A St. Charles Parish petroleum and chemical tank farm operator and a Baton Rouge environmental group plan to install four new air monitors to measure emissions in St. Rose , where residents have complained for years about air pollution from the nearby plant.
IMTT and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network plan to place them deeper inside the St. Rose community than existing regional air monitors and would replace temporary state air monitors in St. Rose that were removed without a plan to return them, the group and company said.
With the new neighborhood air monitors, International-Matex Tank Terminals is the first company to join LEAN's larger project, known as the Louisiana Community Air Monitoring Network, to install an array of sensors between Baton Rouge and New Orleans , the two said in a statement.
The bigger regional stationary network is intended to help identify the sources of emissions and help communities better understand environmental factors that impact their quality of life, LEAN officials said.
The new IMTT monitors are an outgrowth of conversations IMTT officials had with St. Rose residents who are members of company's community advisory panel, the company said.
Carlin Conner , IMTT chairman and CEO, said the monitors give the company another chance "to showcase one of the many ways that we care for the people who live and work along the Mississippi River ."
"IMTT believes deeply in its responsibility to be a good neighbor, and we have demonstrated to all stakeholders, including other industry leaders, the value of listening to and collaborating with communities," Conner said.
"We are excited to welcome IMTT into our coalition of environmentally conscientious organizations dedicated to protecting the health and quality of life of everyday people," said Marylee Orr , LEAN's co-founder and executive director. "Our Community Air Monitoring Network will provide a clear, hyper-local understanding of the environment in neighborhoods, allowing us all to make informed decisions to improve lives."
Other agreements being discussed
Under the broader effort, LEAN officials said, they have already reached agreements or are close to agreements with residents for community air monitors in Alsen, Geismar , Donaldsonville , St. Gabriel and St. James , and are talking with other industries.
Odors and other emissions have driven neighborhood complaints about IMTT in St. Rose for years. The 12-million-barrel operation stores petroleum, chemical and renewable products for many of the industries on the Mississippi River , but has grown to the edge of homes in St. Rose .
In April 2023 , the complex had an explosion and fire when fumes from residual oil in an empty tank caught fire during welding work.
In a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , the company agreed to pay reduced fines and spend $150,000 on new equipment on its tanks to cut dangerous emissions and foul odors, the EPA has said.
IMTT also made other improvements in response to the fire and has spent $1.6 million on odor-control systems that go beyond regulatory requirements, the company has said.
The partnership announcement also comes as St. Charles Clean Fuels faces public opposition as it seeks regulatory approval for a $4.6 billion blue ammonia plant behind IMTT and St. Rose . IMTT would build new storage tanks on its site for the complex's ammonia.
Many facilities in the river corridor have their own internal and fence-line air monitors, but their data generally aren't public. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality also has its own network of air monitors in the river region and across the state with public data available online, but many of those monitors tend to have a more regional focus and a limited collection of data.
The new neighborhood-level air monitors coming through the LEAN-IMTT partnership will measure a variety of pollutants known to cause smog and short- and long-term respiratory and cardiovascular problems. Some of them have been linked to cancer or to being a risk factor for diabetes, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .
These chemicals are nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, a class of both natural and manmade chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, and a variety of minute particles, officials with IMTT and LEAN said.
'A duty to care'
The solar-powered air monitors from AQMesh will also account for windspeed and direction, LEAN and IMTT said.
Richard Rainey , a spokesman for IMTT, said the air monitoring data will be collected and managed by a third party, Eagle Environmental, to ensure their "integrity and dependability." The company will also maintain the monitors.
Rainey added that the air monitoring partnership includes "a quality assurance and control program to guarantee the monitors collect high-quality, reliable data."
Under the agreement between IMTT and LEAN, the nonprofit group will have "full access to the data" and can share it through "its website and other communication channels."
"IMTT is also exploring ways it can publicly share the data, too," Rainey said.
LEAN's Orr said she plans for the monitors to answer questions about the emissions residents "have the most questions about," while IMTT's Conner said that he hopes the data can lead "to smarter decisions to protect the folks who call the Mississippi River home."
"We have a duty to care for one another," Conner said.
DEQ did not respond to requests for comment on why the original air monitors were removed.
LEAN launched the Community Air Monitoring Network in 2023 after securing $500,000 from the EPA 's Enhanced Air Quality Monitoring for Communities program.
An earlier phase of the grant focused on a mobile air monitoring car that went through the region for three months and helped LEAN identify areas for the stationary monitors, Orr said.
IMTT and LEAN began talks about the network in July and formalized their partnership in August, the company and group said.
IMTT is paying for the monitors in St. Rose , Orr said, but the EPA grant is paying for the third-party manager of the monitors.
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