Last September, Rick Dulin went to a meeting about a project that promised fresh research and action on air pollution in west Louisville, where he grew up and returned to after retiring, now living in Shawnee.
The project Dulin went to hear about was led by city government, fueled by $1 million in federal money, and would build on the legacy of a community-led study in the early 2000s that revealed dangerous pollution. Especially near the Rubbertown industrial complex, where industrial facilities emit toxic chemicals and residents have higher rates of fatal cancer and hospitalizations for asthma.
What Dulin learned at that meeting about the links between pollution and illness in west Louisville “planted seeds for me,” he said at the time, about the need to advocate for his neighborhood.
Cancers have afflicted many of his friends and family who’ve lived in the city’s predominately Black West End, he said. He can’t help but wonder if the air is the culprit.
“If we are what we eat, and if we're breathing cancer, we're eating cancer,” he said.
But now, the grant funding the project is gone. President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency canceled it in March.
In May, The Kentucky Lantern reported that Louisville’s Air Pollution Control District was trying to get the grant restored through an internal EPA process. But this Tuesday, APCD spokesperson Matt Mudd told the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting that the EPA rejected their appeal.
“Clearly this is not the outcome we hoped for, but we will continue to keep our options open and conversations will continue with the County Attorney's office and our partners on the project about our path forward and other potential work together,” Mudd said via email.
The grant, along with a $500,000 award to the Parks Alliance of Louisville to support the California neighborhood’s new Alberta O. Jones Park, came from the Environmental and Climate Justice Program, a Biden-era initiative Trump’s EPA gutted.
Both local projects stood to benefit majority-Black neighborhoods.
Environmental justice efforts, in general, are on Trump’s chopping block as he attempts to purge the federal government of language and programs he associates with diversity, equity and inclusion. DEI efforts support participation by and fair treatment of individuals with different identities, including people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.
KyCIR obtained documents filed by city and EPA officials during the internal dispute over the grant, detailing both sides’ arguments over whether the funding should be saved.
As part of its defense of the grant, Louisville officials argued the project isn’t actually a DEI initiative. The city said their research would be useful not just to west Louisville but to the entire city and to other communities where industrial operations sit close to neighborhoods.
EPA officials contended the city’s arguments about DEI are irrelevant to why the agency canceled the funding. They said the reason the EPA gave for ending Louisville’s award was that it “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”.
The Washington Post reported the Trump administration is using this phrase to eliminate many grants. The term is from a regulation Trump changed late in his first presidency.
Still, an EPA spokesperson disparaged DEI in a statement to KyCIR about the city’s canceled grant for Rubbertown research.
“Maybe the Biden-Harris [Joe Biden-Kamala Harris] Administration shouldn’t have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ preferencing on the EPA’s core mission,” they said via email. “The Trump EPA will continue to work with states, tribes, and communities to support projects that advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.”
Rachael Hamilton, the director of the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District, said their project aligns with that mission. In the petition to save the grant, she said EPA chief Lee Zeldin, a Trump appointee, has said financing “air monitoring to ensure clean air” is critical. That’s the type of work Louisville’s canceled grant supported, Hamilton said.
Dulin, the Shawnee resident, said cancelling the grant is “a big mistake” and he questions why the government won’t “do all that it can to protect the health of the people.”
“It angers me that they are not doing all that's possible to try and save us,” Dulin said.
He said his anger fuels him to be more engaged as an activist.
“Because we should not have to be in this position,” he said.
The grant work
The city stopped work on the three-year project, dubbed the Rubbertown Air Toxics and Health Assessment, after the EPA canceled the grant in March.
For the initiative, which started in 2024, the city’s Air Pollution Control District partnered with a few organizations and was working to:
- Collect air quality data, focused on Rubbertown, to better assess the progress made since tightening restrictions on industrial air pollution in 2005. A district spokesman said they were doing final prep work.
- Sample wastewater from the city sewer system to assess exposure to toxic airborne chemicals in these neighborhoods.
- Design and test a software program that helps health care providers estimate air pollution exposure and related health problems.
As part of the project, medical professionals at Park DuValle Community Health Centers planned to use the software to assess patients. Swannie Jett, the nonprofit’s chief executive officer, said he was excited about the possibilities.
A tool like this, he said, could help pin down the connection between individual patients’ health problems and their exposure to airborne chemicals. That, in turn, could lead to better accountability measures.
Jett believes cancelling grants like Louisville's will have “a grave impact.”
A DEI dispute
In the administrative dispute with the EPA, Louisville officials sought clarity over why the grant was canceled and zeroed in on one possibility: A legally contested Trump executive order that attacked DEI.
Documents KyCIR obtained through an open records request show Louisville officials, trying to salvage the grant, argued its Rubbertown project involves no DEI initiatives.
In support, the city cited a review where regional EPA staff combed through the city’s plan for the project to check compliance with Trump’s various executive orders, flagging words for possible removal.
The city attached correspondence about the review, along with a copy of the potential revisions, from environmental scientist Nancye Sovine, the Louisville grant’s project officer at a regional EPA office.
In the city’s 7,750-word plan for the project, Sovine indicated they flagged less than 30 words or phrases. The enclosed review showed suggestions like:
- Cutting a factual statement that west Louisville neighborhoods are “predominantly comprised of Black residents.”
- Instead of “inequities,” say “disparities.”
- Instead of “underserved communities,” say “target” communities.
- Instead of “health equity data,” say “geographic health data.”
- Instead of “historical burden,” say “past burden data.”
- Instead of “more equitable Louisville,” say “healthier Louisville.”
- Instead of “inclusive,” say “comprehensive.”
Hamilton, the director of the city’s Air Pollution Control District, approved the suggested edits.
However, in the EPA’s response to Louisville, an agency official said the grant’s cancellation was not based on the Trump order Louisville had cited as a possible reason for the funding cut.
Whatever the reason, Hamilton argued the grant’s cancellation is invalid. She cited a federal court ruling that said the EPA acted illegally when it cut another set of awards because the agency ignored spending ordered by Congress.
That argument about congressional authority is likewise central to a June lawsuit brought by the Parks Alliance of Louisville and other groups, which aims to restore all grants canceled under the environmental justice program.
The fight continues
Eboni Neal Cochran leads Rubbertown Emergency ACTion, or REACT, a longstanding group of west Louisvillians fighting for safer air. She was glad of the work the city was doing under the now-canceled EPA grant, including plans to gather fresh data on local air pollution.
“Because you have to be data-driven in order for decisionmakers to take you seriously,” she said.
When she started doing advocacy more than 20 years ago, Cochran said she saw decisionmakers zone out at meetings as people cried and showed photos of loved ones whose deaths they attributed to industrial pollution.
“Even though someone's personal testimony is legitimate … you have to bring what the decisionmakers think is legitimate,” she said. “And most of the time, that's numbers for them.”
The city’s Rubbertown project isn’t the only recent effort to collect new data on air pollution in west Louisville.
Cochran and REACT worked on a multi-year campaign called Air Justice, led by a group of community leaders, activists and researchers who gathered air quality data in late 2023 and early 2024 by placing low-cost sensors in strategic locations, prioritizing the Park DuValle and Parkland neighborhoods.
Air Justice released a report in May that included findings and recommendations. Their research indicated elevated levels of particulate matter, or particle pollution, in the air is “a near constant reality” for people in west and southwest Louisville.
Cochran said she’s like to see policy changes that force companies to pay higher fines when they violate local air pollution rules. And she wants more Air Pollution Control District compliance officers on later-shift rotations so they can quickly check complaints about pollution that come in after normal business hours.
“Even with the federal government canceling grants, there are so many things that we can do locally that can impact people immediately,” she said. “And I really wish that the Air Pollution Control District and this city – as hard as they're fighting to get those grant dollars back, I wish they would fight that hard against the industries who are polluting us right here locally.”
