A controversial chemical plant in the centre of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region has indefinitely suspended all production following dire financial results, the facility’s operators announced on Tuesday.

The Denka Performance Elastomer plant in St John Parish has long been associated with chronic air pollution issues and was the subject of a years-long Guardian reporting series examining the disproportionate cancer risk rates experienced by the majority-Black fence-line communities that surround the facility.

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The fence-line community’s fight for clean air has become a national and international environmental justice clarion call, prompting a number of interventions from the Biden administration. These included the introduction of a new rule governing emissions on the plant’s primary pollutant, a likely human carcinogen named chloroprene, and a US justice department lawsuit seeking to compel Denka to lower its pollution.

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Still, the company said in a statement that it had endured “extraordinary loss in its financial results” for the last year amounting to a 16.1bn yen (roughly $109m) in losses. Although citing a decline in global demand, the company also blamed the uncertainty caused by increased regulation under Joe Biden for its facility’s financial collapse in America.

The Guardian has revealed how the plant’s former owners, US chemicals giant DuPont, sought to sell the facility in 2015 in a secretive deal after citing concerns about potential environmental regulation and its impact on profit margins. DuPont allegedly withheld information about these concerns before selling to Denka.

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