The United States may have made measurable progress in reducing pollution since the 1970s — when the Cuyahoga River was so volatile that it infamously ignited in flames, sparking a national conversation about the environment and inspiring the first Earth Day. However, pollution and toxins remain an environmental bane, and industrial contamination continues to spoil soil, water and air around the country, creating public health crises in communities nationwide. Some of the most extreme examples are hazardous places designated as “Superfund” locations. As of 2024, there were 1,340 Superfund sites in the U.S.; as of the deadline for this issue, as many as 39 more were being considered as additions to the list.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 99% of Americans have detectable levels of PFAS in their blood. An acronym for “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances,” PFAS are a group of thousands of synthetic “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancers, organ disease, endocrine disruption and fertility problems, and other chronic illnesses. PFAS are found in water and everyday consumer goods, such as cleaning products, nonstick cookware, shampoos, carpet and fabric coatings and even dental floss.
A Consumer Reports investigation revealed that perchlorate — a chemical component of rocket fuel, missiles, explosives, airbags and certain plastics — is now present in many fast foods and grocery items. “The highest perchlorate levels we found were in foods popular with babies and kids,” Consumer Reports’ Kevin Loria explained in an August 2024 article.
In fact, pollutants and chemical contaminants present health and safety hazards at every turn, making reporting on them all the more critical.
On the environment beat
Alex Rozier’s career with Mississippi Today began as an internship. He transitioned to general assignment work and data reporting, and when the previous environmental beat reporter departed, he moved into the role. “At the time, no one else in the state had a beat dedicated to environmental reporting,” he said.
The ability to obtain, study and glean insight from data is integral to the job. Rozier studied data journalism in college and always found “nerdy computer stuff” fascinating. Excel spreadsheets, he said, “just came naturally to me.”
Environmental terminology is less straightforward. Terms like “pollution” and “contamination” are often used interchangeably, though they may carry distinctive connotations. For example, pollution may be considered the more pedestrian of the two — an everyday occurrence, omnipresent — while contamination might be regarded as more egregious, keenly negligent and perhaps more overtly dangerous.
“We’ve all seen signs on the highway that say, if you litter or pollute, you’ll pay a $150 fine, but when you’re talking about industries that put out thousands of tons of chemicals into the environment, it’s called ‘emissions,’” Rozier explained.
Mississippi’s industrial footprint keeps Rozier busy. The state’s largest environmental concerns are related to metal manufacturers, chemical facilities, pulp mills, poultry processing, power plants, oil refineries and coal plants. Recording their harm often depends on local residents and private landowners appealing to the state or the press. He cited an example of reporting he did on a farmer in the northern part of the state whose cows were dying after drinking water from a stream running through his property. He loaded his pickup truck with some of the dead cows and took them to a veterinary specialist at the local university for a necropsy. That kicked off an investigation revealing a fertilizer plant upstream had been introducing hazardous waste to the water.
As is often the case in environmental reporting, there is no unimpeachable way to connect the cause-and-effect dots between a single source of contamination and evidence of harm. And Rozier said it’s not his job to reach those conclusions, anyway. He has to remain “agnostic” in such matters. In the case of the farmer’s dead cows, he said the story became more about the extraordinary lengths one person had to go to in order to determine the cause of the harm — to his cows, his land and his livelihood.
“I did another story this year about a wood pellet facility in southwest Mississippi. It’s a fairly small, poor community, and the company had a number of violations related to air pollution. What we see there is a bunch of residents who have been getting asthma and other respiratory issues. So, we went and talked to the mayor there, who said the town needs new industry and news businesses, so from the mayor's perspective, he doesn’t want to go after this facility,” Rozier said.
“You can’t really make the stretch and say that this is all caused by this one facility because these people may also be unhealthy for other reasons. But being that it’s a poor community, you have to wonder about the location of factories like this and how they likely would never be built in a more affluent, well-to-do, healthier area,” he said.
Though he’s the outlet’s sole environmental reporter, Rozier works cooperatively with other reporters in the newsroom when there are intersecting story threads. He also credited his photojournalist colleagues, Eric Shelton and Vickie King, for visually bringing his reporting to life.
Rozier said it’s fairly easy to request environmental impact records from the state; however, the challenge can be in interpreting them.
“The hardest thing, from a layman’s perspective, is understanding what it means when thousands of tons of a certain chemical have been released into the air, water or soil,” he said. One of the best resources available to environmental reporters is the nonprofit SciLine.org, which matches environmental reporters with scientific experts.
Rozier appreciates hearing from people who’ve read his work. He fields lots of emails with tips. He also hears from readers who push back on his reporting, suggesting the state needs these industries for jobs and economic sustainability.
“We also get a lot of nice emails, too — people who write and say, ‘Thank you so much for finally shedding light on a problem,’” he said.
Reporting from Cancer Alley
Halle Parker is the coastal desk reporter for WWNO, an NPR affiliate in New Orleans. Before joining the station's newsroom, she wrote about the environment for The Times-Picayune, the New Orleans Advocate and the Houma Courier, among other print outlets. She first became interested in reporting on the environment when she covered an agricultural region in North Carolina. Local farmers there were dealing with a drought. She recalled a pipeline was being proposed, which sparked protests, and there were many community conversations about industrial land use.
“It was then that I thought this is something I’d be interested in covering for the rest of my career, and obviously, climate change isn’t going anywhere, so it was an opportunity to cover something that will continue to affect me throughout my lifetime and for future generations.
Later, for The Times-Picayune, she reported on Louisiana's land-loss crisis. Caused by sea-level rise, large swaths of the coastline had begun eroding into the Gulf of Mexico. She also started deep reporting on Louisiana's notorious “Cancer Alley” while at the paper.
“Cancer Alley stretches 85 miles from Baton Rouge down past New Orleans, and there are over 150 petrochemical plants located here,” Parker explained. The region’s nickname was coined in the 1980s when plant workers and local residents began reporting illnesses linked to emissions. Environmental justice advocates became champions for the residents. More recently, advocates have implored state legislatures to enact a moratorium on additional petrochemical plants in the region, Parker explained.
In her role at the radio station, Parker estimates that between 75-80% of her reporting relates to pollution or industrial contamination. One of the challenges she faces on this beat is feeling the pressure of getting critical information to the public when that insight isn't always expedient. Parker cited the case of the Marathon Petroleum plant explosion in 2023. A massive plume of black smoke rose as people in the surrounding communities wondered about the potential hazard.
“You’ll ask the regulators, and they’ll say they are out taking handheld readings with air monitors in nearby communities, but they won’t tell you where they took the readings. And you’ll also notice a pattern after each pollution event or emergency you cover, the answer is always: Everything is safe. Everything is fine. There’s no reason for concern, and then in the days and weeks after, you’ll have to report on the number of people who have gone to the hospital for things like headaches or breathing issues.”
“Reporters end up having to work with their own third-party researchers to go and model these things so that they can find answers in terms of how these chemicals could be affecting people,” she said.
“It’s also a challenge to report on the environment for radio because you can’t make it too complicated. You’re often talking about these chemicals — their names and what the problem is with them — in a 45-second spot. … But I think of radio as a way to engage people, get them the basic nuggets of what they need to understand, and also introduce them to the voices of affected people. I look at the digital side as an opportunity to add even more context if you want to dive deeper into the issue,” Parker said.
Cancer Alley exemplifies the long, committed reporting needed to fully tell the story of environmental hazards. There are always tentacles to chase — ongoing public health and safety concerns, legislation, and lawsuits.
“And there’s constantly more news, whether it’s a new leak in a pipeline, a new report about how high the cancer risks are, or how much a facility has been over-emitting and new violations,” Parker said. “It’s just a constant onslaught of things to report on, and all of them are very important.”
Gretchen A. Peck is a contributing editor to Editor & Publisher. She's reported for E&P since 2010 and welcomes comments at gretchenapeck@gmail.com.
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