Majority Black Louisiana elementary school to shut down amid lawsuits over toxic air exposure

A southeast Louisiana school board voted on Thursday to shut down a predominantly Black elementary school adjacent to a petrochemical facility embroiled in multiple lawsuits linked to its high levels of toxic emissions.

Denka Performance Elastomer LLC produces the synthetic rubber neoprene used for wetsuits, laptop sleeves and other common products. The facility emits the likely carcinogen chloroprene at such high concentrations that it exposes the surrounding majority Black community to an unacceptable cancer risk, according to a 2023 federal complaint brought against Denka on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA warned that the several hundred students who attend 5th Ward Elementary, about a quarter mile (0.40 kilometers) from Denka's facility, are among those who face heightened cancer risk.

Air monitoring consistently shows long-term chloroprene concentrations in the air surrounding Denka's facility as high as 15 times the levels recommended for lifetime exposure, the federal complaint said. The EPA states that Denka's chloroprene emissions are the reason why the surrounding communities in St. John the Baptist Parish have the highest estimated cancer risks nationwide.

The Biden administration has invested billions in the EPA to address environmental justice issues and put Denka front and center of its efforts to hold industrial polluters accountable for their impacts on minority neighborhoods. Many of these fence line communities are located along a heavily industrialized 85-mile (137-kilometer) stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge officially called the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor and commonly referred to by environmental groups as “Cancer Alley.”

The facility's parent company, Tokyo-headquartered Denka, fought back against an EPA order from April to drastically reduce its facility's chloroprene emissions within 90 days, receiving support from Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. The case remains tied up in federal court. A Denka spokesperson said its facility had “significantly reduced” its chloroprene emissions and that the EPA relied on “distorted” science. Denka's fence line air monitoring report for June shows its chloroprene emissions remained four times greater than the EPA's required standards. Denka's spokesperson said the EPA is relying on “an overly conservative risk assessment.”

In June, the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund filed a separate motion for the school board to shut down the elementary school, arguing the board had clear evidence of the health risks Denka posed to students. The St. John the Baptist school board is one of dozens in the South which remains under decades-long desegregation orders.

The Legal Defense Fund argues that the school board is violating the desegregation order by disproportionately exposing Black students to Denka's pollution when there are alternative schools they could attend in elsewhere in the district and in many cases closer to their homes. The school board's Director of Risk Management Alvarez Hertzock III said the district is taking the issues raised in the lawsuit “extremely seriously.”

In several public hearings held by the school board earlier this year to discuss closing 5th Ward Elementary, some parents and teachers spoke emotionally against breaking up the school's tight-knit community.

“We want to stay together,” said 5th Ward Elementary Principal Rajean Butler at a Jan. 31 meeting, adding her own child is enrolled at the school. “Knowing they will be torn apart, it just breaks my heart."

“I created a space where every child is beloved like my own,” Butler said, with a group of community members standing beside her. “I'm speaking from my heart and I'm saying please don't do this for our babies, our families. I just can't imagine the thought of them being in a place where they are not loved.”

Months-later, after a tense discussion, the school board voted 7 to 4 to close the school beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. The several hundred students currently attending 5th Ward Elementary would be sent to two other nearby locations.

School Board President Shawn Wallace said the board made its decision to close 5th Ward Elementary solely for financial reasons due to low enrollment throughout the district.

But Nia Mitchell-Williams, another board member, said the ongoing desegregation lawsuit was “the real elephant in the room” and had put pressure on the board to shut down the school before a federal judge took action instead.

Raydel Morris, the board member who represents the 5th Ward elementary school neighborhood, opposed shutting down the school because he said it would lead to another blighted building in a Black community.

He also said the board's proposed solution would fail to meaningfully end most students' exposure to Denka's pollution by moving many to another school, East St. John Preparatory, less than 1 mile (1.61 kilometer) from the facility.

“We taking them from the front door and putting them in the backyard,” Morris said.

Legal Defense Fund attorney Victor Jones said the school board had dragged its feet for far too long and should remove students from 5th Ward Elementary immediately, not the following school year.

“The board has an ongoing and continued obligation to operate healthy and safe facilities for children,” Jones said. “Every day that that school remains open those children remain in danger.”

Jones added that students relocated to school near Denka would remain at risk from its toxic emissions.

The school district's Superintendent Cleo Perry said he was not concerned about the possible health consequences for students relocated to East St. John Preparatory. He said the board was now focused on the logistics of the school transfers.

“When you are dealing with the consolidation of schools it is very heart-wrenching, it's hard on families, students, teachers alike, so our goal right now is to work with our community to make the best transition possible,” he said.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96