Freight cars sitting on tracks

Life in the Toxic Zones

The Investigative Reporting Workshop, in partnership with E&E News and NBC News, set out in 2020 to examine the health of people living in the shadows of U.S. oil refineries.

Pollution, poverty and pandemic collide

In a segregated community outside of an Alabama oil refinery, chronic illness tells a story of racial inequality, poverty and disease as U.S. deaths from COVID-19 surpass 300,000.

Abandoned home near oil refinery

Race, economics meet the virus

In Shreveport, where some of the ugliest episodes of Jim Crow-era violence and redlining played out, COVID-19 also tells a story of sustained community disinvestment.

oil refinery

Anger over air quality

The American Lung Association ranks Bakersfield, Calif., as the most polluted city in the nation for average annual levels of dangerously high particle pollution. The city is second for short-term pollution spikes, a ranking Bakersfield has held in eight out of the last 10 reports.

decommissioned pumpjacks

Breathing problems

State regulators for more than a decade allowed a New Mexico refinery to delay fixing leaky equipment that was releasing toxic gases, including high levels of the carcinogen benzene.

Oil refinery on fire

The Refinery Disaster

In Philadelphia, an air monitor on the border of the East Coast’s largest oil refinery recorded a level of cancer-causing gas more than 21 times the federal limit.