Lawmakers fail to protect Cancer Alley communities through real-time air monitoring

Last month, Louisiana lawmakers struck down a bill that would have given communities exposed to toxic emissions from oil and petrochemical refineries access to fence-line air monitoring data, a public health measure successfully implemented in states like California nearly a decade ago.

Louisiana and California consistently rank among the worst states in the country for air quality, and oil refineries are among the largest sources of pollution in both places. As public awareness of the health risks posed by emissions has grown, from both routine operations and accidental releases, communities living near these facilities have demanded greater transparency.

California lawmakers listened to these communities and responded to their concerns nearly a decade ago. Louisiana lawmakers, meanwhile, continue to disregard them. 

In 2017, California lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 1647, marking a shift in how the state regulates refinery pollution at the community level. 

The law established four core requirements: refineries must install and maintain fence-line air monitoring systems at the boundary of their facilities; air districts must install and maintain community air monitors in surrounding neighborhoods; data from both systems must be collected in real time and made publicly accessible; and refineries, not taxpayers, are responsible for the costs.

Today, that system is fully operational. Through the Refinery Real Time Community and Fenceline Monitoring program, residents across the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast  and Southern California can see, in real time, what specific pollutants are in the air they breathe near major refineries. This program established a critical precedent: communities living near refineries have a right to know what is in the air they breathe.

Louisiana lawmakers had the chance to follow California’s lead. 

Senate Bill 356, sponsored by Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, would have required oil refineries and chemical manufacturing facilities in Louisiana to install fence-line air monitoring systems, make hourly pollution data publicly available online and send real-time alerts to local authorities and residents whenever pollutant levels exceeded safe thresholds. Like California’s law, the costs would have fallen on the refineries, not the public.

The need for such a bill is clear. Cancer Alley, an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, is home to more than 200 refineries and petrochemical plants. This region also has some of the highest cancer rates in the country, where Black and low-income communities are disproportionately affected. Essentially, it is ground zero for the kind of toxic industrial air pollution that SB 356 was specifically designed to address in the state.

Currently, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality monitors air quality at fewer than two dozen sites statewide and tracks only six pollutants. Kimberly Terrell, a scientist with the Environmental Integrity Project who has extensively studied the health impacts of industrial pollution in Cancer Alley, told lawmakers that Louisiana’s existing equipment is not designed to detect many of the most toxic chemicals in emissions, such as ethylene oxide and vinyl chloride.

The Senate Committee on Environmental Quality has taken no action on Duplessis’ bill, ensuring its failure with days left in the legislative sesion.. The bill would have covered 117 facilities deemed “highest risk” based on the pollutants they emit, benefitting many communities in Cancer Alley. 

Tish Taylor, who leads Concerned Citizens of St. John, a grassroots organization fighting for environmental and health protections in Cancer Alley, said SB 356 was critical. She expressed that its failure to gain support was expected, but still a disappointment.  

“States like California are doing it,” she said. “So can we.”

To be sure, some concerns about SB 356 are worth noting. One committee member raised the possibility of false readings, worrying that industrial plants could be blamed for pollution they did not cause. A lobbyist for the Louisiana Chemical Industrial Alliance argued that companies already exceed legal monitoring requirements, and hourly data would trigger unnecessary panic.

But these concerns also deserve scrutiny. False readings are a legitimate concern, yet California’s fence-line monitoring program, now nearly a decade old, has shown that real-time community air monitoring is reliable and feasible. And if we are weighing risks, missing a genuine toxic release because monitoring is too limited is far more dangerous than a false alarm. 

As for the industry’s claim that current monitoring is sufficient, Cancer Alley residents, who continue to face some of the highest cancer rates in the country, have not felt the benefit of these efforts. If frequent monitoring risks causing panic, the answer is better public communication, not less transparency. Louisiana is far from the only state grappling with industrial air pollution, but its lawmakers are increasingly alone in their reluctance to do something about it. SB 356 was far from a radical proposal. It was a reasonable step toward transparency, modeled on a program that has already been successfully implemented elsewhere. 

The people of St. John the Baptist Parish, and many other communities in Cancer Alley, cannot afford for Louisiana’s leaders to keep looking away. At some point, our elected officials must decide that the health of communities, families and children matter more than the interests of the oil and petrochemical industry that surrounds them.