Hemelt: Justified concerns fuel emissions watch, changes in St. John
Published 12:03 am Saturday, December 17, 2016
Should we be concerned after what was clearly stated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency?
“The top 6 census tracts with the highest NATA-estimated cancer risks nationally are in Louisiana due to Denka (formerly DuPont) chloroprene emissions.”
That quote comes from the Environmental Protection Agency as the answer to the question: What are the highest NATA cancer risk areas in the USA?
NATA stands for National Air Toxics Assessment, which is a screening tool that identifies areas for further analysis to protect Americans from potential health risks.
Emissions estimates and computer models are used to gauge approximate risks; however, it is not designed to determine actual health risks to individual people.
Those mixed measures cause some questions for St. John the Baptist Parish residents and rightfully so.
At the center of the controversy is the Denka facility in LaPlace that produces a synthetic rubber known as neoprene. Denka acquired the business in 2015 from Dupont and it’s the only such producer in the United States.
The Denka plant produces chloroprene while making neoprene, and chloroprene is considered a potential cancer-causing agent.
Because of that, for the better part of a year, more than a half dozen mobile air labs have been established across the East and West Banks of the parish, monitoring emissions 24 hours a day.
The results are available for public review at epa.gov/la/denka-air-monitoring-summary-sheet-2.
This is obviously a big deal, but depending on who is speaking, local residents either should or should not be worried.
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Dr. Chuck Brown reiterated in LaPlace this week and last week that local residents are under no eminent threat.
He even questioned those who say otherwise.
“I want everybody to hear from us,” he said. “The last thing I want to see is somebody fear mongering. That rubs me the wrong way. You have to have the right information. You have access to me.”
However, Brown also clearly stated the Denka facility in LaPlace is one of the top three issues Louisiana is dealing with concerning environmental quality.
The leadership at the Denka facility has always maintained (and correctly so) that the company operates within all established federal guidelines.
The facility also employs approximately 250 people and Denka’s Tokyo-based headquarters are investing big bucks in our community.
Furthermore, on Friday, they celebrated the grand opening of the Denka Performance Elastomer corporate office in LaPlace, complete with plant tours and a sushi chef.
Denka is a welcomed and valued member of our community.
All that being said, our community only functions if residents and businesses work together to create a healthy living environment. For full disclosure, I write this as a Reserve resident with a wife and two children who live five miles from the Denka facility.
That’s why the words of Robert Taylor, a St. John native and LaPlace resident, carry extra weight with me. He has long championed for our community’s right to know about chloroprene emissions, specifically about spikes registered and impacts (negative or otherwise) they may cause to children.
During a School Board meeting last week, Louisiana’s DEQ secretary pledged to give Taylor his cell phone number so he could stay connected with the latest and most accurate information. It’s a show of support Taylor said has not always been the case.
“There has been some push back,” he said. “Industry tried to stop us from getting the information. I don’t understand that. What really concerns me is that they attempted to deny us access to the information.”
That doesn’t seem to be the case today.
Our Parish Government, with support from LDEQ and EPA, championed an agreement Denka Performance Elastomer announced Nov. 22 pledging to institute a series of technical measures reducing emissions of chloroprene from the LaPlace facility.
The pledge is to voluntarily reduce emissions of chloroprene by 85 percent. All changes are scheduled to be in place by January 2017.
It’s a large-scale response facilitated through months of hard work between a global industry titan and various factions of our state and federal government that will certainly costs tens of millions of dollars.
Whatever caused that much action surely had someone concerned.
Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.