Where Your Donations Go
Your generous support helps fund our community outreach, educational programs, environmental justice advocacy, and the tools we use—like air monitors and public data platforms—to hold polluters accountable. Every dollar helps us build a healthier, more just future for our neighborhoods.
Our Fight for Clean Air and Environmental Justice
In our community, clean air has become a luxury instead of a basic right. For too long, local industries have polluted the air we breathe — releasing harmful emissions that impact not only our environment, but also the health and well-being of our families. We’ve seen the effects firsthand: higher rates of asthma, respiratory illnesses, and long-term health conditions, especially among our children and elderly neighbors.
We believe that no one should have to choose between their health and their home. That’s why we’ve been actively organizing, educating, and speaking out against the industries responsible for this damage. Through our Community Voices Meetings, local forums, and partnerships with environmental advocacy groups, we’ve been raising awareness and pushing back — demanding greater transparency, stricter regulations, and real accountability.
We’re also gathering data, documenting stories, and amplifying the lived experiences of those most affected. These aren’t just statistics — they’re personal truths that deserve to be heard. We’ve met with city officials, submitted public comments, and called out practices that prioritize profit over people and the planet.
This isn’t just about pollution — it’s about justice. Our mission is grounded in the belief that protecting creation is a sacred responsibility. We will continue to advocate, organize, and fight until every person in our community can breathe freely and live with dignity.
To strengthen our efforts and bring greater visibility to the issue, we’ve partnered with CREATE Lab, a research initiative out of Carnegie Mellon University, to develop a community-centered air monitoring data site. This platform compiles real-time and long-term air quality data, allowing us to track patterns of pollution over time and better understand its lasting impacts on our health and environment. By making this data accessible and transparent, we’re equipping our community with the tools to hold polluters accountable and push for systemic change rooted in evidence and lived experience.
Click Here to check out the site, and see the data for yourself
May 22, 2025
NEW ORLEANS – Today, a coalition of environmental and community groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new, industry-friendly Louisiana law that effectively bans community groups from using their own air pollution monitoring to warn local residents or publicly advocate for cleanup action.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana in Baton Rouge against state officials who are tasked with enforcing the Louisiana Community Air Monitoring Reliability Act (“CAMRA”) by the Environmental Integrity Project and Public Citizen Litigation Group on behalf of RISE St. James, Claiborne Avenue Alliance Design Studio, The Concerned Citizens of St. John, The Descendants Project, Micah 6:8 Mission, and JOIN for Clean Air.
The law, signed by Governor Jeff Landry on May 23, 2024, threatens to impose penalties of up to $32,500 per day – plus $1 million for intentional violations — on neighborhood groups that publicly discuss their use of low-cost, commercially-available air pollution monitoring devices to detect dangerous levels of ethylene oxide, a known carcinogen, fine particulate matter, and other harmful chemicals released by nearby chemical plants, refineries, and other industries.
Community groups in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” and other industrial zones have been relying on their own independent air monitoring systems to warn residents about public health threats that polluting industries might not want to monitor or publicize. The new state law effectively bans the use of data from all but very expensive, EPA-approved air monitors – which can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per monitor — that only the state and industry can easily afford.
Cynthia Robertson, Executive Director of Micah 6:8 Mission, said: “This law is an attack on truth and on our community’s right to protect itself. We use both EPA-funded equipment and other monitors to track pollution levels in real time—tools that have helped us uncover serious threats that were never disclosed to the public. Now, Louisiana wants to silence us for doing what the state refuses to do—tell people what’s in the air they breathe. We won’t stop fighting for our community’s right to know.”
(See below for more quotes from the environmental and community groups taking legal action and a leading scientist.)
According to the complaint filed by the organizations, the CAMRA law’s stated purpose to provide the public with “accurate” air quality information in practice suppresses accurate evidence necessary for people and communities to know what they are breathing. The law does this by preventing the use of this data to allege air quality violations, and threatening people who do so with enormous financial penalties for doing so.
Costs for air monitors allowed by the Louisiana law are often several times higher than what community groups can afford. For example, one type of monitor that community groups often use to measure potentially deadly particulate matter costs about $289 per unit, while the costs for a particulate monitor required by the Louisiana law is $58,691.
While lower-cost air monitoring devices commonly used by neighborhood groups are not the same as the expensive, EPA-approved monitors required by the CAMRA law, these community monitoring devices can also provide accurate data that performs a valuable service, especially in states like Louisiana that mostly leave it up to polluting industries to monitor their own emissions.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act made $81 million in grants available for community air monitoring projects as part of efforts by Congress to help protect communities of color and lower-income neighborhoods that bear a disproportionate burden of industrial air pollution, including in “Cancer Alley.” The industry-friendly 2024 Louisiana CAMRA law works to block those community air monitoring efforts.
For example, Micah 6:8 Mission, an environmental justice organization based in southwest Louisiana, bought an air monitor with an EPA grant to measure nitrogen oxides and particulate matter pollution in Sulphur, LA, by the Westlake chemical plant complex near Lake Charles. The monitor found that on more than two-thirds of days, people in their community breathe unhealthy levels of particulate pollution, which can trigger heart and asthma attacks.
Micah 6:8 Mission previously posted this monitoring data on their Facebook page but has now stopped out of fear of CAMRA’s penalties. The Louisiana law bars Micah 6:8 Mission from letting community members know if their air is not safe to breathe.
Other community groups are also conducting air pollution monitoring – but are now not sharing their monitoring data with the public – out of fear of being slapped with steep penalties under the new state law.
More quotes:
“Our legislature and officials should do everything in their power to stop industry from polluting our air in the first place,” said Dr. Joy Banner, Co-Founder of The Descendants Project. “To attack our first amendment rights instead is arcane, illegal, and dangerous.”
Caitlion Hunter, Director of Research and Policy at RISE St. James Louisiana, said: “RISE St. James Louisiana fought this law every step of the way through the legislature last year, and now with the help of EIP and Public Citizen Litigation Group, we continue our fight in federal courts. It’s no coincidence that just as fenceline communities were securing air monitoring systems through EPA grants, polluting industry pushed through a dirty bill designed to silence the science.”
Amy Stelly, Director of the Claiborne Avenue Alliance Design Studio, said: “It is disappointing that Governor Landry, a student of environmental science, supports a law that punishes community members and environmental groups for publishing data that informs citizens and warns them about public health threats and deadly pollution. It’s time for Louisiana to change its course and put people first. The State must stop the threats and reduce the harm.”
Justin Vittitow, Director of the New Orleans-based JOIN for Clean Air, said: “The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has failed to resolve the toxic fumes issue plaguing our neighborhood. This law adds insult to injury, penalizing the residents who are fighting to restore and protect our clean air through community air monitoring and advocacy. We have a right to freedom of speech. This new law is an attempt to silence our voices.”
Peter DeCarlo is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University who studies air pollution using cutting-edge mobile labs and sensors whose data might be prohibited from public disclosure under the new law. He said: “Measurement technology continues to improve, and the cutting-edge instruments used by scientific researchers offer faster, more accurate, and more sensitive measurements of chemicals in the air we breathe. Limiting the use and sharing of data generated by these advanced measurements ignores scientific advancements and limits the protection of community health.”
Nandan Joshi, attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, said: “Community air monitoring is a critically important tool for detecting air pollution levels in communities in Louisiana that have too often been neglected. The state should be supporting community groups that are helping protect the health of Louisianians by monitoring air pollution, rather than suppressing their speech and threatening them with sanctions.”
David Bookbinder, Director of Law and Policy at the Environmental Integrity Project, said:“This new law is a blatant violation of the free speech rights of community members to use their own independent air pollution monitoring to raise alarms about deadly chemicals being released into their own homes and neighborhoods. Self-monitoring by polluters is not enough to protect public health.”
For a copy of the lawsuit, Click Here.
Click Here for Cynthia Robertson’s remarks regarding the CAMRA Lawsuit.
The Environmental Integrity Project is America’s environmental watchdog. We hold polluters and governments accountable to protect public health and the environment.
Public Citizen Litigation Group, the litigating arm of the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, litigates in federal and state courts to advance and defend health, safety, and consumer and worker protections.
Rise St. James Louisiana is a faith-based grassroots organization that is fighting for environmental justice as it works to defeat the proliferation of petrochemical industries.
At Micah 6:8 Mission, we envision a Southwest Louisiana where every community is informed, prepared, and empowered to thrive. We strive to create a region where environmental stewardship, disaster resilience, and social equity go hand in hand.
JOIN for Clean Air (Jefferson, Orleans, Irish Channel Neighbors for Clean Air) is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to improving air quality in the greater New Orleans area, with a focus on issues that cross parish boundaries. Its members primarily consist of residents of Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish living close to the Mississippi River.
The Claiborne Avenue Alliance Design Studio is a nonprofit design firm committed to making the languages of design and land use accessible to all.
The Descendants Project fights for the liberation of the Black descendant community by championing environmental, social, and economic justice.