SALINAS, Puerto Rico — Emboldened by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement that Salinas has one of the highest concentrations of a cancer-causing gas in a U.S. jurisdiction, Puerto Ricans are demanding a huge cleanup and penalties for those contaminating the region.

“I will keep fighting until I die,” said Elsa Modesto, a 77-year-old retiree who has not missed a single EPA meeting since last year’s announcement. “I want to know what’s in the environment.”

Puerto Rico ranks 22nd out of 56 U.S. states and territories based on total managed waste released per square mile at 4.2 million pounds. Six of the top 10 municipalities in that category are in Puerto Rico’s southern region, with Salinas ranked sixth, according to data obtained from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory.

Salinas also has one of the highest incidence rates of cancer in Puerto Rico, with 140 cases reported in 2019, the newest figures available from the island’s Central Registry of Cancer. Salinas has a higher rate than the neighboring town of Guayama, where cases of cancer and other diseases have increased since the coal-fired power plant began operating there in 2002, said Dr. Gerson Jimenez, director of the Menonite Hospital who has testified in public hearings and called for the closure of the plant.

“Medical doctors who work in the southeast area of Puerto Rico have noticed that since the AES Corporation began operating in Guayama, there has been a significant increase in diseases of the respiratory tract, urinary tract, as well as a significant increase in diagnoses of various types of cancer,” he testified at one hearing.

The level of contamination has prompted the EPA for the first time to test air and groundwater in Puerto Rico’s southeast region, with Administrator Michael Regan saying that low-income communities and communities of color have suffered unjustly for decades.

Salinas is a town of nearly 26,000 people — of which 28% identify as Black — with a median household income of $18,000 a year. More than half of its population is poor, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The town is nestled between the coal-burning power plant, two of the island’s largest thermoelectric plants and other industries, including a company that produces thermoset composites, a material used in major appliances like refrigerators. That company, IDI Caribe Inc., is the facility that releases the most emissions in Salinas, according to the EPA.

Overall, styrene and ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic gas, are the top two chemicals released into the air and water in Salinas, officials say. Salinas and Guayama also have sulfur dioxide levels that exceed new standards.

Salinas also is home to Steri-Tech, the company that uses ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment. The EPA says short-term exposure to the gas does not appear to pose risks, but long-term or lifetime exposure can cause lymphoma, breast cancer and other illnesses.