LAPLACE, La. (WVUE) – Citing recent losses of more than $109 million, the Japanese rubber manufacturing giant Denka announced Tuesday (May 13) that it would halt production at and consider selling its controversial plant in St. John the Baptist Parish.
“Rising costs, declining production volumes, staffing challenges and a weakening global economic environment for chloroprene have led to the expectation that improving profitability in the near term would be difficult,” the company said in a statement.
The LaPlace facility, operated by Denka Performance Elastomer LLC, the US subsidiary of Japan’s Denka Company Limited, has produced chloroprene rubber since December 2014. The company acquired the plant from DuPont in November 2015.
As of last December, the plant employed 250 workers. But Denka said the facility already has been safely shut down for “regular maintenance” before Tuesday’s decision not to restart production. The company cited a $109 million loss from the plant over the past fiscal year that ended March 31.
“All options for the business, including a potential sale of the business or its assets, will be considered,” Denka said in its statement. “No decision regarding a permanent closure of the facility has been made at this time.”
The plant is the lone manufacturer of neoprene in the United States, and last year faced tightened environmental regulations imposed under the Biden administration. Residents of nearby communities complained of health concerns because of the plant’s emission of potentially cancer-causing agents.
Related coverage
- Air of Uncertainty: Effects of Denka emissions on school children
- Denka granted two-year extension for EPA compliance
Robert Taylor is a lifelong resident of St. John the Baptist Parish and the executive director of the Concerned Citizens of St. John. He said Tuesday that his community, especially Black people living in the parish, have long been victims of the petrochemical industry along the Mississippi River.
“That’s a lot of toxins for us, for our people to have to deal with. So that would be a great relief to us to not have that much junk in our atmosphere,” Taylor said of Denka’s potential closure.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and St. John Parish president Jaclyn Hotard have supported Denka and its economic impact on the region, with Landry celebrating last July when the plant was granted a two-year extension to comply with the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations.
Louisiana also filed a petition in federal court in Washington, D.C., challenging the EPA’s ruling as one that stripped the state of its authority to impose safety compliance rules.
“The plant has been a longstanding member of our local economy, generating about $2 million annually in sales tax,” Hotard said Tuesday. “And they provide jobs for approximately 250 workers, many of them St. John residents — our friends, family members, neighbors. … I feel bad for all of the families that could potentially be impacted by the decision. If a permanent closure is what’s going to happen, that’s our most important concern.”
Tayor disagreed: “With the aid of our government, we have been designated sacrificial lambs.”
Denka cited several reasons for the loss it said the plant has incurred, chief among them regulatory, power and staffing concerns.
“In addition to rising costs and staffing challenges, DPE has faced declining volumes of chloroprene rubber production at its facility, due in part to operational restrictions arising from pollution-reduction measures and unscheduled plant outages associated with supply chain disruptions and severe weather events,” the statement said.
“These challenges, combined with the impact of changes in the global economic environment affecting the chloroprene rubber market, have placed pressure on profits.”
The company said unforeseen expenses included the “identification, design, purchase, installation and operation of pollution-control equipment to reduce chloroprene emissions that DPE did not anticipate being required at the time it acquired the facility.”
Denka also cited difficulty with rising inflation in the United States and “overall challenges in securing and maintaining qualified staff.”
Hotard said, “It’s no secret that Denka faced unprecedented regulatory and legal challenges over the last several years. I believe some of the pressures placed on this facility were particularly aggressive, and at times lacked the balance needed to account for economic and workforce reality.
“I recognize that concerns about health and safety have been an ongoing part of this conversation. And our residents deserve a healthy community and access to good-paying jobs. But those two goals should not be mutually exclusive.”
Taylor said even if the plan shuts down, the damage has already been done.
“They might shut down and they might go away, but the 50-60 years of exposures and damage they have done to the health and lives of these people are still here,” he said.
See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click Here to report it. Please include the headline.
Subscribe to the Fox 8 YouTube channel.
Copyright 2025 WVUE. All rights reserved.
link