Plants in SU area and their effect on students

Chemical plants in Baton Rouge, more precisely, in the Southern University area, have been emitting polluting chemicals into the air, water and soil. Regulations and projects have been put in motion to ameliorate the cleanliness of the air in Baton Rouge.
Although there is progress being made to diminish the pollution, there is still a large amount of pollutants being released into the atmosphere every day. These pollutants affect the inhabitants of the area the most.
Many plants, such as ExxonMobil, pay penalties to “improve” pollution control. But, they’re really just paying penalties to the surrounding area inhabitants to die slowly. Payment, however, does not clean up the air, or make the damages on the ecosystem any less.
According to The Advocate, ExxonMobil agreed to pay a penalty, and improve pollution control at three of their Baton Rouge plants as part of a settlement with federal authorities who accused them of violating the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act, however, was put into motion to resolve the air and pollution related problems. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Louisiana has been trying to improve the air quality for some years now. In their 2013 Transportation Technology Deployment Report, Louisiana Clean Fuels reported that within their covered area, almost 1 million gallons of gasoline equivalents and almost 5,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions had been reduced mainly through their activities.
In the case of Southern University, the money is going to the school, but the students are the ones who live on campus, or accommodate to find housing near campus and suffer the most from the pollution. When coming to Southern, the students are not being informed of such pollutions. The advocate also said that they’re not aware of the risk that they’re being exposed to. As a matter of fact, most people aren’t aware of certain facts about ExxonMobil. Many don’t know that regulators said the company spewed unlawful amounts of chemicals linked to cancer and smog at eight facilities in Louisiana and Texas.
Should the school really get paid for students to get intoxicated? Living in such environmental conditions can have short term, as well as long term effects on health. It can impair the immune systems and other systems of the body. Also, it causes headaches, and respiratory problems.
A Southern University, computer science major, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Candace Chatman said, “I didn’t know that Southern received money for the pollution. If the money is being used for campus restauration, that’s understandable. It doesn’t help the on-campus students however. It would be better if the money was refunded back to the students.”
This affects the whole ecosystem, and there should be a bigger emphasis on this issue. Most of the time people do not make a big deal about environmental problems, but those are the most serious ones and no action will be taken unless something happens.