The 48217 zip code—Michigan’s, and one of the nation’s, most polluted neighborhoods—on the south side of Detroit, is a long ways away from Paris, where global leaders recently cemented a deal recognizing the calamitous impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth’s climate.

This fact was underscored on Tuesday after reports that the Marathon Petroleum Corporation* tar sands refinery, which looms over the largely African American community, is poised to win state approval to expand its operation and increase emissions of toxic fossil fuel byproducts.

“The state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has announced it proposes to approve Marathon’s revised air pollution permits, for a refinery modernization and expansion that would increase its emissions of oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, small particulate pollution, and sulfuric acid mist,” the Detroit Free Press reported Tuesday.

The Free Press also noted that the proposal would “increase sulfur dioxide emissions by 22 tons per year in an area the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has designated as being ‘in non-attainment’ for the pollutant—meaning out of compliance with federal air pollution standards.”

Environmentalists and community organizers charge that the proposal not only illustrates a flagrant disregard for the state’s floundering climate action plan, which Republican Governor Rick Snyder has refused to implement, but continues a legacy of neglect for Michigan’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.

Rhonda Anderson, senior organizing representative with the local chapter of the Sierra Club, told Common Dreams that the state has “continuously neglected” this community with the repeated approval of “high impact” permits without any regard for the cumulative effect on the health of the local population.

“This area is the most polluted in the state of Michigan, almost in the United States,” she said, noting that this one-time middle class community has for generations watched as toxic industries—including Marathon Oil, Ford Motor Company, and AK Steel—encroached on its streets.

For the people in the neighborhood, the impact of years of unchecked industry is palpable: Bloody noses, asthma, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer, are among the effects.