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Nine months after a massive oil plant explosion rained a chemical shower over Roseland, Louisiana, residents are growing sicker—and angrier.
“I truly cannot make sense of the lies,” Roseland resident Arlene Bankston told Status Coup in response to recently unearthed EPA emails revealing that after the explosion top EPA officials privately worried over the “grave threat” to residents’ health—while the agency provided a public “all clear” and told residents it was safe to return home.
[WATCH Jordan Chariton’s interview with sick Roseland residents above]
The massive August 22nd explosion at Smitty’s Supply, an oil, fuel, and lubricant distributor, showered the surrounding rural community with oil, soot, ash, and a cocktail of other chemical combustion byproducts—sickening school children and adults while killing fish and other animals.
As we reported soon after, children were rushed back to school despite oil residue being splattered across school windows, AC units, fences, street signs, the roof and parking lot, and other hot spots. Photos we obtained showed students tracking oil residue on their shoes back and forth inside and outside the school.
At the time, concerned parents wrote to the school superintendent that students—some of whom were suffering from nosebleeds following the plant explosion—were being placed at risk for “severe health problems.”
The school remained open nonetheless.
Now nine months later, the community remains contaminated and residents—including school children—suffer from a slew of health issues amidst a national and local media blackout.
“I can not wrap my head around why elected officials allow this for the constituents who vote for them,” Bankston told Status Coup. “I still can’t wrap my head around why they cover up the truth. I guess they figure if they tell everybody everything is OK and there is nothing to see then they don’t have to do a SuperFund site.”
Residents have relayed a long list of health issues, including nosebleeds, headaches, sinus issues, sore throat, digestive issues, stomach pain, brain fog and confusion—and even early on-set dementia
“I’m 150 feet from the river; for 60 days, we had air boats aerating that mixture into fine particles that we breathed in all day and all night,” Wynne Kilma told Status Coup. Her previously healthy 42-year-old husband began suffering serious memory and cognitive issues soon after the oil plant explosion and fire—to the point he doesn't remember who he is for several days.
Having cared for grandparents with dementia, Kilma was familiar with the symptoms—red flags she began seeing in her husband soon after the explosion.
“Some days he is cognizant for an hour in the morning and then he goes down for a nap; in that hour I have to follow him around and take any notes down when he talks to customers,” Kilma explained about her husbands struggles dealing with customers for their RV business.
Like many residents, he’s suffering from debilitating headaches and migraines.
“I can see his eyes, they get kind of cloudy and kind of low and you can tell that he’s having this horrible migraine; I can see he’s going down immediately, within 15 minutes he’s gonna be in that bed…he’s just completely not human, he’s just a bag of bones.”
According to Kilma, EPA whistleblower Robert Kroutil—who blew the whistle on the EPA delaying use of its ASPECT plane that detects chemical contamination after the 2023 East Palestine train derailment and chemical detonation—warned her about serious chemical contamination he identified following the Smitty’s Supply oil plant explosion.
Through Freedom of Information Requests, Kroutil noticed high levels of dimethyl phthalate, an oily liquid for which high exposure can affect kidney and endocrine functions.
“Those are directly matching the symptoms your husband is having,” Kilma recounted being told by the former EPA official turned whistleblower. The toxic levels of dimethyl phthalate were worsened following the oil plant explosion given it is highly aerated.
Therefore, as the air boats tried to aerate the Tangipahoa River following the plant explosion—essentially trying to pump and rinse oil and other petrochemicals out of it—they ended up releasing the chemicals into the air and sickening local residents like Kilma’s husband.
Although this environmental cover up is occurring under the Trump regime, it’s important to note that the EPA has been using this same “nothing to see here” playbook for decades—under Democratic and Republican administrations alike.
In 2023, after the Norfolk Southern train derailment—and the billion dollar rail company unnecessarily detonating five rail tankers filled with cancer-causing vinyl chloride over East Palestine and western Pennsylvania—the Biden EPA provided a false “all clear” for residents to return home despite immediate health issues and clear environmental contamination.
As Status Coup has relentlessly reported, independent chemical testing has detected alarming levels of contamination despite contractors Norfolk Southern hired to conduct chemical testing, unsurprisingly, finding no chemical contamination. Tragically, three years later, East Palestine and western Pennsylvania residents are sick—with cancer and other serious health issues on the rise.
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