Environmental group to sue EPA over BR air quality

• By BILL LODGE
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 11, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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A Baton Rouge environmental group informed state and federal officials Thursday it intends to sue government agencies over their alleged failure to clean up the city’s air.

“The Baton Rouge area has never met the [Clean Air Act’s] minimum health protection standard for ozone pollution,” Louisiana Environmental Action Network, or LEAN, said in a letter to those agencies.

Officials of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., and Dallas declined to comment on the letter.

“It’s a notice of intent to sue,” said Dave Bary, a spokesman for EPA’s regional office in Dallas. “I’m not in a position to comment at this time.”

Officials of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is about protecting public health, particularly for the most vulnerable, the elderly and the very young,” said Marylee Orr, LEAN’s executive director.

LEAN has taken legal action against DEQ in the past, winning court decisions but failing to force complete compliance with the Clean Air Act.

But attorneys and consultants for the group said those past court suits resulted in incremental improvements in Baton Rouge’s air quality.

Because of LEAN’s courtroom pressure in 2004, owners of several area industrial sites monitored their release of volatile organic compounds and reported their findings to state officials, noted Adam Babich, director of the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic in New Orleans.

Information on volatile organic compounds is important, said Wilma Subra, a New Iberia chemist and technical
adviser to LEAN.

Subra said many of those compounds are toxic, and some, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are suspected cancer agents.

Gary Miller, a Baton Rouge chemical engineer and technical consultant for LEAN, said the group’s pressure has helped decrease annual toxic air emissions by nearly half the 32 million pounds reported for the area in 1997.

“In 2006, industries in East Baton Rouge, Ascension and Iberville parishes put 17 million pounds of toxic chemicals in the air,” Miller said. “So we are making progress. But to attain the new ozone standard, we would have to come down to around 12 million pounds.”