Clean and Safe Air at last!

Tish Taylor (managing director) and her father, Robert Taylor (co-founder) of Concerned Citizens of Saint John.

Denka Performance Elastomer is halting its operations indefinitely...hurray!

Residents of Reserve, Louisiana—an area within the region often referred to as "Cancer Alley"—were recently met with unexpected news: Denka Performance Elastomer, a facility long associated with releasing harmful air pollutants linked to cancer, announced it would halt operations indefinitely. In a conversation with host Jenni Doering, Tish Taylor from Concerned Citizens of St. John reflected on the health challenges her family has faced, the community's tentative relief at the prospect of cleaner air, and the ongoing struggle against environmental injustice that she continues to lead.

When Tish was asked how she initially learned about Denka's decision to cease operations indefinitely, she said, Well, I received an email from one of our environmental justice leaders from the Sierra Club saying that they were supposed to be releasing a statement. And not long after I read the email, a text message popped up with the link to their website, with their final statement saying that they were not going to restart the plant after that shutdown. They were not going to restart the neoprene plant, and I didn't know how to feel at first, because, you know, this has been such a long battle with them spending lots of money on their lawyers and everybody—scientists, everyone. The battle was so long, and I never thought that they would say, Ah, we just quit. But, you know, it was because of money, you know, more than anything. But we affected that. We affected it at every level we could. We fought them. And I was elated. I couldn't believe it. And I jumped out of the bed. I ran over to my dad, to his room, and he was looking at it in his hand on his phone. And I'm like, Daddy, this city is shutting down indefinitely. I don't believe this, you know. And he's like, I don't know, you know, because you don't, you're scared, you know. But it was; it was real. It was a declaration in the statement on their website. Oh, my God. It was so wonderful. I mean, I went outside, and I smelled my flowers. I couldn't even wipe the smile off my face. It was unbelievable. I love my flowers. I love my garden. And every time I go out there, that's normally my refuge, my plants. And I would go out, water them, talk to them, and, of course, weed them. And I would always have this little nagging thing behind me saying, you're breathing chloroprene. You, how much? What are the levels today? I wonder how much they are poisoning us today.

Tish later added

We found out that chloroprene changes your DNA. It's a mutagen. I have this perfect grandson. He's three years old now. Of course, he was born premature, because that's very common in Cancer Alley, low birth weight, but he also had little patches of eczema, and he's autistic. But knowing that he was coming home to the exposures of chloroprene and understanding that in two years of his life, he would have exceeded his lifetime levels of exposure to chloroprene at two years old

The Taylor family and residents of Reserve have an unbelievable number of illnesses. The mother of Tish Taylor is a breast cancer survivor, later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and heart disease. According to Tish Taylor, for 22 years, we were in and out of hospitals with her, and she passed away this December, December 31—twenty-two years of suffering, no quality of life. You have to understand. Grasping at good days and struggling through bad days. My sister has a very rare autoimmune disease, and that's very common in my community.

Listen to the full interview of Jenni Doering and Tish Taylor using this link: https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=25-P13-00029&segmentID=4