What is cancer alley?
On the Mississippi River in Louisiana, there is an 85 miles industrial strip of chemical plants (referred to as Cancer Alley) that have created one of the most highly polluted areas in the country. The first factories began to move into this stretch of land between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in 1950s, and there have been ongoing political protests in the area since the 1990s. Handfuls of firsthand accounts have revealed that residents living in neighborhoods surrounded and infiltrated by these plants suffer daily from nausea, headaches, nose-bleeds, heart palpitations, rashes, eye pain, etc. The EPA conducted a study on Cancer Alley published in 2019 and found that these symptoms are suffered anywhere from 30-50% more than a typical population. The largest chemical and plastic plants along this strip were found to be huge emitters of carcinogens, specifically chloroprene. The presence of the carcinogens is so intense and fatal that 1 in 5 people in Cancer Alley are expected to be diagnosed with cancer.
To provide a frame of reference for the level of environmental toxicity that has spread to the area, one of the cities along the stretch of Cancer Alley has higher toxicity levels than 99% of the country. Some plants along the tract have polluted the area to levels that are resembled by plants in other states, however those were actually shut down. Furthermore, the levels of air pollution around the center of the tract are higher than that of a cancer-causing facility that was in Illinois that was shut down by the EPA in early 2019. All of the people interviewed for news articles, videos, and television segments have been personally affected by cancer or have neighbors or friends that have been diagnosed, or even died from cancer
To provide a frame of reference for the level of environmental toxicity that has spread to the area, one of the cities along the stretch of Cancer Alley has higher toxicity levels than 99% of the country. Some plants along the tract have polluted the area to levels that are resembled by plants in other states, however those were actually shut down. Furthermore, the levels of air pollution around the center of the tract are higher than that of a cancer-causing facility that was in Illinois that was shut down by the EPA in early 2019. All of the people interviewed for news articles, videos, and television segments have been personally affected by cancer or have neighbors or friends that have been diagnosed, or even died from cancer
Cancer Alley and Environmental Racism
The demographics of the communities affected by Cancer Alley reflect the United States’ pattern of racism. Cancer Alley’s inhabitants are predominantly poor and black. Most of the families who live along this area have been living there since the end of the Civil War where they worked as sharecroppers after they were emancipated. When factories began to develop in that area in the 50s, they tended to be near all-black neighborhoods. Even now, the local government has continued to perpetuate such an awful standard of living for black citizens. In 2014 the state approved for new additional plants to be developed in a predominantly black district and shortly after blocked the development of two new factories in a neighboring predominantly white neighborhood. Activists groups have been fighting for decades to attract media attention so the government or the companies would be forced to respect the lives of the people living on Cancer Alley, but their situation only continues to worsen.