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Petrochemical plants have been polluting an area of Louisiana known as Cancer Alley for years, and now the residents there are taking action.

The petrochemical plants of Cancer Alley. GinesAlberto. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Along an 85 mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the landscape is dotted with petrochemical plants. They were built in the 1980s, when it was thought the plants would bring an economic boom to the region. Now, the residents of the region, known as Cancer Alley, believe that the preponderance of petrochemical plants have caused great harm to their communities.

Today, Cancer Alley contains 25% of the United State’s petrochemical plants. The concentration of petrochemical plants in the area has resulted in widespread pollution. The state of Louisiana produced 145.9 million pounds of toxic waste in 2018, with much of it coming from the petrochemical plants of Cancer Alley. The chemical chloroprene is especially prone to increasing the risk of cancer, as is benzene. Over the course of 2019, the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge Refinery and Chemical Plants increased its release of benzene from 6.5 micrograms per cubic meter to 8.5 micrograms per cubic meter.

The widespread pollution of the region has led to health disparities among its residents. Emissions from a chloroprene manufacturing plant in St. John the Baptist Parish have caused the area around it to have a cancer risk 700 times above the national average. And while there may be a dispute about the true connection between the pollution and cancer rates—research has shown that of over 400 cancer clusters examined in the last 20 years, only one can be identified as a true cancer cluster—there is no dispute that the cancer disproportionately affects impoverished and Black communities.

Cancer Alley is 40% Black, compared to 12% nationally. Over 79 census tracts in Jefferson, St. John the Baptist, East Baton Rouge and Orleans Parishes report being 90% Black and extremely low household income. Those living low-income census tracts have a cancer risk of 12% more than those living in high-income tracts, and those living in predominantly Black areas have a 16% elevated risk of cancer compared to those in predominantly white areas.

Petrochemical companies have traditionally taken advantage of the impoverished communities of the region, building their plants there without the regard for the local communities. They also employ surprisingly few residents of the local community, with a 1995 survey revealing that only 9% of the jobs at those plants were held by local residents. The communities surrounding those plants have now had enough. They are starting to organize to prevent further expansions of the petrochemical industry in the area and are holding the companies accountable for the amount of pollutants that they release.

In 2018, Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality granted Formosa, a Taiwanese petrochemical company, approval to build a new plant in St. James Parish. When Sharon Lavigne first heard of those plans, she immediately expressed her disapproval and turned her outrage into a grassroots community organization RISE St. James. That group opposes the new construction or expansion of petrochemical plants in Cancer Alley.

Other efforts have also been made to oppose the petrochemical companies. In St. Gabriel, residents pushed to incorporate their town in the 1990s so the residents themselves could control building permits in the area, rather than county officials working an hour’s drive away. That effort was successful, and in 2015, the municipal government denied a Chinese company’s request to build an industrial complex. In 2017, the town also denied an expansion by hazardous waste incinerator Absorbent Solutions.

However, unincorporated communities do not have the ability to push back against new plants, and the county and state government have a history of ignoring concerns of the local communities of Cancer Alley. In fact, UN experts have called the government policy regarding Cancer Alley to be a prime example of environmental racism. However, the outlook is changing, as the EPA is opening a civil rights investigation over pollution in Cancer Alley, examining whether the factors that cause the preponderance of petrochemical plants in the region violate the rights of African Americans. In a victory for RISE St. James, the Army Corps suspended the permit for the Formosa plant on October 4, 2020.

Black Americans are 79% more likely than White Americans to live in areas where industrial pollution poses a health threat. The environmental injustice that members of the community face is rooted in centuries of systemic racism and segregation.

People in Flint, Michigan, protesting amid the Flint water crisis. Shannon Nobles. CC BY-SA 4.0

In 2016, Flint, Michigan, was declared to be in a state of emergency by its mayor, Michigan’s governor, and then-President Barack Obama. These state of emergency declarations brought national attention to a crisis that citizens of Flint, a majority-Black community, had been dealing with for two years at that point: undrinkable water. In 2014, the city switched its drinking water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in an attempt to cut costs. The Flint River runs through the center of town and has historically been used as an unofficial disposal site for refuse from local factories and mills. The river’s pollution, combined with inadequate water treatment and testing, led to discolored, bad-smelling water being pumped into Flint homes. Water from the Flint River caused rashes and hair loss, and it also potentially contributed to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that killed 10 people. Later studies showed that the contaminated water had also led to increased cases of elevated blood lead levels in Flint’s children, a condition which can create a range of developmental problems. Flint is still dealing with lead in its water supply because of corroded pipes. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission concluded that the government’s poor response to the Flint water crisis was a result of implicit bias and systemic racism.

Flint is not the only city to fall victim to environmental injustice, the phenomenon of certain communities, such as communities of color and poor communities, being disproportionately subjected to environmental risk. Environmental injustice is believed to be rooted in systemic racism, and is sometimes referred to as environmental racism. While White people generally breathe 17% less air pollution than they are responsible for generating, Black people breathe 56% more than they cause. In 19 states, Black Americans are at least 79% more likely than White Americans to live in areas where industrial pollution is a health threat.

St. James Parish, Louisiana, is riddled with factories, chemical plants and refineries. Residents in the area have some of the highest cancer rates in the country, and the region has been nicknamed “Cancer Alley.” Environmentalists say that the area’s fossil fuel industry is the reason for the community’s dismal health. Residents of Grays Ferry, a neighborhood in South Philadelphia, also face disproportionate rates of cancer, which experts attribute to the community’s proximity to a massive refinery. Like Flint, St. James Parish and Grays Ferry are majority-Black communities.

Factories, refineries and other forms of polluting infrastructure have historically been built in low-income communities of color. Many of these communities were created through segregation and redlining, the refusal of the Federal Housing Administration to issue mortgages in Black neighborhoods. Housing policies under the New Deal were geared toward providing housing to middle-class White families, pushing people of color into urban housing projects. The Federal Housing Administration subsidized the production of subdivisions for White families, requiring that none of the homes be sold to people of color. White neighborhoods received more community investment and better infrastructure, while communities of color suffered from poverty and poor amenities. Companies began exploiting this segregation by buying out Black residents in order to use the land for industrial purposes. After all, people in low-income communities often lacked the means necessary to hire legal representation that could fight back against major corporations.

The systemic racism that led to segregation and the creation of many low-income communities of color in some ways still perseveres, as these communities are taken advantage of by companies at the expense of residents’ health. Black people have historically been left out of the environmentalist movement, with White people making up 80% of the staff of environmental nonprofits. More recently, Black communities have begun advocating for environmental justice. Activists hope to combine the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impact of proposed projects and infrastructure, with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits federally funded entities from discriminating on the basis of race, to create a policy that would dismantle environmental injustice. Environmental policy changes are considered by many to be badly needed, and until they occur, companies will continue to prosper at the expense of Black communities.

Petrochemical plants have been polluting an area of Louisiana known as Cancer Alley for years, and now the residents there are taking action.

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Black Americans are 79% more likely than White Americans to live in areas where industrial pollution poses a health threat. The environmental injustice that members of the community face is rooted in centuries of systemic racism and segregation.

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