Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.

Originally published by Capital B.

The forests that once sheltered the small town of Roseland are turning brown.

A month after a sprawling oil and lubricant facility exploded and rained down slick black droplets all over this predominantly Black town in rural Louisiana, the trees are sick. Federal officials said there’s no threat to human health; however, independent tests recently revealed that inside the goop that coats yards, gardens, and doorsteps is a gallery of 29 chemicals and heavy metals.

Now, many residents are left wondering: Is what was left behind after the Aug. 22 blast safe? If it’s making the trees ill, what about them?

Never miss the news and analysis you care about.

After Smitty’s Supply exploded, over a dozen residents in the town told Capital B they experienced health issues ranging from difficulty breathing to itchy skin. This is all happening while they were physically struggling to clean up in the aftermath of the blast.

Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, which took over the cleanup process in August, advised residents to remove the black sticky residue themselves. The EPA did not test soil on local properties for contamination. A spokesperson told Capital B that testing was not warranted because they did not believe there was a heavy concentration of toxic chemicals.

But one month later, an independent tester found toxins, including lead, in soil samples as far as six miles from the blast.

And the region’s forests have seen over a 15% decline in their typical greenness, according to ForWarn, a satellite-based monitoring tool. The database is controlled by the federal government to assess when “forest conditions seem unusual or abnormal.” The 15% drop in Roseland is the largest decline possible on the tool’s metric system, but the drop could be larger based on the tool’s fact sheet.

Forestry experts told Capital B that forests lose greenness when contamination and stress disrupt plant photosynthesis, causing leaves to brown, drop, or die as pollutants damage tissues and impair growth. It signals not only a landscape in distress, but a potential threat to every breath nearby, they said.

They also said when fires or chemical disasters devastate vegetation so swiftly, it is often a........

© Truthout