CANCER Alley

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see CANCER 2 for newer

Note: this node refers to the disease, with emphasis on env justice exposure of poor

2/19 cancr tag in honor of djt sotu ~ kid cancer while dunlap an wheeler roll back protection ~ chems

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MAJ REPT 2 26? CHEM TRAIL LAW?!

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thom 10 23

Article: "Louisiana was open to Cancer Alley concessions. Then EPA dropped its investigation" by Michael Phillis.

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180 fix 7 23

https://www.rawstory.com/cancer-alley-louisiana-epa-grist/

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24032021/formosa-petrochemical-plant-cancer-alley-louisiana-report/

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https://projects.propublica.org/louisiana-toxic-air/

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919 desmog

Chinese giant Wanhua Chemical officially withdrew its plans to build a $1.25 billion plastics manufacturing complex in St. James, Louisiana, in the heart of the already industrialized Cancer Alley. The news bought relief to opponents of the plant.

“I’m glad they won’t be coming,” Eve Butler, a lifelong resident of St. James Parish, told me in a call. “I live straight across the river from where the plant was going to be built.” Butler was part of a group of residents, local community groups, and environmental advocacy nonprofits that took part in a concentrated battle to stop the Wanhua plant from being built.

READ MORe

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There is a lot of evidence suggesting that we need to be a lot more careful about these cellphones.The World Health Organization has listed them as a possible carcinogen. And just last week, here in the United States, the National Institutes of Health had a major study, peer-reviewed, about cellphone radiation. And the peer-review scientists, who are independent of government, said that there was, quote, “clear evidence,” unquote, that cellphones can cause cancer.

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Pollution From Air Force Keeps Causing Cancer in Tucson, Residents Say

Twenty-seven years ago, 1,600 residents of Tucson, Arizona's south side settled an $84.5 million dollar lawsuit with Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon Missile Systems Co.), claiming the Air Force contractor had been dumping the industrial solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) into the water table for 29 years since 1952, causing cancers and other ailments.

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/04/concerned-citizens-st-john-louisiana-cancer-alley-pollution-fight

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As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the leadership of Scott Pruitt moves to make it easier for big industry to dump dangerous chemicals into the nation's air and water, the agency announced late Monday that it is dissolving a program that funds studies on the effects of pollution and chemical exposure on America's children.

Called the National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), the program previously provided millions of dollars in grants per year to researchers studying the effects of chemicals on children's health. The EPA's move, first reported by The Hill, will eliminate the NCER in the process of consolidating three EPA offices.

Critics responded to the move with outrage, denouncing it as "truly wicked" and further proof of the Trump administration's willingness to sacrifice the health of the public in the service of its corporate-friendly deregulatory agenda.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/african-americans-air-pollution-2509714660.html

African Americans Disproportionately Suffer Health Effects of Oil and Gas Facilities

African American communities face a disproportionate risk of health issues caused by gas and oil pollution, according to a report issued Tuesday by two advocacy groups.

The report from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Clean Air Task Force noted the importance of Obama-era U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that finalized standard for methane and ozone smog-forming volatile organic compound (VOCs). The report states that if the Trump administration's dismantling of environmental regulations continues, the situation for African Americans will worsen.

The study found oil and natural gas facilities were built or currently exist within a half-mile of more than one million African Americans, exposing these communities to higher risks of cancer due to toxic emissions."African-Americans are exposed to 38 percent more polluted air than Caucasian Americans, and they are 75 percent more likely to live in fence-line communities than the average American," the report said, referring to neighborhoods near to gas and oil facilities.

Counties located in the Gulf Coast Basin are home to the most counties with oil refineries and higher percentages of African Americans. Michigan, Louisiana and Tennessee, the report found, have the highest percentage of African American residents living in oil refinery counties. Texas and Louisiana, both in the Gulf Coast Basin, were home to the largest African American individuals at risk for cancer, with nearly 900,000 living in areas above the EPA's level of concern.

"The effects of oil and gas pollution are disproportionately afflicting African Americans, particularly cancer and respiratory issues, and the trend is only increasing," said Dr. Doris Browne, the National Medical Association President.

The report also found that oil and natural gas industries violate the EPA's air quality standards from natural gas emissions-related ozone smog in numerous African communities, causing more than 130,000 asthma attacks among school children. This results in more than 100,000 missed school days each year.

Defending the environmental protections finalized during the Obama administration and advocating for additional protections against pollution from the oil and gas industry will help improve the health of many African American communities, the study noted.

But the Trump administration has already begun to dismantle Obama-era EPA steps taken in 2016 that aimed to clean up toxic air pollutants such as benzene, formaldehyde and sulfur dioxide. It is also taking aim at 2016 EPA actions that address the 1.2 million existing sources of methane pollution and other airborne pollution. The White House claims these regulations are unnecessary industry burdens. The Trump administration's moves are being challenged in courts around the country.

"What this administration is discovering as it attempts to undo vital health and environmental protections is that these sensible standards cannot simply be wished away, only to the benefit of the oil and gas industry," said Sarah Uhl, program director of short-lived climate pollutants for Clean Air Task Force.

...

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https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-refinery-catches-fire-2505402070.html

Exxon Refinery Catches Fire Day After Government Settles Over Pollution From Other Gulf Plants

By Julie Dermansky

Early morning skies Wednesday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were alight from a fire that started around 2:30 a.m. at an ExxonMobil refinery. The blaze, though contained before the sun came up, is a reminder to the surrounding community of yet another danger of living next to refineries and chemical plants.

Exxon's refinery is located along the stretch of Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans known as "Cancer Alley" due to the high number of chemical plants and refineries—and illnesses possibly connected to emissions—along the river's banks.

Exxon issued a statement to CBS affiliate WAFB while the fire smoldered, saying the community was not impacted by emissions from the refinery fire and that air quality readings were "below detectable limits."

Mary Lee Orr, executive director of The Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), questions the possibility of making such a determination so fast. Her group has been working with Cancer Alley communities, helping to reduce their exposure to pollution from the area's oil and petrochemical industry.

Exxon's Baton Rouge refinery is adjacent to one of the company's eight facilities named in a settlement reached with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and announced Oct. 31.

Last year LEAN filed a lawsuit against an Exxon chemical facility in Baton Rouge, next to the refinery that caught on fire Wednesday. That suit alleges the facility has been violating the Clean Air Act by failing to report pollution releases correctly. Lisa Jordan, director of Tulane University's Environmental Legal Clinic and representing LEAN in this case, said it is too early to say how the recent agreement between the federal government and Exxon will impact their own case. Jordan said LEAN's case encompasses a broader range of issues than those in the one recently settled.

According to the DOJ, the settlement "resolves allegations that ExxonMobil violated the Clean Air Act by failing to properly operate and monitor industrial flares at their petrochemical facilities, which resulted in excess emissions of harmful air pollution."

It requires Exxon to install and operate air pollution control and monitoring technology to reduce air pollution from 26 industrial flares at five facilities in Texas and three in Louisiana, at a cost of about $300 million. In addition, the company must pay a civil penalty of $2.5 million.

Some environmental groups have described the fines as a slap on the wrist, but LEAN'S technical adviser Wilma Subra believes the settlement is substantial. "The amount of money to be spent on air pollution improvements is a positive step in the right direction," she told me.

However, Subra is concerned that the air pollution monitoring devices in the agreement will only monitor benzene, which is known to cause cancer. In her view, Exxon should be required to monitor a whole host of other potentially harmful chemicals it is emitting.

The instances of pollution cited in the recently settled suit do not include emissions from any of Exxon's Texas facilities affected by Hurricane Harvey. Subra pointed out that the pollution incidents at Texas refineries and chemical facilities following the hurricane show that industry has no method for controlling pollution when hurricanes hit, something she hopes industry will change soon.

Exxon's Baytown, Texas, operation was among the eight industrial facilities included in the recent settlement. It was also one of the plants that reported pollution releases due to Hurricane Harvey. In this case, the refinery's roof sank due to the storm's heavy rains, which resulted in the release of hazardous gases—including volatile organic compounds and benzene above permitted levels, according to the New York Times.

Or also sees the agreement between Exxon and the Trump administration as a positive step toward protecting Cancer Alley communities. But "sadly, in the short term, the agreement won't help the community," she told me. "It will take time to implement the new pollution reduction devices."

And though EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt stated that "this agreement shows, EPA is dedicated to partnering with states to address critical environmental issues and improving compliance in the regulated community to prevent future violations of the law," the agency under Trump has been racing to undo its previous work. Recently Pruitt announced a measure to repeal former President Barack Obama's EPA policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, a plan Trump's EPA has concluded would have substantial health benefits.

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}:

Furthermore, a list of potential names for the agency's Science Advisory Board and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee includes a sizable increase in industry representatives and consultants, as reported by the Intercept. On that list are two scientists who have worked for Exxon, indicating the oil and gas giant could have greater influence over EPA science and policies in the future.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-harvey-sierra-club-2479986746.html

chem toxic facilities

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A group of residents in St. Gabriel, a suburb of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is no stranger to industrial pollution. The small town is on the banks of the Mississippi River in a stretch of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge containing more than 100 petrochemical factories. To the industry, it’s known as the “Petrochemical Corridor,” but to everyone else it’s “Cancer Alley.” This fact is fueling a local drive to stop any new industrial plans that would add to the area’s already heavy pollution burden.

The Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) has been assisting the Citizens for a Better St. Gabriel, a citizens group formed with the goal of halting one such company from expanding operations in their neighborhood. 

The company, Adsorbent Solutions, has run an industrial recycling facility in St. Gabriel since 2008, and is already on the hook for a $30,000 fine from state regulators for non-compliance, which includes polluting a local waterway and violating Clean Air Act permits repeatedly in recent years.

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frack kid leukemia

http://www.ecowatch.com/leukemia-oil-gas-wells-2280665249.html

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mossville LA

ONE OF THE FIRST FREE TOWNS FOUNDED BY FORMER SLAVES IS BEING TAKEN OVER BY BIG OIL see alsohere. 10/15.

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/04/erasing-mossville-how-pollution-killed-a-louisiana-town/

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korea samsung

http://www.alternet.org/environment/samsung-blame-cancers-former-employees

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Also, NYT reporter Eric Lipton wrote an article on Louisiana charity the

Jindal Foundation, to which Dow contributed $100,000. The paragraph on Dow

noted neither it nor UCC have been fined for a:{ December 2009 chemical

spill in St. Charles parish, }:despite the state proposing a fine for the

companies. The article as a whole questions whether companies are

influencing Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal through the charitable

foundation, which is run under his wife's name.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/us/politics/03jindal.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

bs by

tTrans Am Clin Climatol Assocv.116; 2005PMC1473137

Logo of tacca

Trans Am Clin Climatol Assoc. 2005; 116: 115–125.

PMCID: PMC1473137

Cancer Corridors and Toxic Terrors—is it Safe to Eat and Drink?

Frederic T Billings, III

Corresponding author: Frederic T. Billings III, M.D., Louisiana Hematology Oncology Associates, 4950 Essen Lane, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70809, Phone: 225.767.1311, Fax: 225.767.1335, ; Email: moc.dribyram@bcirederf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1473137/

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In 1987 some residents in the tiny community of St. Gabriel, Louisiana, called Jacobs Drive, the street on which they lived, "cancer alley" because there were fifteen cancer victims in a two-block stretch. Half a mile away, there were seven cancer victims living on one block. The eighty-five-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans was formerly referred to as the "petrochemical corridor" but after reports of numerous cases of cancer occurring in the small rural communities on both sides of the river, the entire area became known as cancer alley.

In 2002 Louisiana had the second-highest death rate from cancer in the United States. Although the national average is 206 deaths per 100,000, Louisiana's rate is 237.3 deaths per 100,000.

In 2000 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data showed that Louisiana ranked second throughout the nation for total onsite releases, third for total releases within the state, and fourth for total on- and offsite releases. Louisiana, which has a population of 4,469,970 people, produced 9,416,598,055 pounds of waste in 2000. Seven of the ten plants in the state with the largest combined on- and offsite releases are located in cancer alley, and four of the ten plants with the largest onsite releases in the state are located there.

Industrial accidents and accidental releases are common occurrences in cancer alley. For instance, in 1994 Condea Vista (Conoco) located in Lake Charles reported thirty-nine chemical accidents that released 129,500 pounds of chemicals. The following year, Condea Vista reported ninety accidental chemical releases. In 1997 the company was charged with contaminating local groundwater supplies by discharging between 19 to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride (EDC), a suspected human carcinogen, into a local stream. In 1999 hundreds of unskilled laborers filed suit against Condea Vista, claiming they were exposed to EDC while cleaning up a spill from a leaking underground pipeline.

The population of cancer alley is primarily African-American and low-income. Despite the large number of industrial facilities—more than 136—unemployment is high in many communities and most residents do not have a college education. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of cancer alley have been organizing to limit the siting of noxious facilities in their neighborhoods. The most famous case of community resistance occurred in Convent, where, in 1996, Shintech announced plans to build a $700 million chlor-alkali vinyl complex that would be permitted to emit 611,700 pounds of contaminants into the air. The battle between Shintech and Covent garnered international attention. Finally, in 1998 Shintech decided to abandon its plans to build a plant in Convent.

Bibliography

Centers for Disease Control. (2002). Cancer Prevention and Control "Cancer Burden Data Fact Sheets, Louisiana." Atlanta, GA.

Coyle, Marcia. (1992). "Company Will Not Build Plant: Lawyers Hail Victory." The National Law Journal, October 19, p. 3.

Internet Resource

Sierra Club Web site. "Toxics." Available from http://www.sierraclub.org/toxics.

Dorceta E. Taylor

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corpwatch

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=989

Shintech Environmental Racism

Lousiana Environmental Action Network and Greenpeace USA

September 1st, 1999

In September 1998, the environmental justice movement in the US had a very important victory against a major corporation, Shintech, a subsidiary of Shin-etsu Chemical of Japan. Under intense pressure from local, national, and international groups, Shintech decided not to build a highly polluting plant in Convent, Louisiana. But, in a move that concerned citizens worldwide should heed, Shintech decided to locate its factory in a nearby community, close to Convent, the original proposed community. We cannot organize against TNC's such as Shin-etsu Chemical with a Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) principle, but rather a Not In Anybody's Back Yard principle.

Shintech Protest

In 1996, Shintech, a subsidiary of the Japanese firm, Shin-Etsu Chemical, announced plans to spend $700 million building 3 chemical factories and an incinerator next to homes and schools in Convent, Louisiana, a small community (population 2052) in southern Louisiana, USA.

Each year, the Shintech plant in Convent would produce 1.1 billion pounds of polyvinyl chloride (PVC, better known as vinyl).Shintech officials acknowledge that their "state of the art" plant would be permitted to emit 611,700 pounds of toxic air contaminants each year, adding tons of cancer-causing toxic chemicals (including dioxin) to an area that is already heavily polluted. That's almost 300 pounds of industrial poisons for each man, woman and child in Convent each year. This area is known locally as "Cancer Alley" because of the high rates of cancer among residents there.

The production of vinyl chloride and PVC at large facilities such as the one proposed by Shintech threatened the local environment with air pollution (including emissions from an on-site incinerator), groundwater contamination and the spread of dioxin, the most toxic chemical ever synthesized.

The people of Convent saw Shintech's plan as a continuation of years of race, class and environmental injustice --more disadvantaged people being dumped on by the chemical industry. The chemical industry sees it as a continuation of past triumphs.

Environmental Racism

The site where Shintech wanted to build is just hundreds of yards from the nearby African-American community of Romeville. Convent is 82% African American and 40% of the residents live at or below the poverty line. The area in Convent nearest to the proposed construction site is 95% African American. The facility would be located 1.5 miles from an elementary school whose student population is 98% African-American.

Environmental racism is racial discrimination in environmental policy making and the enforcement of environmental laws. When environmental racism occurs, people of color are excluded from participating in important environmental policy decisions impacting their lives and communities, and become victims of disproportionate exposure to environmental contamination. The mostly African American and poor community of Convent is a victim of policies of environmental racism. The attempt to add Shintech to the town's existing polluters in close proximity to the black community reflects a pattern of environmental racism practiced in the area and the entire Cancer Alley region.

Already, two communities that once lived along the Mississippi (and were established before the chemical industry arrived) have been destroyed by the vinyl chloride industry. People living in Reveilletown (which once sat next to the Georgia Gulf plant in Plaquemine) and Morrissonville (next to Dow in Plaquemine) were forced to sell their houses and relocate because of groundwater contamination and the dangerous proximity of the plants. The destruction of these communities is just one example of the blatant arrogance of the vinyl industry.

Little Boy Protesting Shintech Project img

A Threat To Us All

Not only does the Shintech facility threaten the people and local environment in St. James Parish, but the massive chemical complex would produce PVC -- and threaten the health of people globally. PVC products and the chemicals used to create them are linked to cancers, reproductive disorders and impaired mental development. Key among these chemicals is dioxin.

Dioxin is a group of chemicals known to cause a range of effects at exquisitely small levels of exposure. There is no safe level of dioxin. Because we all already carry a dangerously high level of dioxin in our bodies, no new sources of dioxin should be acceptable.

No vinyl chloride manufacturer can run their process -- no matter how "state of the art" they claim it is -- without making dioxin. No vinyl chloride manufacturer can guarantee that their products won't cause more dioxin to form when their products are burned in accidental fires or incinerators. The only way to prevent the spread of more dioxin is thus to stop the spread of this poisonous plastic. This means putting a moratorium on dioxin factories like the proposed Shintech facility.

Other Hazards Posed by Shintech

There are other problems posed by Shintech and plants like it. These include:

Massive energy requirements. Most of these are met by burning fossil fuels, which contributes to the global burden of greenhouse gases which are tied to global warming.

Accidental spills, leaks and explosions Local people cannot be guaranteed protection from these events, which occur regularly at VCM plants.

High rates of worker-related illnesses, including liver and other types of cancer.

The production of huge quantities of other toxic chemicals, including PCBs, Hexachlorobenzene, Hexachlorobutadiene and a stew of other carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Many of these chemicals build up in the environment, threatening the local commercial fishing industry. Some, such as PCBs, have been found in dolphins and fish that have washed ashore from the Gulf of Mexico in recent years.

Some of the chemicals released to the air are also ozone- depleting chemicals. Thus the PVC industry is also contributing to the growing destruction of the protective ozone layer.

Economic Injustice

Not only do VCM plants cause environmental and other kinds of damage, but they can also be disruptive to local and regional economies, because they employ few people while receiving huge tax and energy subsidies.

Shintech was expected to receive almost $130 million in subsidies, including:

A ten-year industrial property tax exemption valued at $94.5 million.

Enterprise zone status, which provides for the rebate of sales and use taxes during construction, valued at $35 million.

A corporate income tax credit of $2,500 for each new job created. Shintech would get a credit of $412,500 for the estimated 165 permanent jobs it says it will create.

All of this corporate welfare comes at the expense of Louisiana taxpayers, who must pick up the tab in order to keep their roads (which will bear increased traffic, some of it dangerous) and schools in shape. Very few of the jobs created by this plant will go to local residents, because of the technical training required.

Because Shintech's proposed PVC plant was viewed as a particularly hazardous facility, which will contribute to the already heavy toxic burden of the Convent area, and will be located within a poor and mostly African American community, string opposition has developed to the project.

In addition to mobilization of national opposition to Shintech by a variety of groups, including entertainers, elected officials, and civil rights organizations, the campaign to oppose Shintech used three laws to challenge Shintech's proposed facility.

Convent residents and 16 environmental and public interest organizations, filed a citizens' petition under Title V of the Clean Air Act that demanded an objection to air permits proposed for Shintech by the state of Louisiana.

They filed a petition with EPA that claimed that Convent is a community that has the protection of the President's Executive Order of 1994 on Environmental Justice.

Tulane University Law Clinic filed a Title VI complaint on behalf of African American residents under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars racial discrimination by entities receiving federal funds. The complaint says that a permit issued to Shintech would be racially discriminatory under Title VI.

While all these legal battles were taking place, in September, 1999, Shintech announced that it not continue with plans to build a vinyl factory in Convent, Louisiana, and would locate a slightly different plant in the nearby community of Plaquemine, Louisiana. The announcement was a major victory for environmental justice, and the efforts to mobilize public opposition to Shintech's PVC facility paid off. The battle, however, now moves to Plaquemine, because the manufacture of PVC is a highly dangerous process to humankind. The Shintech case became the most watched and important civil rights case ever involving charges of environmental racism.

Mrs. Imelda West, and Pat Melancon, leaders of St. James Citizens For Jobs and the Environment said, "This fight is far from over. We are being cautious about the details of this announcement and want to make clear that we will work with the people of Plaquemine to stop Shintech."

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pjt 21 ridenour bs martin:

BS evil

In 1996, Shintech Inc. - a Japanese chemical company - wanted to build a $700 million facility in Convent, Louisiana to make the polyvinyl chloridethat is used in building materials, upholstery and clothing. Shintech promised to hire hundreds of area residents for the construction of the plant and provide $500,000 in local job training. After the plant was built, it would employ 165 people with salaries beginning at $12 an hour - twice the average wage area residents made working in the region's sugar cane fields.

Shintech was never able to build the plant in this poor, job-starved community. Despite strong local support among residents, politicians and the NAACP, EPA officials in Washington, D.C. - at the urging of environmentalists - denied Shintech a permit based on concerns about environmental justice.

Despite strong local support among residents, politicians and the NAACP, EPA officials in Washington, D.C. -- at the urging of environmentalists -- denied Shintech a permit based on concerns about environmental justice. 

Environmental justice policies are supposed to keep businesses from inflicting a "disparate impact" on minority communities, but this vague definition does not weigh the costs against the benefits of introducing a job-producing industry to a poverty-stricken area. To the elitists in the environmental movement, it's a black and white issue where businesses are guilty until proven innocent. In reality, it's about black and white jobs. Those people who need jobs the most often find their prospects gloomier after environmental justice concerns are raised. 

Former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer has complained that the EPA's environmental justice policies are "so vague and so broad that it nullifies everything that we have done to attract companies." It seems activists are willing to make an issue out of just about everything. When a formerly blighted neighborhood in Harlem was cleaned up and a Home Depot that created 400 area jobs moved in, it was criticized by environmentalists because it wasn't a "clean industry" like a school and increased area truck traffic... 

In 2000, The National Center for Public Policy Research surveyed 69 community-level environmental groups about "environmental justice." When presented with the choice between jobs and justice, 72 percent didn't think jobs or wages should be sacrificed to achieve environmental goals. Likewise, 57 percent said environmental goals must be balanced with economic opportunity. 

Environmental goals are important, but they cannot come at the expense of people and their livelihoods....

http://www.nationalcenter.org/2004/04/outsourcing-our-jobs.html

Table of Contents

• Problem
• Background
• Key Actors
• Demographics
• Strategies Used
• Solutions
• Recommendations
• Key Contacts
• Back to Environmental Justice Case Studies

Above image taken fromMapquest, 1999.

The Problem

In 1996, Shintech, which is a Japanese subsidiary of Shin Etsu, proposed to build a $700 million polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in Convent, Louisiana. The plant would consist of three chemical factories and an incinerator. Convent is in St. James Parish (counties in Louisiana are called parishes). St. James Parish is located in the heart of what has become known as "Cancer Alley". It is an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Cancer Alley gets its name from the over 140 petrochemical and other industrial plants with which higher rates of cancer and other medical problems have been associated. St. James Parish is considered by the Environmental Defense Fund to be one of America's 25 most polluted counties. It is home to over eight chemical plants, which emitted 17 million pounds of toxic emissions in 1995. The people of St. James Parish are already overburdened with toxic emissions. The Shintech PVC plant would emit an additional 600,000 pounds of toxic chemicals and 6.8 million gallons of wastewater into the Mississippi River each year. Chemical discharges into the water would include benzene, methyl chloride, carbon tetrachloride and ethylene dichloride. The Mississippi River is the source of water for many Louisiana cities including New Orleans. The issue of Shintech's proposed PVC plant is controversial not only because the residents are already overburdened with toxic emissions, but because the population is predominately African-American.

Back to Table of Contents

Background

The Shintech case is a controversial issue because it is a test of whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will protect people of color and low-income communities in accordance with President Clinton's Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice. Executive Order 12898 states that federal agencies must identify and address the disproportionate effects of environmental hazards on minority and low-income communities. Four years before Shintech announced its plans to build a PVC plant in Convent; the Louisiana State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on environmental racism in Louisiana. The report stated that, existing hazardous waste and chemical facilities disproportionately impacted many African-American communities along the industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

In 1996, Shintech announced its plans to build a PVC plant in Convent. A public hearing regarding the proposed air permit for Shintech was held on December 9, 1996. Three hundred citizens showed up to voice their opposition. In response to such strong opposition, the Region VI EPA recommended that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) address environmental justice concerns before making their final decision regarding the issuance of the air permit. Regardless of overwhelming public concern, on May 23, 1997, the Louisiana DEQ granted Shintech its Title V air permit. Previously, in February 1997, Shintech was issued its land use permit. The only remaining permit necessary for operation was the water permit. In the summer of 1998, the EPA was scheduled to issue a final decision on the Shintech case. However, in June of 1998, the EPA's final decision was delayed because it had asked its Science Advisory Board (SAB) to review its techniques in determining disproportionate "burden". The EPA assesses disproportionate burden using data from the 1990 census and estimates of industry-reported air emissions. The SAB decision was expected in October 1998. After more than two years of struggle, Shintech announced on September 17, 1998 that it would back out of its plans to build a PVC plant in Convent, Louisiana.

Back to Table of Contents

Key Actors

Shintech

The major proponent of the PVC plant in Convent is Shintech. Shintech is a subsidiary of the Japanese company Shin Etsu. One of Shin Etsu's products is polyvinyl chloride, which is used in making plastic pipes and other products. Shintech planned to spend $700 million on the PVC plant in Convent, Louisiana.Shintech has contributed millions of dollars to plant supporters including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the campaigns of Louisiana's governor, Mike Foster and the Louisiana Supreme Court justice races.

Citizens of Convent

Although some citizens of Convent would like Shintech to build their PVC plant for employment opportunities, a majority of Convent citizens are opposed to the PVC plant. Opponents have formed a group called St. James Citizens for Jobs and the Environment (SJCJE). SJCJE is very active in fighting Shintech. The group has about 100 members. One member, Emelda West, recently took a trip to Japan to talk to Shin Etsu representatives in person and ask that they not build a PVC plant in her town.

EPA

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is very important in this case because it makes the final decision on whether Shintech will be allowed to build a PVC plant in Convent.

Tulane University Environmental Law Clinic (TUELC)[vitter alam mater?]

The TUELC has helped the citizens of Convent by providing them with legal services in their fight against Shintech. With the help of the TUELC, citizens have appealed to the EPA claiming that Shintech's PVC plant would violate the Clean Air Act of 1990 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

As a result of their victory over Shintech, Louisiana's business lobby has persuaded the Louisiana Supreme Court to place tough restrictions on what the student legal clinics can and cannot do. Rules now say that the clinics are only allowed to help the poorest of the poor. This includes individuals with a yearly income of $10,056 or less, or $20,563 for a family of four. These rules severely limit whom the legal clinics are allowed to serve. This in turn is beneficial to industry because it makes it harder for citizens to obtain legal help to fight off industry.

Back to Table of Contents

Demographics

In general, communities with ethylene dichloride (EDC) and vinyl chloride monomers (VCM) facilities are disproportionately burdened. EDC and VCM are the basic building blocks of vinyl. Communities with EDC or VCM facilities:

• Have a 55% higher percentage of people of color than the national average
• Have a 48% higher percentage of people of color below the poverty line
• Have a 9% lower household income than the national average

• Have a 24% lower per capita income than the national averageThe population of Convent, LA is 2,676 people. According to an article in Life magazine, the population within a four mile radius of the plant site is 84% African-American. The per capita income in Convent is $7,635 and 40% of the population is below the poverty line. The toxic emissions from Shintech's proposed PVC plant would expose the African-American population in Convent to 71-242% more airborne pollutants than the white population.

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Strategies Used

The people of Convent have been very effective in preventing Shintech from building a PVC plant in their town. They have used several strategies to counter Shintech's plans. First of all, the citizens mobilized to form an organization called St. James Citizens for Jobs and the Environment (SJCJE). Citizens attended the public hearings that were held regarding the issuance of permits to Shintech. Citizens also filed complaints with the EPA under Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. As of August 1998, 58 Title VI complaints had been filed with the EPA. SJCJE invited Carol Browner, chief of the EPA, to come to Convent so she can see for herself what the citizens have to deal with.Residents have also gained help from a variety of political and religious leaders. These include Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC), and all the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They have also received support from celebrities like Bonnie Raitt.

The residents of Convent have also used very direct strategies to fight off Shintech. For example, before a hearing for Shintech's water permit, special bottles of "Lake Charles Spring Water" were presented to the DEQ. The water was taken from Lake Charles in Mossville where a vinyl chloride monomer manufacturer leaked hazardous waste into the groundwater. A similar situation is highly probable in Convent, and if the DEQ felt the Shintech plant would be operate safely, they could prove it by drinking the water.

Emelda West, who has been a resident of Convent for almost 80 years, has made numerous trips to talk to officials about the dangers the PVC plant would produce. Her latest trip was to Tokyo, Japan to talk with Shin Etsu's president and CEO, Chihiro Kanagawa. She took with her a package of letters and petitions from 1,150 St. James Parish residents voicing their opposition to Shintech's plant.

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Solutions

The more than two years of hard work have paid off for Convent citizens. On September 17, 1998, Shintech announced that it would not build a PVC plant in Convent. Instead, Shintech plans to build a smaller, $250 million PVC plant in nearby Plaquemine. Shintech plans to withdraw permit applications for St. James Parish when the Plaquemine site is approved. The plant in Plaquemine will be cheaper because Shintech will pump in raw materials like chlorine and vinyl chloride from a nearby Dow Chemical plant, instead of producing the raw materials themselves.Back to Table of Contents

Recommendations

To be honest, I do not think the residents of Convent need any further recommendations. The issue turned from a local issue to a national environmental justice issue. Such broad coverage enabled them to gain support from many political leaders. They received help from an environmental law clinic, but were not dependent on them. The battle was always fought by the citizens, not by outsiders. This way, the fate of their town was in their hands not someone who was removed from the situation who may not fully understand what it is like to live near chemical companies. Perhaps, if Shintech had not decided to withdraw its permit application, the residents could have practiced acts of non-violence and non-cooperation to prevent the plant from being built in their town. But after two long years of hard work, it finally paid off. Shintech will not be building a PVC plant in Convent, Louisiana.Back to Table of Contents

Key Contacts

For more information regarding Convent, or if you would like to remain updated, participate, or become involved in this environmental struggle, you can contact:Greenpeace U.S.A. (202)319-2436

Emelda West (504)562-3582

Paul Mohai (734)763-4598

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Over the years, Greenpeacehas repeatedly been the target of public relations firms working for industry, and the group has experienced burglaries and caught would-be spies posing as students seeking employment. But Greenpeace officials say they did not know that their organization was under surveillance during that period of time.

In the late 1990s, Greenpeace was working with environmental groups in the stretch of Louisiana dubbed "Cancer Alley," organizing against various forms of industry pollution. Its work there and that of its Louisiana partners became another target for BBI. In 1998, according to BBI emails, correspondence, and records, BBI retained Mary Lou Sapone, a self-described "research consultant," who recruited a paid operative in Louisiana to infiltrate an environmental group called CLEAN. Sapone had something of a talent for infiltrating activist groups. In the late 1980s, working for a security firm called Perceptions International, which was, in turn, working for the U.S. Surgical Corporation, she penetrated a Connecticut-based animal-rights group, gathering evidence on an activist who would later serve jail time for planting a pipe bomb near the parking space of the company's CEO. The activist would eventually accused Sapone of coaxing her into the plot.

Sapone's operative in Louisiana relayed to her information on what the local enviros were planning, provided gossip on the internal rivalries, and identified the scientists aiding the groups. She passed the intelligence to BBI. In an August 20, 1998 "client briefing," BBI boasted that "our operative is being nominated to the citizen action panels for local industries" and it asked which local industry Condea Vista, the chemical manufacturing firm, would prefer the operative to focus on. (The previous year, Condea Vista had lost a lawsuit brought by the residents of Lake Charles, Louisiana, against the company for the 1994 ethylene dichloride leak and had been slapped with a $7 million judgment.) Another BBI document noted, "The operative has been trained to be inquiring, but not participatory. Operatives are not allowed to offer suggestions or `help' targets in any way. They are trained to seek documents, ID friends and foe legislators and regulators, follow money trails, ID informants, discover future targets."

BBI produced detailed confidential reports for Ketchum on the environmental activism underway in Louisiana. And BBI records indicate that the firm worked for Nichols-Dezenhall on a "Condea Vista Project." Citing "strict confidentiality agreements," Dezenhall will not say whether his firm worked with Condea Vista (or any other company), but he notes in an email, "It would be extremely damaging and wrong…to interpret or portray the term 'operative,' a generic term often used by investigators and former law enforcement types to mean an individual, as implying someone necessarily engaged in illicit actions such as corporate espionage." (Sapone did not respond to a message requesting comment.)

 wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley

Cancer Alley (French: Allée du Cancer) is an area along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in the River Parishes of Louisiana, that contains numerous industrial plants. Locations in this area with clusters of cancer patients have been covered by the media, leading to the "Cancer Alley" moniker; however, no credible peer-reviewed scientific study has demonstrated elevated cancer incidence or mortality associated with living or working in this area.

History

In 1987, some residents in the tiny community of :{St. Gabriel, :(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:Louisiana called Jacobs Drive, the street on which they lived, "cancer alley" because of fifteen cancer cases in a two-block stretch. Half a mile away, there were seven cancer victims living on one block. The eighty-five-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans was formerly referred to as the "petrochemical corridor" but after media coverage of cancer victims in the small rural communities on both sides of the river, the entire area became known as cancer alley.0

In 2002 Louisiana had the second-highest death rate from cancer in the United States. Although the national average is 206 deaths per 100,000, Louisiana's rate is 237.3 deaths per 100,000. At the same time, the death rate from cancer in the area dubbed cancer alley was lower than the rest of Louisiana, as well as the national average^[1].

In 2000 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data showed that Louisiana ranked second throughout the nation for total onsite releases, third for total releases within the state, and fourth for total on- and offsite releases. Louisiana, which has a population of 4,469,970 people, produced 9,416,598,055 pounds of waste in 2000. Seven of the ten plants in the state with the largest combined on- and offsite releases are located in cancer alley, and four of the ten plants with the largest onsite releases in the state are located there. ^[2][3][4]

Cancer studies

A peer-reviewed study by scientists at the Shell Oil Company found that the cancer rate in this area was lower than state and national averages. ^[5] As one of the corporations which owns plants in the area, Shell Oil has a conflict of interest with respect to this issue. No credible study has found a higher incidence of cancer or mortality than would be normally be expected.

A peer-reviewed study by Frederic T. Billings III, M.D., found that while Louisiana has a much higher than average lung cancer rate, the source is not the "cancer alley" parishes, but the other parishes of Louisiana, where above-average tobacco smoking rates are likely the cause of the vast majority of the cancers.^[6]

See also

• Cancer cluster
• Love Canal

References

1. ^ Tsai SP, Cardarelli KM, Wendt JK, Fraser AE (April 2004). "Mortality patterns among residents in Louisiana's industrial corridor, USA, 1970-99". Occup Environ Med 61 (4): 295–304. DOI:10.1136/oem.2003.007831. PMC 1740760. PMID 15031386.
2. ^ http://www.pollutionissues.com/Br-Co/Cancer-Alley-Louisiana.html^{[unreliable source?]}
3. ^ Centers for Disease Control. (2002). Cancer Prevention and Control "Cancer Burden Data Fact Sheets, Louisiana." Atlanta, GA.
4. ^ Coyle, Marcia. (1992). "Company Will Not Build Plant: Lawyers Hail Victory." The National Law Journal, October 19, p. 3.
5. ^ Tsai SP, Cardarelli KM, Wendt JK, Fraser AE (April 2004). "Mortality patterns among residents in Louisiana's industrial corridor, USA, 1970-99". Occup Environ Med 61 (4): 295–304. DOI:10.1136/oem.2003.007831. PMC 1740760. PMID 15031386.
6. ^ Billings FT (2005). "Cancer corridors and toxic terrors—is it safe to eat and drink?". Trans. Am. Clin. Climatol. Assoc. 116: 115–24; discussion 125. PMC 1473137. PMID 16555610.

Further reading

• Nitzkin JL (April 1992). "Cancer in Louisiana: a public health perspective". J La State Med Soc 144 (4): 162. PMID 1613306.
• The documentary film "Fuel" by Josh Tickell. [www.thefuelfilm.com]

External links

• http://www.pollutionissues.com/Br-Co/Cancer-Alley-Louisiana.html
• Cancer Alley: Myth or Fact?, Unwelcome Neighbors: How the poor bear the burdens of America's pollution. New Orleans Times-Picayune.
• http://www.nola.com/speced/unwelcome/index.ssf?/speced/unwelcome/stories/0524b.html
• Cancer Alley. BBC.

treehugger

There's a region in Louisiana known as cancer alley (or chemical corridor, take your pick). You can guess why. Cancer claims victims at an alarming rate along the 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where more than 140 industrial plants spew pollution into the air and water.

Where is Cancer Alley?

Set in the middle isSt. James Parish (Louisiana's counties are called parishes), considered by the Environmental Defense Fund to be one of America's 25 most polluted counties. Louisiana had the second-highest death rate from cancer in the U.S. in 2002; it had also been ranked second in the U.S. by the EPA for total onsite releases of chemicals and pollutants. Pat Melancon, a local activist, told Bill Moyers last year:

We've got just about every kind of chemical plant that you can imagine here. Most of these chemicals are either known cancer-causing chemicals or they're suspected to cause cancer in humans.

Right now, I have a father-in-law that's dying of pancreatic cancer. I lost my mother at 57 from cancer. My neighbor died of cancer. The next-door neighbor to us, my aunt behind us, all died of cancer.

Another local activist, as featured in a Sierra Club newsletter:

The reason is our refineries are our parish's largest private employer. It's not easy for our friends and family to talk about our cancer... I do not believe that citizens have to file suit with oil refineries to get clean air in our parish. I paid my taxes and expect DEQ to clean up this mess so I can begin to enjoy my family and retirement.

Yet DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) has not cleaned up the mess. And Mossville, LA (a town in cancer alley) was recently denied Superfund status, despite local residents' pleas for help.

Can Cancer Alley See Environmental Justice?

Like other cases of environmental justice, it's no accident that the population in cancer alley is primarily minority and low-income. The alarming cancer rates are most often associated to all the industrial and petrochemical plants nearby, although Shell Oil has commissioned studies seeking to prove the cancer rate isn't actually higher in cancer alley.

But many don't buy it. This from pollutionissues.com:

Industrial accidents and accidental releases are common occurrences in cancer alley. For instance, in 1994 Condea Vista (Conoco) located in Lake Charles reported thirty-nine chemical accidents that released 129,500 pounds of chemicals. The following year, Condea Vista reported ninety accidental chemical releases. In 1997 the company was charged with contaminating local groundwater supplies by discharging between 19 to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride (EDC), a suspected human carcinogen, into a local stream. In 1999 hundreds of unskilled laborers filed suit against Condea Vista, claiming they were exposed to EDC while cleaning up a spill from a leaking underground pipeline.

Here's Brett Rogers, a documentary filmmaker talking about a boat trip he took first up to Alaska, where communities are fighting to preserve the environment, and then down the Mississippi River, where he is confronted with the realities of what the people in Alaska are trying to prevent. He describes waking up with headaches from sleeping under the smokestacks of cancer alley, and seeing a dead pelican hanging from a tree:

Yet despite the continued health problems and persistent environmental contamination, the North Carolina-based Nucor Corporation was just granted the air permit it needs to open yet another plant in the area, an iron and steelmaking complex.

Eyewitness News reports:

"We do need jobs in Louisiana, and no one is going to negate that," said Jordan Macha, a field organizer for the Sierra Club. "But we need to take into consideration, at what cost? These residents here bared the brunt of these agencies moving into this area. It's been known since the '80s as 'cancer alley.'"...

Neighbors say their biggest concern is a proposed "pig iron" plant in the later phases of Nucor's project. The Sierra Club believes the plant would bring toxic carcinogens to the area.

Focusing on Solutions

This isn't to suggest no one is doing anything about the problems in cancer alley—groups like Advocates for Environmental Human Rights have been fighting, working to prove and publicize the link between pollution in the region and human health, and defending the rights of residents in the area for years. Last year, the organization convinced the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States to admit a complaint of human rights violations and lack of racial equality for the people of Mossville, marking the commission's first environmental racism case in the U.S.

The battle is a long one, but the people fighting it aren't giving up anytime soon.

More on cancer alley

The Importance of Environmental Justice

Ready To Wean Off Oil Yet? DIY Fuel for $1 Per Gallon

Jerome Ringo: A New Face for a New Environmentalism?

TED Talk: Van Jones Links Plastics Pollution with Poverty

Tags: Air Pollution | American Rivers | Cancer | Chemicals | Environmental Justice | Pollution | Rivers

http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/

tenn

http://grist.org/article/dicum/

Meet Robert Bullard, the father of environmental justice

By Gregory Dicum

Robert Bullard says he was “drafted” into environmental justice while working as an environmental sociologist in Houston in the late 1970s. His work there on the siting of garbage dumps in black neighborhoods identified systematic patterns of injustice. The book that Bullard eventually wrote about that work, 1990′s Dumping in Dixie, is widely regarded as the first to fully articulate the concept of environmental justice.

Since then, Bullard, who is as much activist as academic, has been one of the leading voices of environmental-justice advocacy. He was one of the planners of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, at which the organizing principles of modern environmental justice were formulated. Bullard later helped the Clinton administration write the watershed executive order that required all federal agencies to consider environmental justice in their programs.

Under the Bush administration, progress made during the 1990s is under attack, with even the U.S. EPA working to dismantle that provision. As he has for 25 years, Bullard stands at the forefront of efforts to maintain environmental-justice gains, and to make mainstream environmentalists aware of the issues at stake.

Currently on sabbatical from his position as director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, Bullard has just published his 12th book. The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution brings together more than 20 contributors for a survey of the movement’s past and future.

Grist caught up with Bullard as he took a break from working on a Ford Foundation-funded study of how government actions haveendangered the health and welfare of African Americans over the past seven decades. Most recently, this work has turned Bullard’s attention to the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina, which he describes as the latest urban environmental sacrifice zone.

How did you first become involved in environmental justice?

I was a young sociology professor just two years out of graduate school. My wife asked me to collect data for a lawsuit she had filed. A company had decided to put a landfill in the middle of a predominantly black, middle-class, suburban neighborhood — a neighborhood where 85 percent of the people owned their homes. Of course, the state gave them a permit, but the people said “no.”

I saw that 100 percent of all the city-owned landfills in Houston were in black neighborhoods, though blacks made up only 25 percent of the population. Three out of four of the privately owned landfills were located in predominantly black neighborhoods, and six out of eight of the city-owned incinerators. In a city that does not have zoning, it meant that these were decisions made by individuals in government.

That’s how I got dragged into this.

And you got hooked.

I got hooked. I started connecting the dots in terms of housing, residential patterns, patterns of land use, where highways go, where transportation routes go, and how economic-development decisions are made. It was very clear that people who were making decisions — county commissioners or industrial boards or city councils — were not the same people who were “hosting” these facilities in their communities.

Without a doubt, it was a form of apartheid where whites were making decisions and black people and brown people and people of color, including Native Americans on reservations, had no seat at the table.

Just before Hurricane Katrina, you were getting ready to look at natural disasters as part of a study of how government actions endanger the health of African Americans in the South. How does Katrina fit the historical pattern?

Katrina was not isolated. It was not an aberration, and it was not incompetence on the part of FEMA and Michael Brown and the Bush administration. This has been going on for a long time under Republicans and Democrats, and the central theme that drives all of this is race and class.

You’ve done a lot of work with schools. Why is that of particular concern?

Poor children in urban areas are poisoned in their homes. And when they go to school, they get another dose. And when they go outside and play, they get another dose. It’s a slow-motion disaster: the most vulnerable population in our society is children, and the most vulnerable children are children of color. If we protect the most vulnerable in our society — these children — we protect everybody.

Can you give a sense of the scale of the problem surrounding these schools?

Moton Elementary School, in New Orleans, is built on top of a landfill, causing lots of problems with the water in the school. The playgrounds in Norco, La., in Cancer Alley, are across from a huge Shell refinery. You stay there 15 minutes and you can’t breathe. And in South Camden, N.J., there are schools and playgrounds on the waterfront where you have all this industry, all this nasty stuff. Almost two-thirds of the children in that neighborhood have asthma. In West Harlem, the North River Water Treatment Plant covers eight blocks near a school. On the south side of Chicago, it’s the same kind of thing.

From coast to coast, you see this happening. It’s not just the landfill, it’s not just the incinerator, it’s not just the garbage dump, it’s not just the crisscrossing freeway and highway, and the bus barns that dump all that stuff in these neighborhoods — it’s all that combined. Even if each particular facility is in compliance, there are no regulations that take into account this saturation. It may be legal, but it is immoral. Just like slavery was legal, but slavery has always been immoral.

Let’s look at a specific case in which you’re an expert witness: In Dickson County, Tenn., a county that is just over 4 percent black, a landfill was sited in the middle of a poor black community several decades ago. The dump was later a candidate for Superfund status, yet black families contend that authorities told them their water was OK to drink, even as they were telling white families not to drink it. In 2003, one family whose land borders the dump began a lawsuit against the county and the company that allegedly dumped the industrial waste. What does it take for a community to stand up against such comprehensive injustice?

In every struggle, somebody has to step forward, just like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. In this case, it’s the Holt family: they have drawn a line in the dirt and said “no.”

Every time I go there, I’m amazed at their spirits. These are fighters, from strong stock: this is a community of black people who owned land dating back over 100 years. They are resilient. But at the same time, they’re sick. Harry Holt is the patriarch in the family right now, and he has cancer. His daughter, Sheila Holt-Orsted, has cancer. His son has an immune deficiency.

That’s how these lawsuits play out: it’s a waiting game. The people with the money can wait the longest, and the people who are sick generally can’t, because at some point, sick people die. And they know that. That is the cruelty and the horrific nature of environmental racism.

What keeps you going?

People who fight. People like the Holt family. People who do not let the garbage trucks and the landfills and the petrochemical plants roll over them. That has kept me in this movement for the last 25 years.

And in the last 10 years, we’ve been winning: lawsuits are being won, reparations are being paid, apologies are being made. These companies have been put on notice that they can’t do this anymore, anywhere.

It’s no longer overt policy to practice environmental racism in this country, yet it keeps happening. Where is the locus of the problem now?

Now it’s institutional racism. You don’t have a lot of individuals out there wearing sheets and hoods. Instead you see it as the policies get played out. On their face, policies may appear to be race-neutral. They say, “We’re going to look at unemployment, poverty rates, and educational level,” but the poorest areas oftentimes correspond to racialized places. Without even talking about race, you can almost predict where these locally unwanted land uses, or LULUs, will go.

In your 2003 book Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World, you took a look at what sustainability means from an environmental-justice perspective. Is there such a thing as sustainability without justice?

No, there’s not. This whole question of environment, economics, and equity is a three-legged stool. If the third leg of that stool is dealt with as an afterthought, that stool won’t stand. The equity components have to be given equal weight. But racial and economic and social equity can be very painful topics: people get uncomfortable when questions of poor people and race are raised.

In your latest book, you wrote, “Building a multiethnic, multiracial, multi-issue, anti-racist movement is not easy.” That seems like a huge understatement. Has anything like that ever been done?

No. What we’re up against is really trying to disentangle and unpack a lot of baggage, from slavery to colonialism to neo-colonialism to imperialism, and all those -isms that have really served as wedges.

For example, before we had the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, there was very little interaction and understanding and collaboration among African Americans and Latino Americans and Native Americans and Asian and Pacific Islander Americans on anything. We had the civil-rights movement, but the modern civil-rights movement was not necessarily your model multiethnic, multiracial movement.

There was friction and lots of confrontations and animosities in terms of who’s going to lead and the extent to which paternalism and racism and sexism could be eliminated. The environmental-justice movement took on the huge task of breaking down mistrust and stereotypes and the internalized racisms that we’re all victims of. You have some dynamics that are really very complex. But we’ve made a lot of progress: we’ve worked out the relationships for partnering and respecting leadership styles.

There are a couple of cases in your latest book of people involved in local struggles who went on to hold elected office. How representative is that of environmental justice as a leadership incubator?

In at least a quarter of cases, the leaders that emerge to work on local environmental-justice issues get involved in electoral politics. They get elected to school boards, city councils, and run for state representative. And 35 percent of them are women.

In other cases, they become the go-to people when it comes to, “What about jobs? What about this facility? Will it be a good thing or is this just a sell job?” Whether they be retired school teachers or retired mail carriers or little old grandmothers who have lots of time to devote to these issues, this is the training ground for leaders.

Marshall Ganz has pointed out that many of the mainstream, national environmental groups are D.C.-based lobbying organizations that don’t have the really engaged grassroots constituencies you’re describing. How do you see these two different kinds of groups working together?

The environmental-justice movement was never about creating little black Greenpeaces or little brown Environmental Defenses or little red Audubon Societies. These organizations have their expertise and when we can work together and maximize our strengths, that’s when we win.

There’s division of labor that can work to the advantage of this whole movement. When the mainstream national environmental groups pair up with environmental-justice groups that have the ability to mobilize large numbers of constituents — to get people marching and filling up those courtrooms and city council meetings — that’s when you can talk about an environmental movement.

A great example of how it should be done is happening right now in Louisiana. The Natural Resources Defense Council is partnering with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network to work on testing and issues of environmental justice after Katrina. NRDC brings a lot of expertise, but is respecting those organizations based in New Orleans and Cancer Alley. They’re really showing how a national group and local groups can form a relationship that is principled.

So you’re hopeful?

On our side we have lots of committed troops on the ground and a growing movement of young people. Because of the way race operates in this society, there are some people — poor white people, for example — who have been given blinders; they’re blinded by racism and have voted against their own best interests. When we take the blinders off and allow every single American to rise and reach his or her potential without these artificial barriers, then we could really become a great country.

What environmental-justice issues might we be surprisingly close to breaking through on?

Globally we’ve got a long way to go, but the fact is we don’t have a lot of time — I think that reality will force collaboration. An awareness that what we do in the developed world doesn’t just impact us is now pretty much a given. But we have to move that to another level of action and policy: the framework that environmental justice has laid out can resonate across a lot of developing countries.

In the end, I think we’ll be able to get our message out because it’s based on principles and it’s based on truth and justice.

Click here to read more thoughts from Robert Bullard on Katrina and institutionalized racism.

Gregory Dicum is the author ofWindow Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air. He writes a biweekly column for SFGate, the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Mother Jones, and others.

diamond

For years, the residents of Diamond, Louisiana, lived with an inescapable acrid, metallic smell -- the "toxic bouquet" of pollution -- and a mysterious chemical fog that seeped into their houses. They looked out on the massive Norco Industrial Complex: a maze of pipelines, stacks topped by flares burning off excess gas, and huge oil tankers moving up the Mississippi. They experienced headaches, stinging eyes, allergies, asthma, and other respiratory problems, skin disorders, and cancers that they were convinced were caused by their proximity to heavy industry. Periodic industrial explosions damaged their houses and killed some of their neighbors. Their small, African-American, mixed-income neighborhood was sandwiched between two giant Shell Oil plants in Louisiana's notorious Chemical Corridor. When the residents of Diamond demanded that Shell relocate them, their chances of success seemed slim: a community with little political clout was taking on the second-largest oil company in the world. And yet, after effective grassroots organizing, unremitting fenceline protests, seemingly endless negotiations with Shell officials, and intense media coverage, the people of Diamond finally got what they wanted: money from Shell to help them relocate out of harm's way. In this book, Steve Lerner tells their story.Around the United States, struggles for environmental justice such as the one in Diamond are the new front lines of both the civil rights and the environmental movements, and Diamond is in many ways a classic environmental-justice story: a minority neighborhood, faced with a polluting industry in its midst, fights back. But Diamond is also the history of a black community that goes back to the days of slavery. In 1811, Diamond (then the Trepagnier Plantation) was the center of the largest slave rebellion in United States history. Descendants of these slaves were among the participants in the modern-day Diamond relocation campaign.Steve Lerner talks to the people of Diamond, and lets them tell their story in their own words. He talks also to the residents of a nearby white neighborhood -- many of whom work for Shell and have fewer complaints about the plants -- and to environmental activists and Shell officials. His account of Diamond's 30-year ordeal puts a human face on the struggle for environmental justice in the United States.

shell

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