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air we breathe
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![People looking inside a private meeting](https://cdn.muckrock.com/news_images/2024/04/08/2024_Koppers_2400x800.PNG.800x600_q85_crop.png)
The inside story on a billion-dollar chemical company’s fight to keep its secrets from the public
After the Cicero Independiente and MuckRock published investigative articles about air pollution and the chemicals company Koppers, it hired a public-relations firm to organize a secret, behind-the-scenes campaign to influence local officials.
![Photo of Koppers coal tar plant](https://cdn.muckrock.com/news_images/2024/02/12/Koppers_banner_Mu53Djc.png.800x600_q85_crop.png)
Koppers disputes most recent environmental violations but plant records reveal two decades of run-ins with Illinois EPA
After the Illinois EPA sent them a lengthy violations notice last fall, Koppers executives began selling stock at an unprecedented rate. After MuckRock and the Cicero Independiente reported on those violations, the publicly-traded company hired a crisis communications firm to meet with elected officials and manage the community fallout.
![Screenshot of Cicero town meeting](https://cdn.muckrock.com/news_images/2023/12/18/Cicero_town.png.800x600_q85_crop.png)
After critical series, Cicero town president calls Independiente journalists ‘jerks’ and threatens to ban them from speaking at public meetings
Cicero Town Board President Larry Dominick, in publicly-recorded comments at the end of a biweekly town meeting on Dec. 12, said the Cicero Independiente‘s staffers routinely don’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and, as a result, “from now on, I don’t think I’ll let anyone there talk that does not stand for the pledge.”