Biden administration called upon to take aggressive measures to redress the conditions in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

25th October 2021   ·   0 Comments

By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer

The ACLU is going straight to the top in its advocacy for the wellbeing and safety of the people in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.”

In conjunction with a recently released report by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent to the Human Rights Council, ACLU of Louisiana executive director Alanah Odoms on Oct. 4 issued a video statement to the Human Rights Council calling on the Biden administration to take aggressive measures to protect the lives of the mostly Black, working-class residents of the parishes between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, termed the River Parishes.

The 85-mile stretch of river-adjacent land has earned the nickname Cancer Alley for the alarmingly high rates of cancer diseases and early deaths among the population of the River Parishes. Evidence suggests that the high rates of cancer in the region could be the result of the polluting emissions and carcinogens that for decades have been pumped into the ecology by more than 100 petrochemical plants and refineries found in the River Parishes.

In her statement to the UN and to the new administration in Washington, Odoms asserted that the petrochemical industry has robbed residents of the River Parishes – which in the 18th and 19th centuries featured hundreds of sprawling plantations at which thousands of people of African descent were enslaved – of their birthright as well as their health.

“This sacred land, which should lawfully belong to the descendants of those who were enslaved, has been invaded by the petrochemical industry,” Odoms said. “For more than a century the petrochemical industry has built dangerous plastic and chemical plants on the land literally suffocating and poisoning its residents. This environmental injustice has destroyed the air quality, has hastened climate change and has exposed descendants to unconscionable rates of disease and cancer.”

Odoms noted that the federal Environmental Protection Agency has found that cancer rates are 1,500 times higher in the River Parishes than other parts of the country. She added that the residents of Cancer Alley – including St. James Parish and St. John the Baptist Parish – are now fighting a second disaster following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ida, a situation that only compounds the tragedy of the parishes.

“These communities also bear the brunt of more frequent severe weather due to climate change,” she said. “… They are once again fighting for their survival [after Ida].”

Odoms sent that message to Washington with her video statement to the UN.

“I am here in solidarity to share their urgent message compelling President Biden to use his executive power to halt further petrochemical proliferation and to protect the lives and futures of the descended people of the river parishes,” Odoms said.

The plea to Biden from the ACLU followed on the heels of the Sept. 21 release of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent’s 18-page report titled, “Environmental justice, the Climate Crisis and People of African Descent,” after several months of receiving testimony, soliciting information and reports, and holding hearings on the subject.

The UN report served as another global call to action to combat climate change, pollution and other environmental disasters that much too often disproportionately affect communities of color across the world, a reality the residents of Cancer Alley have been combating for a century or more.

“In many parts of the world, policymakers, legislators and others subject people of African descent to discrimination, and provide insufficient respect for and protection of their human rights, including the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment,” the UN report stated. “This is manifest in the siting of landfills, toxic waste dispensaries, extractive industries, industrial and mining areas, factories and power plants and environmentally hazardous activities, and the lack of enforcement of environmental protection regulations in communities heavily populated by people of African descent, often resulting in high rates of asthma, cancer and other chronic environment-related illnesses, as well as less visible and long-term effects.”

One of the people who provided input to the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent as it gathered research was Sharon Lavigne, the founder of RISE St. James, a community-advocacy organization in St. James Parish. Lavigne told the working group that greed by the petrochemical industry – financial avarice allegedly enabled by permissive state of Louisiana leaders and elected officials – has ruined the soil and air in the River Parishes, including her home of St. James Parish, 85 percent of which is African-American.

Because of the high level of carcinogenic pollutants, many St. James residents already had health conditions when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, exacerbating the bleak situation.

The Working Group report said that nation- and worldwide, government leaders often fail to protect the lives of people of African descent who are threatened and sickened by environmental disasters, failures that include allowing factories and corporations to continue emitting dangerous pollutants, and unwillingness or inability to enforce existing environmental regulations.

“At the national level, people of African descent have reduced access to information about environmental matters, to participation in environmental decision-making and to remedies for environmental harm,” the report stated. “States authorizing hazardous facilities in communities that are predominantly composed of people of African descent disproportionately interfere with their rights, including their rights to life, health, food and water. Internationally, hazardous wastes continue to be exported to countries in the global South with lax environmental policies and safety practices…

“States must pay attention to historical or persistent prejudice, recognize that environmental harm can result from and reinforce existing patterns of discrimination, and take measures against the conditions that cause or perpetuate discrimination. States should take measures to protect those who are at particular risk of environmental harm,” it added.

Several other advocacy organizations have joined the fight to help the people of the River Parishes by echoing the sentiments expressed by the UN’s Working Group. Monique Harden, assistant director of law and policy for the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, said the damage caused by environmental degradation, like in the River Parishes, must be addressed.

“Environmental racism is a human rights violation,” Harden said. “Remedies are needed now in Black and other communities of color suffering from toxic industrial pollution.”

The UN report, buttressed by the pleas from the ACLU of Louisiana and other activist organizations, does come amidst an apparent dramatic shift in attitudes in Washington, D.C., regarding environmental protection and social justice. The beginning of the Biden Administration has brought a clear repudiation of the radically pro-business, anti-environment stances of the Trump presidency.

Although critics still say Biden could be going further with his actions toward environmental protection, he and his administration have taken several proactive steps, some of which directly and indirectly tackle the causes and effects of environmental racism and the harm being done to communities of color.

He’s also become one of the first federal leaders to acknowledge the plight of the people in the River Parishes. Soon after taking office in January, Biden issued a series of executive orders addressing climate change and industrial pollution, and in a speech accompanying the issuance of the orders, he specifically mentioned Cancer Alley.

“With this executive order, environmental justice will be at the center of all we do addressing the disproportionate health and environmental and economic impacts on communities of color – so-called fenceline communities – especially … the hard-hit areas like Cancer Alley in Louisiana or the Route 9 corridor in the state of Delaware,” he said at the time.

While the executive orders themselves don’t specifically address the petrochemical industry or individual communities in Louisiana facing overwhelming ecological challenges, many in the River Parishes have seen the sea change in attitudes emanating from the nation’s capital.

“We have a new administration now, and we’ve seen a marked difference in the federal people,” said Robert Taylor, founder of Concerned Citizens for St. John, a community advocacy group based in Reserve in St. John the Baptist Parish. “At least they are now open [to helping Cancer Alley]. President Biden has acknowledged us and acknowledged that there is a problem here, and they are going to provide something for us.”

Taylor said a new head of the EPA, Michael Regan, will hopefully also bring a change in approach and organization from the agency’s previous structure, which Taylor said showed “a complete failure in the administration to protect the people in this morass [in Cancer Alley] from the people [in the petrochemical business] who came in here and destroyed the environment.”

Taylor also lauded the efforts of new U.S. Troy Carter, who succeeded Cedric Richmond as Congressman for Louisiana’s Second Congressional District, which includes much of Cancer Alley. Taylor said that unlike Richmond, Carter has reached out to the people of the River Parishes and appears to truly care about the communities’ plight and wants to fight to improve their lives.

“He met with our organization as soon as he got in office,” Taylor said. “That’s a big difference from his predecessor. We chased behind [Richmond] but we never got anything from him.”

Although Carter was unable to comment for this article, he sent a letter to Regan in August, calling for the EPA to closely and comprehensively study the situation in the River Parishes to collect data that could more accurately and fairly assess the amount of pollution in the region, the pollutants’ effect on the ecosystem, and the petrochemical industry’s responsibility for the region’s elevated rates of cancer and other illnesses.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the reality that for far too many, life in the River Parishes includes devastating experiences with cancer,” Carter stated at the time. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can, and must, make needed changes to save lives.”

Carter also introduced Communities and Environment First Act of 2021, which would allow the EPA to work with state administrations to address communities impacted by air pollution and to possibly relocate residents who have been negatively impacted by toxic industrial pollutants.

Overall, Taylor said that the federal government lately has offered “more communication than we’ve ever had.”

“We’re feeling more optimistic about the federal government’s approach to our problem,” he said. “All of our efforts had been for naught until now. They totally ignored the plight of poor people in Cancer Alley.”

This article originally published in the October 25, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.