According to nola.com, African-American residents of Mossville, Louisiana, a community just west of Lake Charles, have won a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on charges that the U.S. government violated their rights to privacy and racial equality in not forcing local chemical plants to stop polluting.
To quote the article:
Mossville is adjacent to 14 chemical plants and refineries that release millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land and water each year, according to federal and state records.
Its residents have filed a variety of lawsuits and complaints against the plants and the Environmental Protection Agency in attempts to recover damages and reduce pollution, which includes cancer-causing dioxin and vinyl chloride.
Tests by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registery in 2007 found chemicals in residents’ body fat that were the same as chemicals emitted by some of the nearby industries.
Several of the companies and their predecessors have been involved in releases of chemicals that have eaten the paint off cars, killed bushes and trees in people’s front yards, and polluted adjacent waterways.
“We believe that environmental protection should not be based on the color of our skin,” said Dorothy Felix, a petitioner in the case and a vice president of Mossville Environmental Action Now. “Our government can and must do better to protect our human rights.”
To read more, go to: https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/black-residents-of-mossville-win-hearing-in-legal-battle-over-industrial-pollution/article_548a59ef-7724-5181-8c78-ea324648f933.html.
or: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/toxic.town.mossville.epa/index.html
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