Louisianans say a major accident at a sprawling Marathon refinery caused health issues. The company insists there were ‘no offsite impacts’

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The facility, operated by the oil giant Marathon Petroleum, is the third largest refinery in the US, strategically situated near the Gulf of Mexico and along the banks of the Mississippi River. Its importance to the multibillion-dollar corporation, and purportedly to Louisiana’s economy, has largely overpowered the concerns of the communities that sit a stone’s throw from its stacks.

Residents of these lower-income, historically Black neighborhoods have been caught in the middle of a political tug-of-war. The Biden-Harris administration has sought tougher enforcement in the region, while the state, under the leadership of Donald Trump’s far-right allies, has pushed back in favor of industry – making the outcome of the 2024 presidential race all the more important to people who live in the Marathon fenceline communities of Garyville, Lions and Reserve.

Marathon and local government officials have maintained that “no offsite impacts” were detected during the entire four-day episode, citing company, state and third-party air monitoring.

But interviews and a review of an array of records by the Guardian in collaboration with the multidisciplinary research group Forensic Architecture – including air-monitoring data, police reports, 911 calls, videos and photographs captured by residents, satellite imagery, 3D simulations, medical records and internal emails – have raised significant doubts about official and company claims. They also reveal how the petroleum giant may have minimized the episode in its reporting to both federal and state governments.