BATON ROUGE (AP) — A LaPlace plant has agreed to reduce emissions of a chemical used for making synthetic rubber that federal authorities say is likely to cause cancer, Louisiana regulators have announced.
Denka Performance Elastomer LLC signed a schedule Jan. 6 for installing emission reduction devices, with the last one in by the end of the year, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality said in a news release Tuesday.
The chemical is chloroprene.
After the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reclassified chloroprene as a likely carcinogen, the National Air Toxics Assessment of 2011 showed an elevated risk for certain types of cancer in parts of LaPlace, the statement said. The findings were published in 2015.
"We expect to see reductions in chloroprene emissions immediately," LDEQ Secretary Chuck Carr Brown said. He added, "we expect the amount of chloroprene emitted to be reduced substantially. Denka has worked with LDEQ to craft this agreement, voluntarily agreeing to plant modifications that will cost millions of dollars."
The company also agreed to provide monthly reports tracking the emissions reductions efforts. And it will check the air regularly until six months after the final piece of equipment is in place.
