Waiting for government action on air pollution, Pascagoula community grabs the wheel ...Middle East

After 14 years of pushing for safer air quality for her Pascagoula neighborhood, 78-year-old Barbara Weckesser is tired of waiting for government officials tasked with such responsibilities to take action. 

In the last seven years alone, she said, over 30 people in her Cherokee Forest neighborhood of just 120 homes have died from heart disease, lung disease or cancer. In 2013, Weckesser started her activist group, Cherokee Concerned Citizens, which has long blamed releases from surrounding industrial operations – including a Chevron oil refinery, a Bollinger shipyard and a Rolls-Royce Naval center – for poor health outcomes in their community. 

“Industry has grown, and chosen to put out more and more and more pollution,” Weckesser said. “And guess what? Our bodies can’t absorb it.” 

Then in 2021, a ProPublica analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data identified the area as one of the nation’s top hot spots of toxic air pollution. Weckesser said that investigation helped boost her cause’s credibility.

Cherokee Concerned Citizens have remained active against potential environmental harms from local industry. Last year, the group sued the EPA for approving a plastic-based fuel experiment at Chevron’s Pascagoula facility that, ProPublica revealed, could have caused cancer to one in four exposed to production emissions. The EPA then in September said it planned to withdraw its approval. 

Weckesser spoke on the phone days before heading to Atlanta to graduate from an environmental justice academy program, through Tuskegee University, that empowered community leaders across the South with knowledge and resources to lead their respective causes. Hearing from former EPA officials, she said the academy taught her a lot, including potential legal avenues for protecting the Cherokee Forest neighborhood. 

In 2022, a year after the ProPublica story, the EPA awarded the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality $500,000 to monitor air quality in Pascagoula, later increasing the amount to $625,000. 

But both agencies have yet to give a timeline for the yearlong study. So instead of waiting, Weckesser partnered with University of Colorado Boulder researcher Caroline Frischmon to do their own investigation, the results of which they published in March. 

“This is the best data that we’ve had,” Weckesser said.

Their study used air sensors to compare “episodes” of pollution – or when the sensors detected rising levels of chemicals such as ammonia or VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) – in the neighborhood with those at another location near downtown Pascagoula, about two miles away. VOCs, the EPA says, can cause liver and kidney damage as well as cancer. 

The episodes in Cherokee Forest, Frischmon found, were much more frequent than at the other location, and in total lasted about four to five times longer over the course of two months. On top of the significant frequency of those episodes, she also pointed to correlating wind direction data suggesting the pollution came from the nearby industry. 

The timing of those episodes, Frischmon added, also lined up with health symptoms and observations residents recorded, such as red or itchy eyes, nausea – all known impacts of exposure to ammonia and VOCs – and strong “chemical” odors. The largest spike in symptoms, the study says, came just after a jump in emissions from the Chevron refinery. 

When asked about the study, MDEQ Communications Director Jan Schaeffer said the agency wouldn’t comment on research that didn’t use “EPA-approved methods.” Mississippi Today also reached out to several facilities, including Chevron, Ingalls and Rolls-Royce, but did not hear back before publication. 

Fischmon admitted the work has its limitations. Most notably, she said, they couldn’t afford calibrated sensors that could say if pollutant levels exceeded public health guidelines. She said her team was set to receive federal funding to expand the study, but in May the EPA said via email, “The agency determined that your application no longer supports administrative priorities and canceled issuance of an award.”

While the EPA-funded monitoring MDEQ is planning would include more advanced measurements, it’s unclear when the state agency will begin its year-long study. 

“We are currently working with EPA to finalize the Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) and install two EPA-loaned VOC sensors,” Schaeffer said in a May email, over two and a half years since the EPA announced the grant. “Official data collection will begin once those sensors are installed and the QAPP is finalized.”

Meanwhile, Cherokee Forest residents are hoping to pool enough dollars from public and private stakeholders to fund buy-outs of their homes. According to a survey, nearly three-quarters of those living in the neighborhood want to relocate “as soon as possible.” Weckesser said Cherokee Concerned Citizens is proposing to convert the area into a natural buffer since the neighborhood, which was built in the 1960s, sits in a flood zone.  

Fischmon said she hopes the March study can serve as a model for communities elsewhere who may be discouraged by the high costs of measuring air pollutants. She said the sensors they used for this study cost around $1,000 to build, but that there are others commercially available for around $200. 

“ It is becoming more and more feasible, which I think is really exciting because communities can really tailor what they want to measure for what they’re feeling and noticing,” she said. “ We did this project really to demonstrate that there’s still a lot that we can do with these sensors for communities to highlight issues and get the attention of the agencies that do have the resources to do the (more advanced) monitoring.” 

Last Friday, Weckesser graduated from the environmental justice program at a ceremony held in an Embassy Suites hotel in Atlanta. Despite no prior environmental work experience – her only jobs before were in banking and real estate – she said she finished third in her class.

“ The class taught how people need to start holding their own with industry and say, you are not doing this anymore,” Weckesser said, adding she was the oldest student in the academy. “And I only have a high school education. So you can achieve whatever you want to achieve.”

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