Cancer Alley residents face 50x national cancer risk. 56% living near toxic sites are BIPOC.
EPA 2024 rule cuts toxic emissions 96%. Fight environmental racism in your community.
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Select your specific environmental concern to learn your rights, see compensation amounts, and start your claim
Drinking water contamination (PFOA, lead, uranium), groundwater pollution, or polluter liability
Illegal air emissions, toxic fumes from industrial facility, or violation of Clean Air Act
Property built near toxic waste site, hazardous waste exposure, or Superfund site remediation
Disproportionate environmental harm to minority communities, landfill siting, or industrial plant placement
Agricultural worker pesticide exposure, product liability (Roundup, paraquat), or health injuries
Utility company pollution (electric utility contamination), power plant emissions harming health
Property damage from extreme weather events, climate-related natural disasters, or inadequate disclosure
Robert Taylor Jr. died at 79. Lived his whole life on East 26th Street in Reserve, Louisiana. Eight hundred feet from Marathon Petroleum refinery. His mother died of cancer. Father too. Three brothers. Two sisters. All cancer. The house he grew up in? Bought by Marathon. Demolished. The elementary school next door? Closed. Too many sick kids. This is Cancer Alley, 85 miles of Mississippi River where life expectancy drops with property values.
March 7, 2025. Trump's Justice Department drops the Denka case. The Japanese-owned plant in St. John Parish emits chloroprene at 15 times EPA's safe level. Chloroprene causes liver cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer. Pick your poison. EPA said Denka created "unacceptable cancer risk." DOJ said "we're ending DEI initiatives." Translation: Black communities don't count. But here's the twist: May 13, 2025, Denka suspends production anyway. "Mounting financial losses." The real reason? Insurance companies stopped covering them. Even capitalism has limits.
EPA's own data, 2024 National Air Toxics Assessment:
Seven of America's 10 highest cancer-risk census tracts are in Cancer Alley. All majority Black.
April 2014. Flint switches water source to save $5 million. General Motors stops using the water—it's corroding car parts. Residents told it's safe to drink. Kids develop rashes. Hair falls out. Legionnaires' disease kills 12. Lead levels in children spike 300%. Officials' response? "Some people are just anti-everything." Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha proves lead poisoning. They call her "hysterical." Data doesn't lie. Neither do dead children. Settlement: $626 million. Divided among 100,000 people. That's $6,260 each. For permanent brain damage.
Jackson, Mississippi, August 2022. Water plant fails. 180,000 people without water for weeks. Couldn't flush toilets. Couldn't shower. National Guard distributing bottled water like a war zone. The city is 82% Black. State legislature? 70% white. Refused infrastructure funding for decades. Called it "Jackson's problem." When white suburbs needed water upgrades? Immediate state funding. Pattern recognition isn't conspiracy theory when the pattern is written in water bills.
3M knew since 1975. DuPont knew since 1961. PFAS causes cancer, they knew. Still dumped it. Your non-stick pan? PFAS. Your waterproof jacket? PFAS. Your drinking water? Probably PFAS. Found in 97% of Americans' blood. It never breaks down. Ever. Hence "forever chemicals."
Breaking: 2024 settlements that barely made news:
Your water utility got settlement money. You got higher water bills to pay for filtration. They still make Teflon.
February 3, 2023. Norfolk Southern train derails in East Palestine, Ohio. Carrying vinyl chloride. Company's solution? Controlled burn. Released hydrogen chloride, phosgene (WWI chemical weapon), dioxins. Black smoke visible from space. Residents evacuated for three days. Told it's safe to return. Pets dying. Fish floating. Soil tests find dioxin levels 700 times safe limit. Norfolk Southern's response? $25 million for the town. Population 4,761. That's $5,250 per person. For cancer risk that lasts generations.
The kicker? Norfolk Southern spent $7.5 billion on stock buybacks in 2022. Could've upgraded every brake system, installed modern sensors, prevented the crash. Chose shareholders over safety. The CEO who made that decision? Still employed. Salary: $13 million. The Palestine residents with chemical burns? Still waiting for medical coverage.
Houston has no zoning laws. Sounds like freedom? It's targeted poisoning. 200+ concrete batch plants. Guess where they're built:
Concrete dust causes silicosis. Irreversible lung disease. Kids in Fifth Ward have asthma rates 4x higher than River Oaks. City council's response? "Market forces." The market forces poisoning Black kids while white kids breathe clean air three miles away.
The EPA's 2024 rule requiring 96% emissions reduction? Revolutionary. If it survives. Chemical companies already filing lawsuits. Fifth Circuit Court (same court that killed Biden's vaccine mandate) will likely strike it down. The companies know they just need to wait. New administration, new rules. Or rather, no rules.
Warren County, North Carolina, 1982. State dumps 40,000 tons of PCB-contaminated soil in predominantly Black county. Residents lay down in front of trucks. Get arrested. Birth of environmental justice movement. Forty years later, the soil is still there. The PCBs are still there. The cancer is still there. The only thing that changed? Now they call it "brownfield redevelopment opportunity."
You can still fight back:
Warning: Trump administration instructed EPA to close Title VI complaints by September 30, 2025. File now.
Here's what they don't want you to know: Insurance companies are doing what government won't. They're refusing to cover polluters. Banks won't finance new plants in flood zones. Even Wall Street sees the writing on the rising sea wall. The Denka plant didn't close because of activism or regulation. It closed because insurance actuaries did the math. Poisoning people is finally becoming unprofitable. Not immoral. Not illegal. Just unprofitable. In America, that's the only justice that counts. Use it. Find their insurers. Document everything. Make their premiums unaffordable. It's not environmental justice. It's environmental capitalism. But if it closes plants, who's counting?
85-mile stretch along Mississippi River where cancer risk is 50x the national average
March 7, 2025: Justice Department dropped federal environmental justice case against Denka's Louisiana elastomer plant, linking the withdrawal to Trump's policy of ending federal DEI initiatives. However, Denka suspended production May 13, 2025 due to "mounting financial losses."
Current status: EPA 2024 rule still in effect (requires 96% emissions cuts by 2027), but enforcement uncertain under Trump administration.
Sets air quality standards, regulates toxic emissions.
Protects surface water quality, regulates discharge permits.
Cleanup of hazardous waste sites, polluter liability.
Prohibits discrimination by entities receiving federal funds (including state environmental agencies).
Requires disclosure of toxic chemical releases.
Use EPA databases (all free):
Low-cost monitoring options:
Go to epa.gov/aboutepa/how-report-environmental-violations
If pollution disproportionately impacts minority community:
Note: 2025 court ruling limited private right to sue under Title VI. Administrative complaint to EPA is primary avenue.
Clean Air Act & Clean Water Act allow citizens to sue polluters:
Find environmental justice lawyers: Earthjustice, Center for Biological Diversity, NRDC (many work pro bono)
Describe the toxic pollution, cancer cluster, or environmental racism affecting your community
Start by selecting your issue type or describe what happened
100,000 residents exposed to lead-contaminated water (2014-2015). State switched water source without corrosion control. Lawsuit alleged negligence, civil rights violations. Settlement: $626M for residents (children get $18K-$200K each).
St. John Parish residents faced 85% of cancer risk from Denka's neoprene plant (chloroprene emissions). Years of organizing + EPA 2024 rule pressured company. May 2025: Denka suspended operations indefinitely.
3M contaminated public water systems nationwide with PFAS chemicals. Class action by 300+ water utilities. Settlement: $10.3B to clean drinking water + monitor PFAS levels for 13 years.
Learn about toxic pollution, cancer clusters, EPA enforcement, and community organizing strategies
Guida completa all'azione climatica attraverso la giustizia ambientale, la transizione verso le energie rinnovabili e le soluzioni climatiche controllate dalla comunità.
Vittoria storica giustizia ambientale aprile 2025: EPA annuncia requisiti rivoluzionari riducendo inquinamento atmosferico in Louisiana Cancer Alley e Texas Gulf Coast.
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