In September 2023, sirens blared again across Hopewell, Virginia, after oleum, commonly known as fuming sulfuric acid, leaked from the AdvanSix chemical plant.
The plant, one of many big polluters in the predominantly Black city, had at least 66 violations of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act at the time. And this was the seventh emergency event at the facility over an 18-month period, coming after employees had alleged they were overworked and understaffed.
Hopewell residents suffer more industrial air pollution than other places and die of cancer at a rate that is twice the state’s average, according to a legal petition by a group of environmental lawyers. And the leak of oleum, which causes severe burns and is toxic if inhaled, forced residents to shelter indoors once again. But the message from officials was the same as it had been for decades – after a 1975 chemical leak at the facility (when it was operated by Life Science Products Co.), several people suffered bouts of tremors, vision issues, weight loss, and infertility. But officials said then, as now, everything was under control.
The day of the 2023 oleum leak, the fire department posted on Facebook insisting there were “NO hazards to the public.”
The pattern that unfolded in Hopewell illustrates the stakes in a national fight over whether communities have any real protection from chemical leaks and explosions, which happen almost daily in the U.S. More than half of Black Americans live within 3 miles of a chemical facility, which is inside the worst-case scenario zones for a chemical emergency.
A new policy proposal by President Donald Trump might make it more difficult to prevent these disasters.
In 2024, the federal Environmental Protection Agency attempted to address the risk of chemical leaks through a rule called the Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention. It promised a modest course correction, requiring dangerous plants to investigate past accidents, plan for climate-fueled disasters, give workers more power to halt unsafe operations, and, in some cases, switch to safer chemicals or processes.
But last month, Trump’s EPA proposed gutting most of those safeguards before they ever took effect, moving to strip away requirements for safer technologies, climate and natural disaster planning, third-party safety audits, and strong worker participation in decision making.
In a statement, the EPA said the change will remove “duplicative, contradictory, or unproven requirements that add cost and confusion without improving safety results.”
But advocates argue it is a capitulation to industry that could lock places like Hopewell in another generation of risk.
“For fenceline communities and facility workers, this rollback is a declaration that our lives are deemed acceptable sacrifices,” said Ana Parras, executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, a group that has worked in several national coalitions around chemical safety.
In the case of AdvanSix in Hopewell, Janeen Lawlor, a company spokesperson, said the facility has worked to lower emissions: “The safety of the communities in which we operate is of the utmost importance at AdvanSix. Since 2015, AdvanSix has achieved a 71% reduction in total criteria pollutant emissions in Hopewell.”
In 2024, the company reported emitting 1 million pounds of chemicals to the EPA, which was 57% less than what they reported in 2015, according to the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory Program.
AdvanSix is “committed to transparency, regulatory compliance and being responsible stewards for the protection of our environment,” she added.
Over 100 chemical facilities have experienced repeated chemical fires, explosions, and toxic releases since 2020, according to an analysis by Coming Clean, a nonprofit environmental health group focused on the chemical industry. At the same time, the Trump administration is projected to have laid off more than 65% of EPA workers, including a large share of workers tasked with cleaning up after toxic events.
In 2024, a fire at a chemical plant owned by BioLab in Conyers, Georgia, a predominantly Black city outside of Atlanta, caused thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.
A year after the explosion, Cheryl Garcia, 72, told Capital B Atlanta that she’d been suffering from throat and sinus problems.
“I saw a total of seven different physicians since the BioLab fire because I continue to be hoarse,” said Garcia, who lived about 7 miles from the facility. “Now I’m on seven different medications, two nasal inhalers, two asthma sprays, [and] two oral medications that I’ll probably have to use for the rest of my life.”
The federal government is still currently investigating the 2024 explosion.
“The more we learn about this unacceptable incident, the more disturbing it is,” Steve Owens, chairperson of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, said last year. “This is a stark reminder of the very serious dangers that can occur when enormous amounts of reactive and corrosive chemicals are stored without proper safeguards in place.”
BioLab did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication. The company ceased maunfacturing operations at the Conyers plant in May 2025.
Studies show that legacies of pollution have generational impacts on Black people across the U.S.
In Hopewell, there is a seven-year difference in life expectancy between the predominantly white parts of the city and the predominantly Black parts, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
“I’ve seen many instances of environmental injustice and air pollution, but this one is striking,” said Patrick Anderson, an attorney who has spent several years working on a legal petition with the Southern Environmental Law Center to lower the amount of pollution emitted by the Hopewell facility.
On average the level of cancer risk from industrial air pollution in majority-Black neighborhoods across America is more than double that of majority-white ones, according to EPA data analyzed by ProPublica.
“A chemical disaster doesn’t stop at the facility gate,” Parras said.
In Louisiana, Tyreik Taylor lost his job last year after the oil and chemical plant he worked at exploded, sending an oily substance raining down across a poor, rural majority-Black town. The plant had four other fires since 2020 before the August 2025 explosion destroyed the facility.
“In the long run, this is gonna mess us up for a long time, and they don’t care because of who lives here,” Taylor said last year, referring to the majority-Black town of Roseland.
The EPA said rolling back safety regulations would save companies as much as $240 million a year. More than half would be due to companies not having to develop and implement new technologies that would reduce the number of disasters and accidents. The rest of the savings would come from reducing employee hours spent on manufacturing decisions and from ending the requirement that companies pay third-party groups to audit after accidents.
Roughly one-third of these facilities are located in areas at high risk of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires. The rollbacks will eliminate some requirements for the facilities to plan for these climate events.
The EPA’s decision, said Darya Minovi, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, “leaves communities vulnerable to ‘double disasters’ of extreme weather and chemical incidents amid the worsening climate crisis.”
Large industry groups like the American Chemistry Council and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers have come out in support of the rollback.
“President Trump has been a tireless champion for American manufacturing and American workers,” ACC President Chris Jahn said in a statement last week.
ACC, which is a coalition of over 80 chemical companies, spent $22.3 million on lobbying federal legislators and legislation in 2024. It is the 10th-largest lobbying group of the more than 9,000 major lobbying associations.
“ACC and our member companies stand ready to partner with the President, his Administration, and Congress to advance an America First agenda,” Jahn added.
Since 2004, there have been more than 3,900 incidents at chemical facilities and over 20,000 people have been injured or had to seek medical treatment. The chemical disasters have caused over $6.5 billion in damage and make cities with industrial corridors less desirable by decreasing property values and neighborhood investment. That averages to more than $540 million in damages per year, according to a 2022 EPA analysis, more than double the amount Trump’s EPA said will be saved by the rollback.
Last year, the EPA removed a public data tool that mapped where hazardous facilities are located and lists the chemicals that are used in each. Over the next few months, the agency will hold public meetings to discuss alternatives. You can track the meetings or comment on the proposed rule in the Federal Register here.
Enter your address into the map below to see how close you live to a facility that has experienced repeated chemical incidents since 2020. The map uses federal data and was created by Coming Clean, the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services.
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