Shell Chemical Plant At Norco, La., Polluted Air For Decades

"When Iris Carter heard that the Shell Chemical plant near her childhood home in Norco had been ordered to spend $10 million on pollution control equipment to resolve decades of allegations that the plant was violating the federal Clean Air Act, she felt a variety of emotions.

She was frustrated, she said, and angry. But she wasn’t surprised. As Carter sees it, this should have happened more than 20 years ago, when she and her family first helped start a campaign to abandon an area she said had become too polluted to live in.

"The stink in the air was so strong it knocked you back," Carter, now 66, remembers. "It was terrible."

Federal regulators this month accused Shell in a lawsuit of violating pollution laws since 1997, alleging that the energy giant failed to properly control industrial flares at the facility."

Della Hasselle reports for the New Orleans Advocate February 19, 2018.