UNVEILING cancer alley
Across the United States, air quality has generally improved over the decades. However, Louisiana tells a different story. The state's air quality has deteriorated significantly, largely due to the rise of petrochemical plants. This decline has resulted in an area known as “Cancer Alley,” infamous for its high cancer diagnosis and mortality rates caused by air pollution. In this blog, I will delve into what Louisiana's “Cancer Alley” is, the factors driving its existence, and the communities most affected by it.
The Louisiana Cancer Belt is an eighty-five mile stretch that is home to more than 150 petrochemical plants and refineries. The area runs along The Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Around these chemical plants, clusters of cancer patients are increasing in great numbers. Through census reports, it is clear that those affected are predominantly poor, black communities. Through research, it is quite easy to see where this began, and more importantly how it got to this point.
Local activist protesting the petrochemical facilities near their homes
Places like Reserve, St. John the Baptist and St. Gabriel parishes used to be agriculture based, where they harvested crops like sugar cane. Now, they all are surrounded with plants polluting the air, soil, and water supply. In 1969, DuPont opened a plant to manufacture the chemical chloroprene, a colorless, volatile liquid, that is the main ingredient in neoprene. Neoprene is used in manufacturing synthetic rubbers like wetsuits and laptop cases. After DuPont opened, more petrochemical plants started to pop out in the area. In the beginning of the 1980s, Grassroots activists coined the term environmental racism, a type of violence and another form of redlining. In the case for Louisiana, it means those who are and are not exposed to contaminated air, soil, and water are largely segregated along racial and class lines. In 1987, the residents of St. Gabriel Louisiana, a primarily low income, African-American community, noticed that there was an abundance of cancer cases within their small parish. Thus, “Cancer Alley” was born. Similar incidents started to become more and more prevalent in the surrounding areas. The alley eventually grew to encompass an eighty-five mile stretch. Before there was any media coverage on the area, this stretch of land was simply known as the “petrochemical corridor.”
Jumping ahead to the 21st century, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data showed Louisiana ranking second throughout the nation for total onsite releases, third for total releases within the state, and fourth for total on-and off site releases. Louisiana, which has a population of 4,469,970 people, produced 9,416,598,055 pounds of waste in the year 2000. Seven of the ten plants in the state with the largest combined on- and offsite releases are located in Cancer Alley, and four of the ten plants with the largest onsite releases in the state are located there (Baurick, 2019).
In 2002, Louisiana had the second-highest death rate from cancer in the United States, with their rate being 237.3 deaths per 100,000. The national average, however, was 206 deaths per 100,000 (National Cancer Institute, 2015). In 2015, DuPont, the chemical plant that started it all, was sold to a Japanese chemical company Denka. The area immediately adjacent to the plant in St. John the Baptist Parish has been recognized by the EPA as having the likelihood of getting cancer from air pollution over 700 times the national average.
The Dupont/Denka plant as seen from a levee wall on the opposite side of River Road.
Even though the data clearly shows that people are being harmfully affected, the petrochemical companies are still thriving, growing, and expanding. So, what’s driving it? The answer is money. Some of the heaviest polluters will be just outside St. Gabriel parish, which already has some of Louisiana’s most toxic air. Just across the river in Plaquemine, for instance, the Shintech ethylene plant recently got the go ahead for a $1.5 billion, 300-acre expansion, which will intensify pollution in an area where an EPA model estimates the toxic levels of cancer-causing chemicals to be double the already high Iberville Parish average. The new plant is expected to increase those levels by up to 16% in nearby areas, the analysis estimates (Blackwell, Drash, & Lett, 2017).
Now, who suffers most? Most of the small towns being affected are poor and black and nearly all are in close quarters with the petrochemical processing facilities that surround the region. Studies show that in Louisiana, and throughout the country, poor, specifically poor African Americans are more likely to live near industrial plants. Because of this, they are exposed to toxic pollutants at a rate much higher than more affluent whites (Lee, 2018). On top of this, many of the new plants planned for construction are being built in or near communities that the EPA estimated to already have some of the most dangerous air in America. Shintech, a petrochemical plant planning to expand their existing plant, have stated that they do not believe the expansion will have “significant adverse impacts” on the environment. They also argue that alternative sites would made less economic sense. In short, “it is believed that the social and economic benefits of the facility outweigh environmental impacts.”
It’s an economic issue but there are also racial dynamics playing out, and race is still the most powerful predictor of where these facilities are located,” Bullard said. “African Americans, even affluent African Americans are more likely to live closer to and in communities that are more polluted than poor white families that make $10,000 a year (James, Jia, & Kedia, 2012).
Robert Taylor II, a resident of St. John the Baptist Parish located in “Cancer Alley”
At this point, the petrochemical plants are trying to push these residents out of their homes with their toxic air. Though the residents are fighting back, they tend to lose to the large corporations due to the amount of money they have, and their ability to afford expensive lawyers. Then the question arises, why don’t they just move? These people have lived their whole lives here, built their own houses, paid off their mortgages, and some simply cant afford to move. The value of their homes have decreased 80% below their projected market value. A lot of residents like Robert Taylor also believe they have a moral responsibility. In an interview he mentions “How can I in good conscience, sell my home to some other poor family to be breathing in these emissions all day. Instead of asking them this, it should be what do these companies need to do to make it safe for residents that have long been here before they moved in.
In conclusion, Cancer alley is the product of greed and the complete disregard for African American and Blue Collar lives. The racial disparities prove that large corporations view human lives, specifically the poor and black peoples, as disposable.
