cleaner.
For the residents of communities like Baton Rouge, the rollback is a significant blow.
"It's a much higher population density, because we're in a city. You're talking about a much larger capital outlay because you've got more people, more homes, more properties involved...You can't move Baton Rouge. So we're trying to come to grips with the problem. We're trying to minimize toxic air emissions," says Dr. Gary Miller, a technical consultant for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN).
Clean Air advocates like Miller say the injury being done to Baton Rouge is made worse by the insult of having to fight for federal official to enforce the clean air rules still in effect. Miller says activists in Baton Rouge have struggled to provide evidence of the increased health risks posed by the city's air because there simply isn't data from when before the city was inundated with petrochemical emissions.
"There's nothing to compare it to, there's no baseline. There was never a time when we didn't have chemical plants, " he explains. Targeting a particular industry or toxic release gets caught up in details, with industry and community advocates volleying scientific conclusions literally across fences in a political tennis match. "It's an ongoing battle. Every time someone comes up with a study showing toxic chemicals cause health problems, industry comes in with a study that shows toxic chemicals don't cause health problems. So it's an ongoing battle here. Our government tries not to admit it, but 30 million pounds of toxic air emissions stands on its own. Anybody that doesn't think that's a problem is misguided." The 2001 Toxic Release inventory for East Baton Rouge, which encompasses both an Exxon Mobil Chemical plant and a Refinery, states that the city was exposed to more than six million pounds of toxic air emissions in that year alone; and ExxonMobil was responsible for half that.
While asthma and other respiratory ailments are the recognized threats posed by such heavy air pollution, Baton Rouge residents face other risks. Long-term exposure to airborne Benzene, of which Exxon-Mobil released 71,796 pounds in 2001, has been shown to cause leukemia, damage reproductive organs, and impair the body's immune system.
"The biggest problem is just the total amount of toxic releases," Dr. Miller avows. "It's not any one chemical, and you worry about interactions amongst the chemicals. But that's not even so important as just the total amount. 30 million pounds in just our five parish area."
Just as the Bush administration was to announce the New Source Review rollbacks, LEAN and other Louisiana environmental groups held a protest on the steps of the state capitol. It was mid-December of 2002, and LEAN members took to the steps as carolers, singing holiday songs with reworked lyrics pertinent to pollution and serving mugs of hot oil. The not-so-funny message behind their antics: ExxonMobil and other big polluters are being given a free pass while the citizens of Baton Rouge pay the price. Still, Miller and other local activists remain hopeful.
"This will never withstand federal court case," he says. "It's illegal. It's in violation of the Clean Air Act. "
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