Tensions are high in the small town of Reserve, Louisiana.

The town lies in the shadow of the Denka Performance Elastomer plant located in neighboring LaPlace. The Japanese-owned plant, once owned and operated by DuPont, is the United States’ sole producer of neoprene, a synthetic rubber with a host of applications ranging from wetsuits to orthopaedic braces. In producing neoprene, the Denka plant makes use of chloroprene, a chemical classified by the EPA as a “likely human carcinogen”—that is, studies have shown exposure to chloroprene is likely to cause cancer in humans.

The plant emits this carcinogenic chemical at rates far exceeding EPA guidelines, and many families in the area have suffered the consequences. Cancer is no stranger to the citizens of St. John the Baptist Parish, where Reserve is located. The parish is nestled in the heart of the infamous “Cancer Alley,” a stretch of land along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans lined with industrial plants. Long-term residents of the area develop cancer, and die from it, at a rate much higher than the national average.

In 2016, a group of activists in Reserve decided enough was enough.

The activist group, Concerned Citizens of St. John, is leveraging an intimidating fight against the plant that they argue has been poisoning its air for decades. Under the leadership of 78-year-old lifelong Reserve resident Robert Taylor II, the group organizes meetings and protests on a regular basis.

It has one simple demand: that the Denka plant reduces its chloroprene emissions to the EPA’s upper limit of acceptability of 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter.

For Taylor, the fight against the Denka plant is a very personal one. Like most in St. John the Baptist Parish, cancer has played a pervasive role in his life, claiming the lives of several of his loved ones.

“Everyone here has been affected by it,” Taylor said. “My wife survived her cancer. My mother didn’t. Or my brother. Uncles. Nephews. My daughter is just about totally incapacitated from a disease that her doctors say was caused by chloroprene.”

The data on chloroprene’s toxicity and its effects on those exposed to it are remarkably one-sided. The EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System analyzed the chemical for years before concluding in 2010 that exposure to it is linked with a host of debilitating diseases. This analysis led the EPA to establish its 0.2 standard and force the plant to monitor emissions and post its data online. In 2015, the EPA updated its National Air Toxics Assessment map, which showed that the five census tracts surrounding the plant had the highest cancer risk in the nation.

Census tract 708, where Taylor lives, was over 700 times the national average—the highest cancer risk in the United States.

These findings, coupled with the fact that the Fifth Ward Elementary School was situated just 1,500 feet from the Denka plant’s fence line, spurred Taylor to action.

In August, Taylor and 12 other residents of St. John the Baptist Parish filed a lawsuit against the plant claiming that it had caused them health problems. Their goal was to pressure the plant into meeting the EPA’s 0.2 guideline. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who claimed that the lawsuit lacked factual evidence linking the illnesses to the plant’s emissions, recently dismissed the case after the plaintiffs missed a filing date.

The voices of the Concerned Citizens of St. John have not gone completely unheard, though. Earlier this year, in response to the efforts of environmental groups throughout the state, the Denka plant reached an agreement with the state of Louisiana to invest $35 million in technology aimed at reducing its chloroprene emissions by 85 percent. While this target was unlikely to result in emissions below the 0.2 standard, it was a start.

Unfortunately, the investment does not seem to have borne fruit. As of Sept. 10, air monitoring data continues to show levels of chloroprene far exceeding that standard.

350 New Orleans, a group fighting for climate justice throughout the state, has worked closely with Concerned Citizens of St. John in its fight against the Denka plant. Alaina Boyett, one of the group’s core members, is beginning to feel that it may be a losing battle.

“I don’t think the plant will ever meet EPA guidelines,” Boyett said. “I feel comfortable saying that because they have a lot of support from government institutions.”

The primary institution Boyett is referring to is the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ)—the only institution with the authority to shut the Denka plant down. At a recent Concerned Citizens of St. John meeting, LDEQ Secretary Chuck Brown claimed that the plant was doing all it could to reduce emissions. Brown has previously dismissed the EPA’s 0.2 guideline as unreasonable and unachievable.

Brown is not alone in this assessment—Denka itself has petitioned the EPA to revisit its stance on chloroprene, arguing that the chemical should be classified as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” and that the 0.2 guideline should be changed to 31.2. While the EPA has denied Denka’s requests, the plant is unlikely to face any consequences if it keeps up its behavior.

Because the EPA’s guideline is just that—a guideline—the Denka plant can continue exceeding it without fear of legal repercussion. Until state or federal laws are instituted specifying a standard for chloroprene emission levels, the worst the plant has to fear is bad PR. As a Japanese-owned company with a plant based in Louisiana, it is unlikely that Denka executives are losing sleep over the local outcry.

“If it’s safe and profitable like they say, let them take the plant to a Japanese community,” Taylor said. “Why do us poor black Americans have to pay the cost?”

While the efforts of Concerned Citizens of St. John have been met with little success thus far, the group is not showing any signs of slowing. Until the Denka plant meets their demand of 0.2, it can expect pushback. The battle is daunting, but Taylor maintains that, above all else, the residents of St. John the Baptist Parish need to have hope.

“Don’t kill us,” he said. “Don’t poison us. That’s all we’re asking of them.”