Industrial air pollution in our communities
The ripple effects of industrial air pollution
We all need clean air to breathe. But while everyone deserves the basic right to healthy air, industrial air pollution remains a pressing environmental and public health threat to people of all walks of life across the South.
In addition to carbon emissions that worsen climate change impacts, industrial facilities emit a range of air pollutants, including fine particulate matter, carcinogens, mercury, lead, arsenic, sulfur dioxide, and acid gases. These pollutants can aggravate asthma and other respiratory conditions and are particularly harmful to sensitive populations, including children and the elderly.
While the harmful effects are felt across geographic and socioeconomic lines, industrial air pollution has and continues to disproportionately burden communities of color and people living in low-wealth areas throughout the South at the expense of public health and quality of life.
As a result of decades of racial segregation and residential redlining, polluting sources including methane gas plants and other fossil fuel power plants, cement factories, asphalt plants, and rock quarries are often sited in and around Black and Brown communities. These industrial operations irreparably change neighborhoods and pose significant environmental and health risks to surrounding residents.
Communities where industrial facilities are sited often face excessive exposure to multiple pollution sources, compounding health impacts and economic burdens. What’s more, many new and proposed facilities are often abruptly brought into communities without adequate public notice to those who are affected most, especially communities directly impacted by climate-change-related disasters such as extreme heat, flooding, hurricanes, and wildfires.
Attacks on the Clean Air Act
Industrial air pollution remains a pervasive problem in the South, where state agencies regionwide often lack the resources necessary to remain vigilant against polluters that file permit applications with incorrect information and violate limits.
Now under the second Trump administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is actively working to gut bedrock Clean Air Act protections, including limits on greenhouse gas emissions, toxic pollution from fossil-fueled power plants, and cancer-causing pollutants like benzene and ethylene oxide.
The administration has invoked special presidential exemptions across multiple Clean Air Act Rules that limit emissions of hazardous air pollutants. These exemptions allow facilities like coal plants, chemical manufacturers, coke ovens, and commercial sterilizers to avoid complying with existing federal standards for at least two years, despite the fact that many were already using widely available pollution control technologies to meet the standards.
EPA has announced plans to further strip away federal oversight, silence the voices of impacted communities, and create dangerous exemptions for polluters. Removing critical federal backstops will also further strain already underfunded and understaffed state and local agencies charged with responsibility for protecting communities by enforcing air pollution limits.
Industries targeting the South for expansion
The South is in the midst of three major industrial buildouts that threaten to increase both traditional air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions: methane gas plants, data centers, and biomass plants.
Methane gas power plants and compressor stations threaten nearby communities with dangerous air pollutants like fine particulates and formaldehyde, for which there is no safe exposure level.
In the South, the push for new and expanded methane-gas-fired power plants is largely driven by power-hungry data centers. Data centers that draw their primary power from the grid often install dozens or even hundreds of large backup generators to ensure their servers are always running. These diesel- or methane gas-fired generators emit a host of harmful pollutants, especially during power outages when many operate at once. Some data centers like xAI are building their own “pop-up” power plants to power these facilities, and jumping ahead by using highly polluting “temporary” generating turbines without complying with preconstruction permitting requirements designed to protect people from unsafe levels of air pollution.
The biomass industry is increasingly encroaching on communities of color throughout the South, with pellet manufacturing facilities often sited in and around them. Along with carbon emissions, manufacturing and burning wood pellets produces harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, microscopic dust particles, and other hazardous air pollutants that contribute to serious health risks.
The Clean Air Act, at its core, is a public health law. When we protect public health, we strengthen our economy. Workers who are not in the hospital are on the job. Children who are not struggling to breathe are in school, learning and preparing for the future. Clean Air safeguards are not barriers to growth; they are the foundation for it.
Keri Powell, Leader of SELC’s Air Program
Holding polluters accountable
SELC is committed to improving air quality and protecting communities by holding polluting industries accountable. We are fighting in court to keep fundamental federal clean air protections in place while reinforcing the important role of local and state agencies to keep communities safe.
We are advocating for stronger limits on pollutants, challenging deficient air pollution permits, and pushing for proper enforcement for facilities that pose particularly significant environmental justice and climate concerns.
SELC is working alongside partners and communities throughout our region to equip residents with the information and tools to identify air pollution violations and make official reports to state and local agencies. We will continue to defend communities’ right to participate in the public input process and ensure that there is adequate notice to make their voices heard on projects that will have a direct impact on their lives.