"The state’s air monitors are often miles from its biggest polluters and residents have little way of knowing what they’re breathing. That’s no accident."
"Kimbrelle Kyereh lives just a few hundred feet from the massive chemical storage tanks in St. Rose, in southeastern Louisiana. Oily fumes sometimes drift into her home, bringing headaches, nausea and insomnia. On one such night, she grabbed her son at 3 a.m. and fled to an all-night IHOP.
In 2023, after years of coping with the noxious odors, Kyereh began collecting air samples in her yard for a local environmental justice group. But soon after, Louisiana passed an industry-backed law that sharply restricted how that kind of data could be used.
So she stopped.
“I shut my mouth like they wanted me to,” Kyereh said.
Along the 85-mile corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — where cancer rates from toxic air pollution are among the nation’s highest — many residents live in the shadows of heavy industry with no idea what they’re breathing.
Turns out, that’s by design."
