Brownfields and gravel lots flew past in increasing frequency as I approached the looming smokestacks. An unidentifiable wad of plastic caught on the windshield before billowing back into the air.
The clean white signage outside the factories themselves was where that sleek look abruptly ended. The buildings looked nothing short of bleak, with occasional plumes of vapor escaping the metallic chimneys.
When I exited the vehicle to join volunteers picking up trash along the side of the road, there were plenty of round, sealed trash bags already awaiting pickup. Still, the people in neon vests had a long way to go before the stretch of road could be considered pollutant-free. Beyond the litter, the air quality was easily recognizable as a problem, too.
It didn’t take long for my throat to go dry and my eyes to water. But this wasn’t allergies; something in the air surrounding the facility was undeniably the culprit.
This gave me a glimpse into the harsh reality for Louisville citizens living around the area known as Rubbertown.
Since Standard Oil first industrialized this section of the West End in 1918, it became a hotspot for oil refineries, synthetic rubber factories and chemical plants, where dangerous spills and an infamous smell are only the tip of the iceberg.
But while the construction of Rubbertown’s first plants occurred in the late 1910s, its real boom began in the wake of World War II. Wartime limitations on U.S. access to rubber imports forced it to rely less on outsourcing and begin producing within the country’s borders. At the time, Louisville was a prime location for rubber plants, and in 1944 alone, the industrial portion of Louisville’s West End produced 195,000 tons of rubber.
Today, Rubbertown houses 20 facilities, but despite their historical and economic importance, they subject nearby neighborhoods to waste and emissions.
From lingering soil carcinogens to chemical spills in the Ohio River, the residents of Rubbertown frequently experience dangers to both their health and livelihoods, but none as significant, well-documented or systematically challenged as the air quality.
The Air Pollution Control District (APCD) enforces a piece of legislation known as the Clean Air Act through the Strategic Toxic Air Reduction (STAR) program, an initiative to decrease the amount of pollutants in Louisville’s air.
According to the Louisville Metro Government, dangerous Title V pollutants have decreased by 96% since STAR’s implementation in 2005. However, even with this decline, Louisville’s pollutant emissions are still dangerously high.
Title V of the Clean Air Act addresses companies’ production of the most harmful pollutants. The APCD most heavily focuses on emissions of fine particulate matter and ozone. While particle pollution and all other Title V pollutants met acceptable levels in 2024, ozone, a pollutant known to inflame and irritate the lungs, did not. From 1997 to 2024, ozone has only attained standard pollutant levels in six of the past 27 years for which data is available.
The groups most often exposed to emissions in and around Rubbertown include those belonging to minority, marginalized and impoverished communities, leading many to categorize the issue as environmental injustice.
According to a 2022 study, the Rubbertown area’s population of around 5,000 has 19% more African Americans than the rest of Jefferson County. Additionally, the study found that the average income of residents was $15,218 lower than that of the rest of the county, which limits the ability of those impacted by the plants to move away, especially considering the strong familial ties to the area.
Skylar Wooden, 22, is a volunteer with Rubbertown Emergency ACTion (REACT) who spent her childhood in Rubbertown.
“My entire life, I’ve seen the pollution,” Wooden said. “It’s literally black clouds of smoke coming out.”
A history of poverty and segregation in the West End means many in the community have roots tracing back decades. This makes it difficult to simply leave for a different part of the city.
“My family’s been in this house for 50 years,” Wooden said.
REACT and another local organization, Air Justice, collaborate to achieve environmental justice in Louisville, aiming to reduce the amount of pollutants that disproportionately affect underserved areas such as the West End.
In the 22 years since REACT’s establishment and the five since Air Justice’s, Wooden has observed a change.
“I’ve seen the companies take notice,” Wooden said. “Growing up, I never even heard them speak publicly in the news about their pollution.”
Dr. Megan Poole, an assistant professor at the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas, is a founder of Air Justice. She explained the progress that Air Justice has made in helping West End residents advocate for themselves.
“There are documents that have changed and been easier to read because we pushed and asked for things to be improved,” Poole said. “There’s a question and answer format that was not around.”
For example, when chemical plants request permits to produce Title V pollutants, Air Justice’s forum-based system allows the public to more easily submit questions and concerns. Still, Poole believes that there’s a long way to go before Rubbertown can see true environmental improvement.
“More comments have been submitted than ever before, but no permit’s ever been denied,” Poole said. “I think we’ve started something that will take years and way more people to get engaged and involved before change could really come.”
Communication between the community and Rubbertown facilities could be clearer, Wooden said. Public notices intended to inform residents of potentially harmful changes at the plants are often written at a master’s degree or Ph.D. reading level.
In an area where only 17% of public high school students are proficient in reading, this creates a substantial divide between corporations and the people their production affects.
Daniel Cole is a former employee of facilities within Rubbertown, with a 42-year-long history across various plants.
He recounted that spills and incidents, while not common, weren’t unheard of. He also commented on an apparent lack of transparency between Rubbertown corporations’ and West End citizens.
“If you have people living nearby, I don’t blame them for wanting to know what’s going on with these plants,” Cole said. “They’ll hear sirens and alarms going off, and they don’t know. There’s not a good system.”
Cole also acknowledged that various companies operate their plants differently.
“When I went there, the systems were crude,” Cole said of DuPont, a chemical company founded in 1802. “People were more exposed to the systems in the plant because they were manual tasks. Later on, they centralized control rooms.”
When Cole began work for Michelin, a French tire manufacturer, things were different.
“Michelin was heads and shoulders above DuPont in their environmental systems,” Cole said. “I was proud to work for them because they put a lot of effort into the environment.”
However, Rubbertown plants that have not historically prioritized the environment have had far-reaching impacts, including access to education in the area.
Title 702 of the Kentucky Administrative Regulations requires elementary schools to sit on at least five acres per 100 students. Middle, junior high and high schools need at least 10 acres of land per 100 students.
However, it’s difficult to find such large plots close to families, since the West End is home to very few sites that are expansive enough. Brownfields are abandoned areas of land that industrial waste has contaminated.
“We run into a lot of issues finding enough land to put a school on because a lot of it is brownfields,” Rob Fulk, the JCPS Chief Operations Officer, said.
Most recently, JCPS changed the planned location of the Grace M. James Academy of Excellence due to the prevalence of brownfields.
“Finding enough acreage to put a full high school there that is not a brownfield or a brownfield that we can mitigate is challenging at best,” Fulk said.
So if Jefferson County doesn’t consider this area safe for students, what happens to the 5,000 residents living there each day?
A 2021 study found that, in children, developmental and chronic health issues like altered brain development can easily arise when exposed to pollutants.
Ozone, an even greater concern for Louisville residents, reacts chemically with lung tissue and causes numerous health risks in both the short and long term. It can cause respiratory diseases, metabolic disorders and issues with the reproductive and nervous systems.
The impacts of emissions have developed distrust between the public and Rubbertown manufacturers. To combat this, the Rubbertown Community Advisory Council (RCAC) aims to bridge the gap between facilities and residents in the area.
RCAC’s goal is “to develop mutual trust between participating chemical companies and the surrounding community, and to improve the overall well-being of the area,” according to the vision statement on their website.
They host community-focused monthly meetings open to the public featuring announcements from local schools and the APCD. Additionally, they hold neighborhood cleanups in the suburbs surrounding Rubbertown.
These events occur yearly and give community members an opportunity to be involved in the betterment of the area.
“This is our way of giving back to the community with helping to clean up, beautify the neighborhood and just make our presence known,” said Ebony Pryor, president of RCAC, at the Oct. 9 cleanup.
Affiliated companies also participate as a means to connect with the public, but participants representing these plants declined interviews.
Advocates see the lack of transparency between corporations and locals as a major roadblock to achieving environmental justice. They believe limited communication doesn’t foster the space necessary to discuss change.
“A lot of times community groups get this rep of crazy tree huggers, or we’re trying to take everybody’s jobs away,” Wooden said, referring to REACT’s relationship with Rubbertown companies. “But that’s not it. Just do your job, but don’t kill us.”
