Q&A: Cancer Alley Is Real, And Louisiana Officials Helped Create It, Researchers Find
James Bruggers | February 8, 2023 | Inside Climate news
For years, environmental groups have called the industrial corridor along the lower Mississippi River between here and Baton Rouge “cancer alley.”
The moniker describes a winding, 130-mile stretch along the river that is dotted with more than 200 industrial facilities including oil refineries, plastics plants, chemical plants and other factories that emit significant amounts of harmful air pollution. The provocative name has drawn unflattering global attention to the state of Louisiana and animated the struggles of Black descendants of enslaved people, many of whom live in close proximity to petrochemical plants that contribute to the insatiable demand for products derived from crude oil or fossil gas, such as gasoline and plastics.
Even though U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mapping shows the region’s residents have some of the highest health risks in the nation from breathing toxic chemicals, state environmental regulators and industry officials have long disputed the term.
The standard line from public officials has been that the state’s cancer registry shows cancer cases in parishes, or counties, along the industrial corridor do not exceed statewide averages. Indeed, that was what Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Greg Langley said recently when asked what the public should make of the term “cancer alley.”
“LDEQ does not use the term cancer alley,” he said. “That term implies that there is a large geographic area that has higher cancer incidence than the state average. We have not seen higher cancer incidence over large areas of the industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.”
But now, there’s no more room for debate, according to Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist and director of community engagement at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. Two studies that she and the law clinic research coordinator Gianna St. Julien have published in peer-reviewed journals in the last 13 months provide more scientific credence to the claim that cancer alley is real, and that state environmental regulators have helped to create it with inequitable application of air quality rules.
The studies come amid ongoing environmental justice battles over new or expanded petrochemical plants, including the massive, $9.4 billion Formosa plastics manufacturing complex proposed for St. James Parish that’s been delayed by the courts, and a promise by the EPA to more closely monitor pollution in the area.
The EPA has also been investigating whether Louisiana environmental regulators have violated residents’ Civil Rights Act VI protections related to proposed or existing industrial facilities in the area. The Tulane law clinic represents some of the groups that are challenging state regulators.
“Coming into this position a few years ago, what really struck me was that as much dialogue as there has been about cancer alley, there hasn’t been a lot of research,” Terrell said in late January at a briefing organized by the environmental group Beyond Plastics. “Those data gaps benefit polluters and are weaponized against communities.”
But data gaps are starting to be filled.
In 2018, the Louisiana Tumor Registry began making available to researchers cancer incidence rates at the census tract, or neighborhood, level. Terrell said that change, along with using the EPA toxic air risk estimates, opened a new way of looking at pollution and cancer in the state.
In January 2022, Environmental Research Letters published a study by Terrell and St. Julien that found air pollution was linked to higher cancer rates among Black and impoverished communities.
A second study by the two researchers published last month in the journal Environmental Challenges asked whether Black communities in Louisiana bear a disproportionate share of air pollution risks. The researchers found that industrial emissions in Louisiana are seven to 21 times higher in communities of color compared to white communities, and blamed permitting practices by state regulators for the discrepancy.
In October, as a response to the civil rights complaints, EPA criticized LDEQ and the Louisiana Department of Health in its preliminary findings.
The EPA told state officials there is “significant evidence suggesting that the Departments’ actions or inactions have resulted and continue to result in disparate adverse impacts on Black residents of St. John the Baptist Parish, St. James Parish, and the Industrial Corridor.”
The complaints targeted toxic emissions from Denka Performance Elastomers and other sources in St. John the Baptist Parish, and the proposed Formosa project, which would emit more than 800 tons per year of toxic pollution and put up to 13.6 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere per year, an amount roughly equivalent to 3.5 coal-fired power plants.
We caught up with Terrell and St. Julien following the environmental briefing to discuss their research and its implications.
