Two years after I first wrote about St. John, the people there are still breathing in carcinogens. According to the 2018 National Air Toxics Report, this little area by the Mississippi River still has the highest risk of cancer from air pollution in the nation. This time, between ethylene oxide, which emanates from a local Union Carbide plant, chloroprene and 43 other industrial chemicals, the risk is up to 1,505 cancers per million people — almost 50 times the national average. Some residents I wrote about in my first story have died .

For the rest of the people in St. John and the other places facing high cancer risks, there is still hope. The E.P.A. has already done most of the hard work, studying and measuring the chemicals that threaten the lives of people around the country. Now it just has to get over its anti-regulatory bias, act on its own science and get rid of them.

Sharon Lerner ( @fastlerner ) is an environmental reporter for The Intercept. This article was reported in partnership with the nonprofit Type Investigations.

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