‘Cancer Alley’ Residents Accuse Louisiana of Racial Discrimination

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is investigating two Louisiana companies for alleged discrimination towards predominantly Black communities in part of the Bayou State often called “Cancer Alley.”

The EPA is probing two complaints concerning chemical plant permits and air air pollution in St. James Parish and St. John the Baptist Parish. One criticism alleges neglect from the Louisiana State Department of Health in response to stories of polluted air. The different accuses the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Health Department of racial bias in selections to grant permits for at the least three totally different crops: a proposed Greenfield Exports grain terminal, a deliberate Formosa Plastics Sunshine plant, and the current Denka Performance Elastomers plant.

“We have been dismissed time and again,” stated Mary Hampton of Concerned Citizens of St. John in an Earthjustice press release earlier this year. “It is unacceptable that we’ve been ignored for so long, and so now we’re asking the EPA to step in to protect our civil rights, including to have equal protection from environmental harm, and to ensure that our right to breathe clean air is finally enforced.”

Both the DEQ and the Department of Health have claimed that the complaints are being taken severely however that their allowing course of is unbiased. Parish residents and environmental justice organizations, nonetheless, declare that the departments haven’t performed sufficient to tell locals in regards to the well being danger of the prevailing crops of their space. Parish residents additionally fear about how a lot worse their well being outcomes could turn into as soon as the brand new crops are up and operating.

St. John and St. James Parish has been a hotbed of environmental issues for years. Local industries have polluted the world so badly as to earn the nickname Cancer Alley. It’s a stretch of land that goes from Baton Rouge and New Orleans alongside the Mississippi River that’s dwelling to more than 100 chemical plants and oil refineries. Residents within the hall are identified with most cancers at charges nearly 50 times the national average, based on the EPA. During his 2021 Journey for Justice tour, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan met with community members of the St. Johns Parish and St. James Parish.

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