THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

It seems there is a town in Louisiana that has been suffering under a dreadful smell and worse from its local gas and petrochemical facility. The poor dears have appealed to the state government for help.

A noxious smell began blanketing the St. Rose area area 12 days ago, residents said. The smell has reportedly caused several dozen people to feel ill with breathing problems, eye irritation, vomiting and diarrhea, according to environmental group Louisiana Bucket Brigade.

Several St. Rose residents traveled on Thursday to the state capital, Baton Rouge, to voice their frustration over an alleged lack of state action on the issue, calling on Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, to do more to protect people in the area.

Residents and activists say the state has shown a pattern of ignoring the concerns of residents who live near oil and gas facilities.

"The health impacts of this are being brushed under the rug," Anne Rolfes, the head of Bucket Brigade, said in a statement. "We are appealing to health professionals from around the state to come to St. Rose. We need medical missions to come to St. Charles Parish and help.”

The smell is reportedly coming from either the International Matex Tank Terminals (IMTT), a sprawling gas and chemical storage and shipping facility, or a co-located Shell asphalt production plant.

IMTT said continued monitoring shows no elevated levels of toxic substances in the air. Shell said it was working with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to improve a chemical release warning system to let residents know as soon as possible when noxious gases are in the air. But Shell said all emissions in the last two weeks have been “well within permit limits.”

But that has not reassured some residents, who say they have been getting sick for nearly two weeks.

“The smell is unbearable, strong,” resident Sabrina Jordan told TV news station WDSU. “Nobody has been telling us anything. They know there is a smell but don't know the problem.”

Why bother finding out what the problem is when nobody is going to do anything about it. Can't have dangerous government regulation interfering with sacrosanct profits. And appealing to the government could be dangerous. With his record, Piyush Jindal might just relocate everyone to some unused swampland to get them out of the way.