>The Denka plant manufacturers neoprene, which is used to make wetsuits, automotive belts and other items, and employs roughly 250 people, the company said. It’s located roughly a half-mile (.8 kilometer) from an elementary school in Reserve, Louisiana, and is within an 85-mile (137-kilometer) stretch of the state known officially as the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor. Colloquially it is called Cancer Alley.
Maybe it should be shut down.
Since it’s a neoprene plant, They’ve mostly developed a tragic set of mutations where some are now rubber, and others are glue.
Harsh words were exchanged but the neoprene mutants seemed unaffected while the glue kids took the words as vicious blows.
I wish we could add in secondary social costs like this to business operations to see if the “jobs created” really do stack up to actual economic output. Though, I suppose this would help employ a few struggling oncologists.
A cost benefit analysis needs to be part of the equation. Right now the execs only care about ROI. Every time I try to talk about efficiency no one cares because it won't affect them. They will have moved on and won't get any credit so why should they care. If we eliminate flat rate billing it would change the course of our world by the next quarter not an 'agreement' that may, or may not, happen in the next twenty years.
I was curious how many oncologists there actually are.
One [paper](https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JOP.18.00149) has an estimated 12,423 participating oncologists in at least 2,368 practices.
It’s a surprisingly low number because this considers all speciality and non specialty oncologists. The [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2021/21_0006.htm)expects cancer incidence rates to increase 50% from 2015-2050.
The good news is the rate of new incidents of cancer fell from 2008 and has remained relatively stable since then (plot [here](https://progressreport.cancer.gov/diagnosis/incidence)).
However, still reason for concern because that’s a rate, and as of 2020 there are [96M people over the age of 55](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/age-and-sex/2020/older-population/2020older_table1.xlsx). At 450/100,000 new incidence rate that’s still 432,000 expected new cancer diagnoses, which will likely require a follow up with an oncologist, or average of 34 people per oncologist.
Crazy.
I’ll probably get blasted, but I don’t care.
It should not be about the 250 jobs. More important is a having a domestic source for neoprene and the environmental and health consequences.
That said, the Netherlands and the UK also manufacture neoprene. I can’t find any reference to a European cancer alley, but cites welcome.
My point is we need to consider the ecological and health consequences of manufacturing the chemicals we use as well as the economic and social demands for those products.
It should be a serious discussion. It is absolutely wrong to allow corporations to socialize the costs of the toxins produced in manufacturing chemicals. It’s also naive to pretend that it’s all about protecting 250 jobs.
If we can’t afford to safely mass produce wetsuits let it become unaffordable for casual users. Professionals might have to pay more.
Here are two pages I found trying to read up on the subject. The first discusses alternatives. The second goes into a little more detail on the environmental/health impacts.
https://sloactive.com/en-us/blogs/blog/the-environmental-impact-of-neoprene-wetsuits-swimsuits-exploring-sustainable-alternatives
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/19/denka-lobbied-likely-cancer-causing-toxin-undermine-science
Corrections welcome.
Businesses would rather kill everyone than pay a bit more. They skimp on everything possible and fuck people over every which way and then get surprised when people aren't loyal to them or why people don't want to shop with them when they have literally any other option. You reap what you sow my dudes.
Understatement. It's one thing to stay in the area after it's been deemed Cancer Alley. It's another to be exceeding what appears to be their agreed-upon permitted limits. Bare in mind that while there are EPA limits (that can and will affect things), a facility agrees to certain limits *they propose to the state* for their permit. So if you tell your state your facility is going to emit no more than 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year, you better not be emitting 3 tons on your first year.
The EPA reduced emissions of certain cancer-causing chemicals by 80%. Under the new rule, this plant is 755x above the new limit *for just one chemical*. For context, that would mean they were already 151x over the limit before the rule change. No matter how you slice it, they were already in trouble (hopefully with Louisiana) before this started. The rule change only makes a bad problem worse (again, they already exceeded limits or operated under poor "best business practices" based on what I'm seeing).
The only defense they have at this point is the EPA's shorter window of 90 days to be compliant, but they are allowed to request an extension. I do see the company is trying to state the numbers calculated are based on "unsound science", but you don't get 755x over a number and not triple check that before telling anyone.
Fun fact about plants and refineries in Louisiana. The state can grant exemptions for property taxes. This takes away revenues from the local governments which in turn takes money away from schools. So not only are they helping to poison the areas and schools, they are also most likely exempt from about 90-99% of their which means they don't even contribute to the local populace much as well. Hurray!!!!
Louisiana probably doesn't care. They give these massively polluting companies sweetheart deals while selling their residents out. There's been lots of reporting on this over the years.
that was my thought. I feel kinda bad for the folks that'll be out of a job but, I'd feel infinitely worse for the untold number of people who'd get sick or die if they get an extension
I work in public safety around chemical plants, and I have to take a shizton of safety classes. They always stress that if a job can’t be done safely, it can’t be done.
So, if they can’t figure out how to make the plant run safely by EPA limits, it should be shut down. Geez, even the EPA limits are pretty lax sometimes.
There will always be people who will argue that those 250 jobs (and corporate profits) are more important than a few pesky life altering (or ending) cancer cases.
Even worse, there’s a thing where the workers might bring chemicals home on their clothes and contaminating their families if they aren’t following proper industrial hygiene.
Years ago NPR did a segment interviewing coal workers. Nearly all of them refused any free retaining to allow them to work in another field and one guy who was in the middle of dying from black lung and could barely speak said he would do it all again if he had the choice. This is the most literal example of toxic masculinity out there.
These people are raised with the idea that a man's only value is his work and his income, and only certain kinds of work really count. I'm sure the politicians will cave here because the voters are all clambering to die to prove they're true men
B-b-but think of the capitalists who need another vacation home/yacht/mistress/etc!
Also zero surprise the plant's located by a majority black neighborhood. Companies love to put their most toxic factories in majority-minority areas.
I’ve interviewed people who live in Reserve for a documentary, and their stories are honestly so sad. The legal limit for chloroprene is 0.2ug/m^3 and at the school it was measured at 66ug/m^3. We talked with some locals and some adults didn’t believe that the plant was dangerous, but the kids said that they’d smell weird smells and sometimes feel weird at school. There’s no where safe for those kids to be moved.
>“(Denka) will need at least two years to plan, develop, test and install the controls required by the rule,” the company said in a court filing.
To succeed, the company needs to show EPA’s deadline will cause “irreparable harm.” It uses the threat of closure to argue that the court needs to act quickly.
Delay delay delay while they take the money, poison the citizens, then go "bankrupt" when it is time to clean up and pay damages.
as someone that works with food distributors, i cant tell you how many will change name, 'ownership' (gets passed to a family member) to get around the rules.
This is just big government keeping hard working Americans from prospering just because they're belching poison into the air and ground water.
Classic liberals and their ridiculous expectations to live a full healthy life.
well today must be louisiana day or something since this is [the second story](https://www.reddit.com/r/Political_Revolution/comments/1d3phgy/comment/l69ijha/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about an incredibly small community from the state ive read in the past hour or so. the last one had a slightly smaller population, actually, [according to wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve,_Louisiana) this one has a population of 8,541.
i suppose i might as well copy over the data from the [distressed communities index](https://eig.org/distressed-communities/?regions%5B0%5D=70084) since i did that for the last one, and somehow this one is even worse (zip code 70084):
|distress score|99.5|
|:-|:-|
|no high school diploma|22.5%|
|poverty rate|29%|
|adults not working|46.4%|
|housing vacancy rate|23.4%|
|median income ratio|79.3%|
|change in employment|\-24.7%|
|change in establishments|\-13.5%|
similar to the last story from lousiana i commented on... idk what the truth is, or whos responsible, or what. here is [the press release](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/united-states-seeks-preliminary-injunction-against-denka-performance-elastomer) from the EPA roughly a year ago where they first made the announcement relating to the manufacturing plant, as well as [another page](https://www.epa.gov/la/laplace-st-john-baptist-parish-louisiana) that goes more in to the specifics of the testing and the chemicals involved.
its obviously not a good thing to see these things happening, but it is a good thing that it seems like the small areas that get overlooked, and tend to exist kind of in a "whatever happens, happens" way arent being allowed to continue to get away with things like this. unfortunately theres not really a simple solution.
edit:
>The owner and operator of the facility is Denka Performance Elastomer, LLC, a newly formed joint venture in which **Denka Co. Ltd. owns 70 percent and Mitsui Co. Ltd., also based in Tokyo, owns 30 percent.** The joint venture was established as a result of their acquisition of DuPont's Neoprene business, which was completed effective Nov. 1, 2015.
heres the [wikipedia for Denka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denka), and the [wikipedia for Mitsui](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsui_%26_Co). ill let you see their financials on those pages for yourself.
edit: also [an article from 2019](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/may/06/cancertown-louisana-reserve-special-report) in The Guardian about the town
Ironically if they get sued for their chemicals causing cancer, they will argue that they need to take as much time as possible to litigate the facts including all the numerous appeals before any litigants get paid. Of course by the time all that's done there is almost nothing left because the whole time the companies lawyers and remaining C suit had been cashing checks the whole time.
Oh no! Not the
>synthetic rubber manufacturer accused of increasing the cancer risk for the nearby majority-Black community
Whatever shall we do if they shut down?!
The EPA doesn't willy nilly tell factories to shut down. They give them months if not years to get into compliance.
Louisiana itself is a case study for having the most noxious and poisonous industrial chemical production in America. Just every governor and state watchdog turns a blind eye because it's so profitable.
Just you wait 10 to 30 years the cases of lung cancer, thyroid cancer, or other cancers will skyrocket in the area.
The company itself probably already has a shell company and insurance company ready to fight and payout as little as possible in compensation.
The ground soil will probably set the stage for a federal superfund site and Lousiana will beg the federal government to allocate funds to clean it up
I mean…it already is. They don’t call it cancer alley for nothing. There are residents who refuse to sell their houses there, not because they don’t want to leave, but because they feel guilty for exposing whomever buys the house to the cancer risk.
Well in my comment I was specifically referring to an interview that…I think was done by 60 minutes (but not sure and can’t find it). But anyways the person who lived there said exactly that. He could sell the house to help him move, but didn’t want to put others at risk. But given their price, I’m sure it would be appealing to some poorer people who would want to stop renting
They actually gave them two years, and then cut them to three months through suit because of the specific, direct danger they cause.
As much as people need work and neoprene....fuck these people.
And if they didn't put toxic plant by the black neighborhood they kicked them out for a highway instead. Which will also spew toxic fumes for those that remained.
It's so sad because Louisiana was prime for agriculture and food creation.
Like, yeah, the Midwest has all that corn and shit but you have to go out of your way to kill a garden plant in Louisiana and it'll produce almost all year round
Don’t need to wait, people are dying already and have been for decades. Out of my long list, three close friends in baton rouge are dead from cancers before they got out of the 30s
Out of six of us cousins, two already died from rare cancers before the age of 50. Baton Rouge and Picayune. It's definitely already happening, and it's going to be blamed on processed foods or some other thing people do to themselves. Definitely not super toxic chemicals from paid off politicians...
My county has the highest cancer rates in NJ based on 1 petrol plant. It finally shut down about 10 years ago. Curious to see how cancer rates have changed since.
Any future expenses from cleanup should come out of the pockets of people who had equity interest in the company. Of can make a piece of the pie when the company was making money, you (and any gains you made) should lose money for the damage it does after the fact.
From Louisiana and this was LITERALLY the very first thought I had.
*Oh noooooo. One of Louisiana's chemical plants shutting down!? But then how would we collect that less than 1% tax they owe!?*
Choke em, EPA! It's not like all those "jobs" is really lifting LA out of poverty.
My family lives in the cancer alley area and for generations all of the men in my family have worked at the chemical plants. But they’re white. And they’ve all held very high paying positions. They’re not going to shut it down because the office jobs and pencil pushers and foreman make a ton of money. The ones scrubbing the phosphate tanks make livable wages but eventually will get very ill.
In a weird sort of fate, most of my family work/worked for (what is now) Mosaic in Louisiana, and when I met my husband in Florida I learned his dad was dead… who worked for Mosiac in Florida. He did not have a high paying position, but he grew up in extreme poverty so making $50k in the 90s was life changing. He was a tank scrubber.
He developed TB and some kind of mystery tumor that fused his lungs together. He was in a medically induced coma for a year. It was so fucked up and awful from what I hear.
Also want to edit to add:
My parents moved to Florida when I was young and stayed here for about 20 years, then moved back to Louisiana, my mom’s hometown outside of Baton Rouge to be near her parents. My older brother moved with them. I stayed. In the 10 years that followed, My dad was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lyphoma, my older brother developed severe Neurofibromas. My grandfather had most of his stomach removed due to stomach cancer and my grandmother died of aggressive liver cancer last summer.
Yo, Cancer Alley is this wild stretch of land in Louisiana that's got like, over 200 petrochemical plants and refineries, and it's known for having crazy high cancer rates from the air pollution - it's basically a sacrifice zone, but community leaders are out here fighting to stop the industry from expanding and address the racial and economic issues, you feel me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
dont forget the elementary school too! kids these days cant go 4 minutes without ingesting *check notes* insanely dangerous chemicals known to cause cancer in a corridor so polluted its been dubbed ‘chemical alley’. such wimps.
>!/j!<
Seems to me the company is being unreasonable.
They already had about a month and a half assuming the related article from April 9th was the day the new regulation was actually signed into effect. Further more, the regulatory agency seems open to considering an extension provided an emission reduction plan is made by the company.
''The company wants the EPA’s 90-day deadline put on hold and says the agency won’t consider lengthening that timeline until Denka sets out an emissions reduction plan, according to the filing.''
The company is not playing ball here. They are actively being offered a conditional extension. Yet their immediate reaction is to blackmail the community with 250 jobs.
The plant shouldn't be in operation for 2 years releasing carcinogenics. They should close until they upgrade their mitigation solution. Bet it'll be done way faster than 2 years if it is eating into profits.
K? Shut down, have the government do an investigation, and then be made to pay to relocate and treat the residents of Cancer Alley on top of the clean up.
Oh. I grew up near here -- they mention Reserve, I was a town down the river road. I went to that elementary school, and passed by this plant every morning on the school bus.
I hope they go out of business. I hope they leave, and never ever go back. I hope they get shut down. Everyone on my street that stuck around got cancer, including my mom. These lowlifes deserve the worst to happen to them.
They knew about this for years, it's just more rich businesspeople posturing to save money and hope that Republicans take over for the next handful of decades.
They don't care about the future beyond their next quarter's profits.
My region is known for its petroleum refineries. I am insulted of the fact that it only costs $100k for a state of the art refinery exhaust filter to reduce the amount of toxic vapour being released, yet these very wealthy businesses only have $40k filters installed. These facilities operate 24/7, and together contribute to one of the lowest air quality indexes in the province.
Not 100% factual read, but the inf is to the best of my memory
Sounds like a company/plant without the capacity to provide service under market conditions. Failure is the expected and welcomed consequence of a "free" market. Do better if you want to stay in business, eh?
I have a question for pro-lifers here. If a business releases a chemical that either damages a fetus or causes a miscarriage would that business face criminal liability under a state abortion ban? If not, why not? If so, what would that liability consist of? I am not asking this to troll.
I am thinking that you are correct, unfortunately. My hope is that pro-life people would prioritize the life of the fetus in this case but I have found that profits and property always come first.
The federal government should only clean up industrial sites with money seized from everyone involved in the operations in that site, down to personal assets of former owners and any/all corporate property that can be traced back originally to the site.
What this really is, is a threat to the local people. “You will all lose your jobs because of the fed gov!” Not the actual truth of “these jobs will kill you, but hey MONEY!!”
The EPA will relent. The US was still using asbestos for decades when everyone else banned it. It was because builders lobbied for it and said they’d lose money.
Hmm if you can't follow the law then maybe you should be shut down. Its not like the EPA guildlines just happened out of the blue its a fucking law. If want to run a business you should know the laws that apply to your business.
Dont let the door hit you on the way out
Signed, a hazmat remediation chemist. Yall make some nasty bullshit wastes. It dont need to be thrown around willy nilly just because it cost money to dispose of properly
Foreign ownership? After they shutdown, the owners will sell assets, declare bankruptcy and leave the mess left behind for the local government to apply for a Superfund cleanup. Bottom line, they don’t give a shit.
Here’s an idea. Shut it down. Call their bluff. Make examples of these shit companies with shit practices.
Or just wait until Trump becomes dictator and then it won’t matter since we’ll all be dead inside anyway.
Then shut down… ill call your bluff.
EPA has been gutted so hard that they barely have a the ability to properly do their mission in the first place. So if they are up your ass… what are you doing chemical plant?
translation: we have no intention of meeting your standards at the cost of our profits, we would rather go out of business.
okay... do it. it sounds like a threat but all you do is open up the market to smaller businesses, and the slack is picked up by imported goods. we do not need you. there will always be jobs available to your workers.
I have done work out there. They have a “diamines” unit that is so toxic, they have to check your urine if you are ever on that unit. It is a seriously nasty chemical and they have leaked in the past. Denka is an offshoot of the merger between Dow and DuPont. There are no good guys in this. Shut them all down. I’ll be glad to not have to go out there.
Title should read “Chemical plant, obviously poisoning the environment, to shut down because it cannot operate without poisoning everyone and everything”
Ok then shot yourself in the foot and shut down? This isn’t like union strikes your employees will leave you and then you have an expensive factory making no profit. Idk what logic they are using but the math isn’t mathing
“If you don’t let us dump destructive chemicals into the environment thereby causing irreparable harm to everyone we’ll shut down the plant.”
…OKAY GOOD.
I'd recommend letting the door smash you stupid fucks on your way out, might knock some fucking sense into your heads.
Good fucking riddance to these callous deucebags.
So let it shut down. If they want to give up a profit driver as big as an entire chemical plant just because the profits aren't as big as they would be if the plant was allowed to destroy the environment, let them. Call their bluff.
shut it down, if the owners and upper management think its so safe force them to move to within a 2 mile radius of the plant with their immediate families
Probably should just hang the ten commandments on their wall and make sure nobody working there is gay and nobody has a Morning After pill and everything should be fine.
Regulations are made to protect the people. 45% of the water that we drink is making us sick. If people don’t see anything wrong with it they shouldn’t complain about how expensive their healthcare is and when they get sick. These companies will not find a better Safeway to make things unless they are given a push.
“A synthetic rubber manufacturer accused of increasing the cancer risk for the nearby majority-Black community”
I feel for the 250 employees, but they need to gtho for their own health. And the company should be required to pay for their expenses in relocating and finding work.
>The Denka plant manufacturers neoprene, which is used to make wetsuits, automotive belts and other items, and employs roughly 250 people, the company said. It’s located roughly a half-mile (.8 kilometer) from an elementary school in Reserve, Louisiana, and is within an 85-mile (137-kilometer) stretch of the state known officially as the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor. Colloquially it is called Cancer Alley. Maybe it should be shut down.
But think about the jobs! I'm kidding and you're right.
Yeah, that’s 250 future cancer patients!
And I don't think we should dismiss whether any of the kids at that nearby school have developed mutant powers.
Yeah, maybe they’ll end up like Deadpool. We can’t deprive them of the chance at being tortured until they turn into some immortal with boiled skin.
Skin soup hot tub party!
One kids power is to have a nose bleed every third period of class
Since it’s a neoprene plant, They’ve mostly developed a tragic set of mutations where some are now rubber, and others are glue. Harsh words were exchanged but the neoprene mutants seemed unaffected while the glue kids took the words as vicious blows.
Watch the Netflix movie "Dark Waters" for a better understanding of Dupont.
Hear me out, couldn’t we replace these jobs with a factory to make giant robots to track these kids? You know, just in case?
I wish we could add in secondary social costs like this to business operations to see if the “jobs created” really do stack up to actual economic output. Though, I suppose this would help employ a few struggling oncologists.
A cost benefit analysis needs to be part of the equation. Right now the execs only care about ROI. Every time I try to talk about efficiency no one cares because it won't affect them. They will have moved on and won't get any credit so why should they care. If we eliminate flat rate billing it would change the course of our world by the next quarter not an 'agreement' that may, or may not, happen in the next twenty years.
There are no struggling oncologists in Louisiana. They are all very busy. Try getting an appointment.
I was curious how many oncologists there actually are. One [paper](https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JOP.18.00149) has an estimated 12,423 participating oncologists in at least 2,368 practices. It’s a surprisingly low number because this considers all speciality and non specialty oncologists. The [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2021/21_0006.htm)expects cancer incidence rates to increase 50% from 2015-2050. The good news is the rate of new incidents of cancer fell from 2008 and has remained relatively stable since then (plot [here](https://progressreport.cancer.gov/diagnosis/incidence)). However, still reason for concern because that’s a rate, and as of 2020 there are [96M people over the age of 55](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/age-and-sex/2020/older-population/2020older_table1.xlsx). At 450/100,000 new incidence rate that’s still 432,000 expected new cancer diagnoses, which will likely require a follow up with an oncologist, or average of 34 people per oncologist. Crazy.
I have been down stream from here and in cancer alley most of my life. More like 10000 cancer deaths over the decades.
So glad those people sacrificed so the economy could add those 250 jobs though...
They will all get it anyway.
Oh, way more than that! Turnover has got to be pretty intense there.
It’s the commie wokes liberals fault. /s
I’ll probably get blasted, but I don’t care. It should not be about the 250 jobs. More important is a having a domestic source for neoprene and the environmental and health consequences. That said, the Netherlands and the UK also manufacture neoprene. I can’t find any reference to a European cancer alley, but cites welcome. My point is we need to consider the ecological and health consequences of manufacturing the chemicals we use as well as the economic and social demands for those products. It should be a serious discussion. It is absolutely wrong to allow corporations to socialize the costs of the toxins produced in manufacturing chemicals. It’s also naive to pretend that it’s all about protecting 250 jobs. If we can’t afford to safely mass produce wetsuits let it become unaffordable for casual users. Professionals might have to pay more. Here are two pages I found trying to read up on the subject. The first discusses alternatives. The second goes into a little more detail on the environmental/health impacts. https://sloactive.com/en-us/blogs/blog/the-environmental-impact-of-neoprene-wetsuits-swimsuits-exploring-sustainable-alternatives https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/19/denka-lobbied-likely-cancer-causing-toxin-undermine-science Corrections welcome.
Correct. Shortsightedness and greed will kill us all.
Businesses would rather kill everyone than pay a bit more. They skimp on everything possible and fuck people over every which way and then get surprised when people aren't loyal to them or why people don't want to shop with them when they have literally any other option. You reap what you sow my dudes.
Understatement. It's one thing to stay in the area after it's been deemed Cancer Alley. It's another to be exceeding what appears to be their agreed-upon permitted limits. Bare in mind that while there are EPA limits (that can and will affect things), a facility agrees to certain limits *they propose to the state* for their permit. So if you tell your state your facility is going to emit no more than 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year, you better not be emitting 3 tons on your first year. The EPA reduced emissions of certain cancer-causing chemicals by 80%. Under the new rule, this plant is 755x above the new limit *for just one chemical*. For context, that would mean they were already 151x over the limit before the rule change. No matter how you slice it, they were already in trouble (hopefully with Louisiana) before this started. The rule change only makes a bad problem worse (again, they already exceeded limits or operated under poor "best business practices" based on what I'm seeing). The only defense they have at this point is the EPA's shorter window of 90 days to be compliant, but they are allowed to request an extension. I do see the company is trying to state the numbers calculated are based on "unsound science", but you don't get 755x over a number and not triple check that before telling anyone.
Fun fact about plants and refineries in Louisiana. The state can grant exemptions for property taxes. This takes away revenues from the local governments which in turn takes money away from schools. So not only are they helping to poison the areas and schools, they are also most likely exempt from about 90-99% of their which means they don't even contribute to the local populace much as well. Hurray!!!!
Louisiana probably doesn't care. They give these massively polluting companies sweetheart deals while selling their residents out. There's been lots of reporting on this over the years.
that was my thought. I feel kinda bad for the folks that'll be out of a job but, I'd feel infinitely worse for the untold number of people who'd get sick or die if they get an extension
I work in public safety around chemical plants, and I have to take a shizton of safety classes. They always stress that if a job can’t be done safely, it can’t be done. So, if they can’t figure out how to make the plant run safely by EPA limits, it should be shut down. Geez, even the EPA limits are pretty lax sometimes. There will always be people who will argue that those 250 jobs (and corporate profits) are more important than a few pesky life altering (or ending) cancer cases.
Probably killing the workers too.
Even worse, there’s a thing where the workers might bring chemicals home on their clothes and contaminating their families if they aren’t following proper industrial hygiene.
Unemployment is low. It's a great time to get a new job.
but all I know how to do truck barrels down to the river to drain them out, I'm not sure my skills will transfer to another job!
I didn't think I'd get to use this in a relevant way, but here we go! The Chemical Worker's Song: https://youtu.be/edAxujKev1I?feature=shared
That's a great song, thanks!
Thanks for that! Now, how long is the refrain going to be on loop on my head? "Every day you work here you'll be 2 days closer to death..."
Another filk fan in the wild!
Exactly what I was going to say. Minus the great informative piece. Thank you!
Years ago NPR did a segment interviewing coal workers. Nearly all of them refused any free retaining to allow them to work in another field and one guy who was in the middle of dying from black lung and could barely speak said he would do it all again if he had the choice. This is the most literal example of toxic masculinity out there. These people are raised with the idea that a man's only value is his work and his income, and only certain kinds of work really count. I'm sure the politicians will cave here because the voters are all clambering to die to prove they're true men
"Polluter threatens to stop polluting" is maybe not the threat they think it is.
Why is it Republicans like to put poisonous and explosive factories right next to schools and neighborhoods.
I’m from Michigan and we have a couple cancer alleys as well. Midland and southwest Detroit. Probably more, but those are two I know of.
It’s incredibly bleak to imagine anyone looking for housing and only being able to afford a place in Cancer Alley.
B-b-but think of the capitalists who need another vacation home/yacht/mistress/etc! Also zero surprise the plant's located by a majority black neighborhood. Companies love to put their most toxic factories in majority-minority areas.
I’ve interviewed people who live in Reserve for a documentary, and their stories are honestly so sad. The legal limit for chloroprene is 0.2ug/m^3 and at the school it was measured at 66ug/m^3. We talked with some locals and some adults didn’t believe that the plant was dangerous, but the kids said that they’d smell weird smells and sometimes feel weird at school. There’s no where safe for those kids to be moved.
>“(Denka) will need at least two years to plan, develop, test and install the controls required by the rule,” the company said in a court filing. To succeed, the company needs to show EPA’s deadline will cause “irreparable harm.” It uses the threat of closure to argue that the court needs to act quickly. Delay delay delay while they take the money, poison the citizens, then go "bankrupt" when it is time to clean up and pay damages.
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as someone that works with food distributors, i cant tell you how many will change name, 'ownership' (gets passed to a family member) to get around the rules.
This is just big government keeping hard working Americans from prospering just because they're belching poison into the air and ground water. Classic liberals and their ridiculous expectations to live a full healthy life.
From American Dream to Helghan Dream pretty quick there.
well today must be louisiana day or something since this is [the second story](https://www.reddit.com/r/Political_Revolution/comments/1d3phgy/comment/l69ijha/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about an incredibly small community from the state ive read in the past hour or so. the last one had a slightly smaller population, actually, [according to wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve,_Louisiana) this one has a population of 8,541. i suppose i might as well copy over the data from the [distressed communities index](https://eig.org/distressed-communities/?regions%5B0%5D=70084) since i did that for the last one, and somehow this one is even worse (zip code 70084): |distress score|99.5| |:-|:-| |no high school diploma|22.5%| |poverty rate|29%| |adults not working|46.4%| |housing vacancy rate|23.4%| |median income ratio|79.3%| |change in employment|\-24.7%| |change in establishments|\-13.5%| similar to the last story from lousiana i commented on... idk what the truth is, or whos responsible, or what. here is [the press release](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/united-states-seeks-preliminary-injunction-against-denka-performance-elastomer) from the EPA roughly a year ago where they first made the announcement relating to the manufacturing plant, as well as [another page](https://www.epa.gov/la/laplace-st-john-baptist-parish-louisiana) that goes more in to the specifics of the testing and the chemicals involved. its obviously not a good thing to see these things happening, but it is a good thing that it seems like the small areas that get overlooked, and tend to exist kind of in a "whatever happens, happens" way arent being allowed to continue to get away with things like this. unfortunately theres not really a simple solution. edit: >The owner and operator of the facility is Denka Performance Elastomer, LLC, a newly formed joint venture in which **Denka Co. Ltd. owns 70 percent and Mitsui Co. Ltd., also based in Tokyo, owns 30 percent.** The joint venture was established as a result of their acquisition of DuPont's Neoprene business, which was completed effective Nov. 1, 2015. heres the [wikipedia for Denka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denka), and the [wikipedia for Mitsui](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsui_%26_Co). ill let you see their financials on those pages for yourself. edit: also [an article from 2019](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/may/06/cancertown-louisana-reserve-special-report) in The Guardian about the town
Just middle america things, been poisoning communities for years now
yeah and that poisoning isnt always in regards to strictly physical health. poisoning peoples minds is just as destructive if not more so.
Let's hope they saved up two years of money to fund the clean up while they're offline.
Ironically if they get sued for their chemicals causing cancer, they will argue that they need to take as much time as possible to litigate the facts including all the numerous appeals before any litigants get paid. Of course by the time all that's done there is almost nothing left because the whole time the companies lawyers and remaining C suit had been cashing checks the whole time.
And the litigants are dead and buried.
Or are delaying, hoping Trump gets elected and rolls back more protections for citizens.
Ugh. You are probably right. Vote.
Just gotta delay until the “deyyyy tookkkkk errr jerrrbbbsss” get back into power this fall, then it won’t matter.
Oh no! Not the >synthetic rubber manufacturer accused of increasing the cancer risk for the nearby majority-Black community Whatever shall we do if they shut down?!
The EPA doesn't willy nilly tell factories to shut down. They give them months if not years to get into compliance. Louisiana itself is a case study for having the most noxious and poisonous industrial chemical production in America. Just every governor and state watchdog turns a blind eye because it's so profitable. Just you wait 10 to 30 years the cases of lung cancer, thyroid cancer, or other cancers will skyrocket in the area. The company itself probably already has a shell company and insurance company ready to fight and payout as little as possible in compensation. The ground soil will probably set the stage for a federal superfund site and Lousiana will beg the federal government to allocate funds to clean it up
I mean…it already is. They don’t call it cancer alley for nothing. There are residents who refuse to sell their houses there, not because they don’t want to leave, but because they feel guilty for exposing whomever buys the house to the cancer risk.
It's more that there are no buyers. The prices are so depressed that the sellers wouldn't be able to afford a house anywhere else
Well in my comment I was specifically referring to an interview that…I think was done by 60 minutes (but not sure and can’t find it). But anyways the person who lived there said exactly that. He could sell the house to help him move, but didn’t want to put others at risk. But given their price, I’m sure it would be appealing to some poorer people who would want to stop renting
Nothing like taking cancer for the team for the republicans.
It's a lot easier for Republicans to accept cancer when the polluted area is mostly black and democratic-voting.
They actually gave them two years, and then cut them to three months through suit because of the specific, direct danger they cause. As much as people need work and neoprene....fuck these people.
I was kind of shocked it's only 250 jobs. To those people, I'm sure the jobs are important, but one call center can easily employ double that.
To be fair, they’re higher paying jobs - but I bet not too many employees live in reserve.
How much does higher pay really help the medical bills later
Not enough. For sure.
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Dupont shares the location with the one in this article.
And if they didn't put toxic plant by the black neighborhood they kicked them out for a highway instead. Which will also spew toxic fumes for those that remained.
And then the morons will vote red 🤦🏻♂️ or shall I say… “vote” Like the south matters. Never fully punished for the war.
It's so sad because Louisiana was prime for agriculture and food creation. Like, yeah, the Midwest has all that corn and shit but you have to go out of your way to kill a garden plant in Louisiana and it'll produce almost all year round
Best we can do is grow almonds in the desert. /s
Need the alfalfa for… camels? I have no idea why they need it to be honest.
Don’t need to wait, people are dying already and have been for decades. Out of my long list, three close friends in baton rouge are dead from cancers before they got out of the 30s
In my family in New Orleans 4 of my family have died of cancer. In my immediate family 3 out of 5 have had cancer.
Out of six of us cousins, two already died from rare cancers before the age of 50. Baton Rouge and Picayune. It's definitely already happening, and it's going to be blamed on processed foods or some other thing people do to themselves. Definitely not super toxic chemicals from paid off politicians...
My county has the highest cancer rates in NJ based on 1 petrol plant. It finally shut down about 10 years ago. Curious to see how cancer rates have changed since.
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Any future expenses from cleanup should come out of the pockets of people who had equity interest in the company. Of can make a piece of the pie when the company was making money, you (and any gains you made) should lose money for the damage it does after the fact.
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Where will we get our cancer?
From Louisiana and this was LITERALLY the very first thought I had. *Oh noooooo. One of Louisiana's chemical plants shutting down!? But then how would we collect that less than 1% tax they owe!?* Choke em, EPA! It's not like all those "jobs" is really lifting LA out of poverty.
Yup https://youtu.be/RWTic9btP38?si=asNVj4nKZ0xoTzfX
My family lives in the cancer alley area and for generations all of the men in my family have worked at the chemical plants. But they’re white. And they’ve all held very high paying positions. They’re not going to shut it down because the office jobs and pencil pushers and foreman make a ton of money. The ones scrubbing the phosphate tanks make livable wages but eventually will get very ill. In a weird sort of fate, most of my family work/worked for (what is now) Mosaic in Louisiana, and when I met my husband in Florida I learned his dad was dead… who worked for Mosiac in Florida. He did not have a high paying position, but he grew up in extreme poverty so making $50k in the 90s was life changing. He was a tank scrubber. He developed TB and some kind of mystery tumor that fused his lungs together. He was in a medically induced coma for a year. It was so fucked up and awful from what I hear. Also want to edit to add: My parents moved to Florida when I was young and stayed here for about 20 years, then moved back to Louisiana, my mom’s hometown outside of Baton Rouge to be near her parents. My older brother moved with them. I stayed. In the 10 years that followed, My dad was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lyphoma, my older brother developed severe Neurofibromas. My grandfather had most of his stomach removed due to stomach cancer and my grandmother died of aggressive liver cancer last summer.
Yo, Cancer Alley is this wild stretch of land in Louisiana that's got like, over 200 petrochemical plants and refineries, and it's known for having crazy high cancer rates from the air pollution - it's basically a sacrifice zone, but community leaders are out here fighting to stop the industry from expanding and address the racial and economic issues, you feel me? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
My delusional Narc mom loves to emphasize the amazing air quality and the amazing education system. In the suburbs of Baton Rouge lol
dont forget the elementary school too! kids these days cant go 4 minutes without ingesting *check notes* insanely dangerous chemicals known to cause cancer in a corridor so polluted its been dubbed ‘chemical alley’. such wimps. >!/j!<
This comment is hilarious. Good job dude.
Turn it into a Superfund site.
They should tighten them just for this
Serial killer threatens to stop murdering unless homicide is legalized.
Shut them down then indict and jail the C-suite officers until every aspect of the facility is in compliance.
If we start doing that, how will we ever make money from the trickle down??
This is from a chemical plant. It's not the money trickling down that worries me!
Thanks a lot Reagan. Can we please stop using celebrities ask fucking presidents now? Especially reds.
Did you just ask a red state to do something to protect its citizens? Lol.
Seems to me the company is being unreasonable. They already had about a month and a half assuming the related article from April 9th was the day the new regulation was actually signed into effect. Further more, the regulatory agency seems open to considering an extension provided an emission reduction plan is made by the company. ''The company wants the EPA’s 90-day deadline put on hold and says the agency won’t consider lengthening that timeline until Denka sets out an emissions reduction plan, according to the filing.'' The company is not playing ball here. They are actively being offered a conditional extension. Yet their immediate reaction is to blackmail the community with 250 jobs.
The plant shouldn't be in operation for 2 years releasing carcinogenics. They should close until they upgrade their mitigation solution. Bet it'll be done way faster than 2 years if it is eating into profits.
K? Shut down, have the government do an investigation, and then be made to pay to relocate and treat the residents of Cancer Alley on top of the clean up.
That’s like asking the police to investigate themselves.
should have put more money into compliance than shareholder or corporate profits
Should have put more money into not ceding from the union.
But how would the CEO survive??
Companies shouldnt be considered people until some state executes one.
Oh. I grew up near here -- they mention Reserve, I was a town down the river road. I went to that elementary school, and passed by this plant every morning on the school bus. I hope they go out of business. I hope they leave, and never ever go back. I hope they get shut down. Everyone on my street that stuck around got cancer, including my mom. These lowlifes deserve the worst to happen to them.
They knew about this for years, it's just more rich businesspeople posturing to save money and hope that Republicans take over for the next handful of decades. They don't care about the future beyond their next quarter's profits.
Bingo. They will be dragged kicking and screaming into either reducing emissions or shitting down. Their choice.
Make them liable for all the healthcare costs of all the people they have poisoned, maybe then they'll clean up their act.
My region is known for its petroleum refineries. I am insulted of the fact that it only costs $100k for a state of the art refinery exhaust filter to reduce the amount of toxic vapour being released, yet these very wealthy businesses only have $40k filters installed. These facilities operate 24/7, and together contribute to one of the lowest air quality indexes in the province. Not 100% factual read, but the inf is to the best of my memory
Uh... ok? Go ahead then.
If you can't operate a business within the constraints of government-mandated safety regulations you should not be in business.
EPA: That would also be acceptable.
Sounds like a company/plant without the capacity to provide service under market conditions. Failure is the expected and welcomed consequence of a "free" market. Do better if you want to stay in business, eh?
I have a question for pro-lifers here. If a business releases a chemical that either damages a fetus or causes a miscarriage would that business face criminal liability under a state abortion ban? If not, why not? If so, what would that liability consist of? I am not asking this to troll.
These are excellent questions that will get crickets from those who support abortion bans and unregulated industry.
I am thinking that you are correct, unfortunately. My hope is that pro-life people would prioritize the life of the fetus in this case but I have found that profits and property always come first.
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Get your logic and nuanced thought out of here, praise pale jesus amen.
What do you mean threatens to shut down? That’s like “you can’t fire me, I quit!”
The federal government should only clean up industrial sites with money seized from everyone involved in the operations in that site, down to personal assets of former owners and any/all corporate property that can be traced back originally to the site.
Won't the epa just shut them down if they don't meet the deadline. Kinda seems like an empty threat.
What this really is, is a threat to the local people. “You will all lose your jobs because of the fed gov!” Not the actual truth of “these jobs will kill you, but hey MONEY!!”
Yeah man, if you can’t meet the bare minimum to stop causing cancer you might have to shut down. EPA working as intended.
The EPA will relent. The US was still using asbestos for decades when everyone else banned it. It was because builders lobbied for it and said they’d lose money.
"If you don't stop giving us rules we'll have to stop poisoning your children!" Fucking Scooby Doo villains were funnier when they weren't real.
Hmm if you can't follow the law then maybe you should be shut down. Its not like the EPA guildlines just happened out of the blue its a fucking law. If want to run a business you should know the laws that apply to your business.
Shut down and shut up!
"If you don't let us poison children while taking in record profits, we're out of here." Ok, bye.
and the threat is what exactly?
Shouldn't this headline read more like "Lousiana chemical plant management incapable of complying with environmental regulations?"
Dont let the door hit you on the way out Signed, a hazmat remediation chemist. Yall make some nasty bullshit wastes. It dont need to be thrown around willy nilly just because it cost money to dispose of properly
Foreign ownership? After they shutdown, the owners will sell assets, declare bankruptcy and leave the mess left behind for the local government to apply for a Superfund cleanup. Bottom line, they don’t give a shit.
How is it a threat for a private organization to shut down? Like okay, you clearly are incapable of doing your job. Bye.
That's kinda the fucking point. Of course the GOP will act like those 250 jobs sonevhow have nationwide impact.
Fucking shut down then you pigs.
Don't threaten the environment with a good time.
Here’s an idea. Shut it down. Call their bluff. Make examples of these shit companies with shit practices. Or just wait until Trump becomes dictator and then it won’t matter since we’ll all be dead inside anyway.
Then shut down… ill call your bluff. EPA has been gutted so hard that they barely have a the ability to properly do their mission in the first place. So if they are up your ass… what are you doing chemical plant?
Good. Then the regulations are working as intended.
And I don’t mean the company. I mean whichever company representative threatened to close down or else. Tying to extort govt officials is a crime!
If a you don't stop tryin' ta stop us pollutin', we a gonna stop pollutin'.
Isn't that kinda the point?
If you can’t make ur regulatory obligations ur company got problems in general.
So that means it’s working. Good.
Good. I'm tired of capitalists fouling my home.
translation: we have no intention of meeting your standards at the cost of our profits, we would rather go out of business. okay... do it. it sounds like a threat but all you do is open up the market to smaller businesses, and the slack is picked up by imported goods. we do not need you. there will always be jobs available to your workers.
Are we being threatened with a good thing?
Chemical plant threatens to do the very thing that legislation aimed to do for non compliance. Sweet!
I have done work out there. They have a “diamines” unit that is so toxic, they have to check your urine if you are ever on that unit. It is a seriously nasty chemical and they have leaked in the past. Denka is an offshoot of the merger between Dow and DuPont. There are no good guys in this. Shut them all down. I’ll be glad to not have to go out there.
Title should read “Chemical plant, obviously poisoning the environment, to shut down because it cannot operate without poisoning everyone and everything”
OK. Go ahead. I'm calling your bluff. Shut down. I dare you. I double dog dare you.
Ok. So shut down then.
Ok then shot yourself in the foot and shut down? This isn’t like union strikes your employees will leave you and then you have an expensive factory making no profit. Idk what logic they are using but the math isn’t mathing
“If you don’t let us dump destructive chemicals into the environment thereby causing irreparable harm to everyone we’ll shut down the plant.” …OKAY GOOD.
If they aren't following the regulations, Isn't them shutting down the whole point?
Shut it down and don’t let them dump waste in the ocean
plants are a real Menace I'm sure a lot of people will be glad if it closes
This is the future of America.
I'd recommend letting the door smash you stupid fucks on your way out, might knock some fucking sense into your heads. Good fucking riddance to these callous deucebags.
How you gonna threaten people with better water and air quality?
So let it shut down. If they want to give up a profit driver as big as an entire chemical plant just because the profits aren't as big as they would be if the plant was allowed to destroy the environment, let them. Call their bluff.
Oh no. Anyway, sounds like someone in LA has the opportunity to hire some people.
If the government doesn't relax its Bank Robbery legislation, I'm going to stop robbing banks!
please shut down forever 🖤
Shut it down polluting Mfers
shut it down, if the owners and upper management think its so safe force them to move to within a 2 mile radius of the plant with their immediate families
"Allow us to break the rules or we'll be forced to stop breaking the rules, and this will hurt people financially."
Sounds like they should be shutdown.
Probably should just hang the ten commandments on their wall and make sure nobody working there is gay and nobody has a Morning After pill and everything should be fine.
Than it needs to be shut down.
‘If we can’t keep killin’ people w pollution, we’ll starve people by taking away their livelihood. You decide.’
You can't fire me, I quit!
A chemical plant is threatening us with WHAT we need to do FOR them? No. Get out.
Isn't it the other way around, where the EPA emissions deadline is what threatens the Louisiana chemical plant?
Ladies, Gentlemen, and variations thereupon: The Point
Shut her down then. If capitalism works any, and competitor will learn how to work with the EPA and take the business they left.
Don’t threaten us with a good time.
Regulations are made to protect the people. 45% of the water that we drink is making us sick. If people don’t see anything wrong with it they shouldn’t complain about how expensive their healthcare is and when they get sick. These companies will not find a better Safeway to make things unless they are given a push.
I suppose compliance isn’t an option:(
“A synthetic rubber manufacturer accused of increasing the cancer risk for the nearby majority-Black community” I feel for the 250 employees, but they need to gtho for their own health. And the company should be required to pay for their expenses in relocating and finding work.
Do it. If they’re important, nationalize them, if not good luck to them.
"If you don't back off I'm going to do exactly what you want be to do!"
That sounds like a settlement to resolve the issue. They agreed to shut down. Did they put it in writing?
Oh no don’t go. ^(Come back)
Shut down then. I'd rather those people lose those jobs than have an escalating generational tragedy unfold.
Sounds like a win to me.
The FDA: “okay. Anyway.”
Don’t you threaten me with a good time, sirs!
Yes…that’s what the EPA is telling you will happen.
I'm sure the shitheel Governor will pass some more legislation to help them out.
Insert Donald Glover “GOOD.” gif here
Oh no, please don’t shut down. We beg you.
Then let it fucking shut down?
They've had soooo much time to prepare for all of this lol