St. Rose group continues push for 24/7 air monitoring throughout parish

Roughly a dozen members of the environmental action group St. Rose Community: One Voice called upon the St. Charles Parish Council to install 24/7 air quality monitors to protect against noxious emissions from area chemical companies.

“It appears that some corporations are willing to sacrifice our health and our lives for corporate profit,” Keith Adams, president of the group, said in a speech before the council. “Maybe a little of that profit could be utilized to invest in existing technology to capture and use any waste that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere.”

Council members offered no commentary or questions following the speech from Adams.

“We expected some kind of reaction and we basically got no kind of reaction,” Adams said. “We’re just going to push on and keep doing what we need to do.”

One Voice was formed in September following a 10-day release of what was later determined to be hydrogen sulfide from a plant operated by Shell on the IMTT campus in St. Rose. More than 130 residents complained of nausea, headaches and respiratory issues.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality deployed a mobile air quality unit that found hydrogen sulfide levels to be high, but within state limits. Louisiana Bucket Brigade founding director Anne Rolfes said the levels exceeded EPA levels for harmfulness.

Adams said that the group was going to try and speak in front of the council again on Jan. 26. The goal, he hoped, was to get an ordinance proposed that would require monitoring of all emissions-producing plants in the parish, not just those in St. Rose.

“One of our goals is to remind people that clean air is a right and not a privilege–it is our right,” Adams told the council. “In St. Rose, our quality of life has been greatly diminished due to the odors from IMTT and Shell.”

 

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