"EPA will probe alleged racial discrimination by two Louisiana agencies in a predominantly Black area, a senior official confirmed this week.
The agency’s External Civil Rights Compliance Office will investigate both the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s handling of its air pollution control program and whether the Louisiana Department of Health is failing to inform residents of St. John the Baptist Parish about health threats posed by hazardous air emissions from a local chemical plant and other sources, Lilian Dorka, the office’s director, wrote in letters to Earthjustice and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
In a complaint filed this January, the two groups alleged that the two agencies were violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of “race, color, or national origin” in programs receiving federal financial assistance. Both state agencies receive federal funding (E&E News PM, Jan. 20). The parish is located in the heavily industrialized corridor dubbed “Cancer Alley”; because of the two agencies’ alleged lapses, the complaint said, residents “face the highest cancer risk from air pollution in the nation.”"
Sean Reilly reports for E&E News April 8, 2022.
Advertisement 
