Cancer Alley: The Cancer Capital of America
“Safety Comes First.” “Think Safe. Stay Safe.” “Safety: It’s Everyone’s Responsibility.” The irony of these signs is that those who put them up fail to take their own advice. The same industrial plants where these signs hang are the same ones that have killed hundreds of people due to the toxic chemicals they produce.
Stretching 85 miles between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, the regional nickname of the area, is one of the deadliest areas in all of America. Toxic air pollution, produced from over two hundred fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, has resulted in the highest cancer rate in the nation. Over the past few years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigated whether or not Louisiana officials discriminated against the predominantly Black communities surrounding these facilities. To ensure these communities are protected from further harm, federal officials have pressured the state to strengthen air pollution guidelines from industrial plants. However, the state has yet to change its restrictions, even allowing the construction of further industrial plants next to small communities in Louisiana. So, how have residents of Cancer Alley been coping with such horrendous living conditions? And what is being done to ensure that future generations don’t fall to the same fate?
Cancer Alley started in the mid-1970s as companies began to build factories on cheap land in the rural areas of Louisiana. By 1987, residents of Jacobs Drive in St. Gabriel began to notice changes in the color of their water as well as the air quality.
Today, more than two hundred industrial plants are located throughout Cancer Valley, growing in numbers every year. The most recent studies by the EPA have revealed that the cancer risk in towns such as Reserve, Louisiana, is more than double the national average, leading to the highest risk of developing cancer in the country. Life-long Reserve resident, Bobby Taylor, showed YouTuber Tyler Olivera the town, explaining how it had transformed the environment and lives of all those who lived there. On how the plants treat him and other locals, and the petrochemical industry as a whole, Taylor stated, “They treat us like we’re animals or something. It’s terrible.” When talking more about the impact the plants had on the community, Taylor pointed down the road he lived on and said, “If we go up and down this community, you won’t find a home here that hasn’t been touched by cancer. It’s that bad.” A heavy advocate for change in Cancer Alley, Taylor visited the company of one of the main polluting plants, Denka, in 2019. At their headquarters in Japan, Taylor confronted leaders of the company who simply smiled, before security removed him from the building.
Many of the residents of these towns are afraid to speak out against the plants as they, or someone they know, work for the factories. Instead, they suffer through the effects of having the plants so close to their homes, where they are unable to drink the contaminated community water, and risk cancer exposure daily through simple activities such as showering or going for a walk. Taylor recounted in the early 1960s, when the plants first began construction, the migration of white people from the community: “We saw the white residents move out. We didn’t know why.” Continuing, Taylor stated, “They [the factories] told them [about the risk].” While Taylor refuses to move out of the town he has called home his entire life, he’s been forced to relocate the rest of his family for their own good. His wife lives with his youngest son in California, while his daughter lives in New Orleans, receiving treatment for a rare disease caused by her lifelong exposure to the chemical Chloroprene, a known carcinogen, from the factories. Those who are not as lucky to leave Cancer Alley with similar diseases, usually pass away and are laid to rest in one of the many cemeteries nestled between factories, cemeteries which have grown so large that coffins have started to be stacked on top of each other. What’s even more shocking is that new real estate is being built in the area to support new factories and their workers, many of whom are not told of the high cancer risk caused by the factories. The array of legal cases against the factories gained little traction, the most famous being the lawsuit against the local government from St. James Parish, in which factories were illegally zoned, resulting in a dozen factories being situated around their town.
Taylor, along with several other members of the community have joined organizations, such as the Concerned Citizens of St. John Parish, to raise awareness surrounding the issues of Cancer Alley. Whilst these movements have made the topic of Cancer Alley more popular throughout the country, real change is still yet to be seen to protect the communities heavily affected by the factories. As Cancer Alley grows, its grip on the surrounding communities grows stronger, slowly strangling the life out of each town until no one is left. Only time will tell if these factories can be stopped, or if it’s just a matter of time until these towns become completely unlivable.
By Luke Birch