Southeast
In Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley,’ Excitement Over New Emissions Rules Is Tempered By a Legal Challenge to Federal Environmental Justice Efforts
RESERVE, La.—For Robert Taylor, it should have been a moment of celebration. For 60 years, he has watched with apprehension as the curved and winding pipes of the nation’s only chloroprene rubber plant discharged plumes of exhaust over this stretch of the Louisiana bayou long known as “Cancer Alley.” The nickname is regrettably apt: Environmental […]
Read MoreHeavy Rain and Rising Sea Levels Are Sending Sewage Into Some Charleston Streets and Ponds
When rain comes down in some parts of Charleston, S.C., sewage comes up. In the neighborhood of West Ashley, storms trigger waste overflows so often into a pond near Nell Postell’s home that she has a wet-weather routine based on forecasts: she buys surgical masks, clears her garden and then listens for the sewage to […]
Read MoreThe EPA Cleaned Up the ‘Valley of the Drums’ Outside Louisville 45 Years Ago. Why Did it Leave the ‘Gully of the Drums’ Behind?
LOUISVILLE, Ky.—When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency responded to a “surface water pollution emergency” on farmland 17 miles south of downtown in 1979, federal officials joined state regulators in removing 17,000 barrels of hazardous waste from an illegal dump site. It would become notorious nationally as the “Valley of the Drums.” But the EPA didn’t […]
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