Welcome to Cancer Alley
A sleeping couple shuts their blinds. Although it’s the dead of night, the fire burning above the neighboring refineries casts near daylight through their window. On her daily commute, a school teacher holds her breath past the seven miles of chemical plants to avoid their stench. A blue-collar man gets a cancer diagnosis at age 42.
1.6 million people live and work in Cancer Alley, a 100–mile stretch of Louisiana from New Orleans to Baton Rouge (Ellis, 2024). In Cancer Alley, there’s no border between industrial and residential, and the citizens pay dearly.
What is Cancer Alley?
The Dominant Oil Industry
In 1901, Louisiana first struck oil. Corporations soon swarmed to south Louisiana, hoping to profit off the newly discovered resources. The oil industry expanded rapidly (Leach & Zebrowski, 2014). Today, there is at least one oil well in each of the 64 Louisiana parishes and over 150 plants and refineries in Cancer Alley alone. More constructions continue to be approved (Meaders, 2021).
Given these dramatic numbers, it’s clear that Louisiana’s petroleum industry plays a large role in the nation’s oil market. Within the United States, Louisiana is one of the largest producers of refined oil, crude oil, and natural gas. It’s approximated that the state produces an entire fifth of the nation’s petrochemicals (Meaders, 2021).
Consequently, Cancer Alley is integral to several other industries that sustain the nation. The millions of barrels of oil refined there are used not only for energy, but for the production of various rubbers, plastics, and synthetic fertilizers, as well. This productivity comes at a great cost, however. Alongside the remarkable output of these facilities, over 129.3 million pounds of toxic waste are released every year (Meaders, 2021).
Irresponsible Pollution Management
Air pollution largely consists of volatile organic compounds (VOC) – pollutants that dissolve into the air at room temperature. Many are known carcinogens and mutagens. Benzene, formaldehyde, and vinyl chloride are only a few examples of the airborne toxins that exist over Cancer Alley. They are produced in high quantities by petroleum refineries as either a step in the chemical processes or a byproduct of them.
The disposal of these chemicals is largely unregulated within Louisiana, so companies are free to dispose of them in a variety of harmful ways. They may inject them into the ground, send them to a landfill, dump them directly into the Mississippi River, or incinerate them on-site. Each method threatens to pollute the region’s air and water. Hundreds of additional pounds of pollutants are lost through “accidental leaks,” the exact amount of which cannot be confirmed (Keehan, 2018).
To illustrate the extent of VOC pollution in Cancer Alley, researchers from Johns Hopkins University sampled air across the industrial corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. They measured the samples for the concentration of one particular VOC that’s utilized in the manufacturing of commercial chemicals, Ethylene Oxide (EtO). Because EtO poses both cancer and non-cancer health risks against humans, it’s highly regulated by the EPA, which dictates that to be within an appropriate “risk range,” EtO levels can be no larger than 10.9 ppt.
The researchers found that 75% of the tested areas were at or above 10.9 ppt. Several measured as high as 100.9 ppt – ten times the mandated limit (Ellis, 2024).
Health Consequences
Where the national average of pollution per square mile per year comes to an average of 570 pounds, within Louisiana, that average skyrockets to 1800 pounds – and the citizens have excessive rates of immunological disorders, birth defects, and a myriad of other health consequences to show for it. Cancer is the most well-documented.
National Age-Adjusted Cancer Incidence: 439 per 100,000
Louisiana’s average: 479.9
National Age-Adjusted Cancer Deaths: 142 per 100,000
Louisiana’s average: 159.9
(CDC, 2022)
Statistics are even higher in low-income areas. For the Louisianians of Reserve, Laplace, and Lake Charles, the chance of contracting cancer is 50 times higher than the national average (Meaders, 2021).
Why is this happening?
Lenient Regulations
The Clean Air Act (CAA) establishes several methods to monitor industrial emissions. One such method is the requirement of facilities to submit a Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) annually. A TRI reports a facility’s emissions of various pollutants to ensure they remain within limits. Despite this, Cancer Alley polluters continue to exceed them year after year. Why?
In her publication with the Energy & Environmental Law Review, Keehan, an environmental attorney, explains the numerous flaws in the CAA’s execution. She writes, “Individual industrial entities self-calculate and self-report TRI data, and are [therefore] incentivized to under-report major chemical accidents” (p. 367). Upholding the CAA is the responsibility of state governmental bodies, and when reports exceed EPA limits, it’s also their responsibility to assess the risk of those emissions and implement initiatives to reduce them.
There is a symbiotic relationship, however, between polluting industries and Louisiana’s government. Across the past two decades, Louisiana’s congressmen and senators have routinely voted in the interest of Big Oil. They’ve cast votes against EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses, against governmental incentives for renewable energy, and for the insatiable expansion of oil drilling. Unsurprisingly, representatives have amassed millions of dollars worth of campaign contributions from the oil industries that they vote to support (Leach & Zebrowski, 2014).
Public Opinion
Big Oil is lauded by governmental officials as a blessing to the people. They sing praises to the industry with claims of high tax revenue, a bolstered state economy, and that, with each refinery, comes hundreds of secure jobs.
Louisiana voters seem to believe this promise of prosperity. In a statewide survey, 60% of respondents self-reported to be pro-oil. They have concerns about the impact a reduction of fossil fuels may have on Louisiana’s economy and doubts that renewable energy will offer the same job security (Jones, 2022).
It appears, though, that there is dissonance between the perceived benefits of the oil industry’s presence and the reality. According to U.S. News, Louisiana ranks No. 49 in economic opportunity, 46 in employment, and 50 in economic growth, and its poverty rate is 47.6% higher than the national average.
Evidently, oil brings prosperity to only a select few.
Closing Thoughts
Louisiana stands as an exemplary intersection between modern oil dependence and the ever-growing oil anxiety that surrounds it. The exploitation of oil resources, after all, is a pivotal column of all modern excesses. Supporters of Big Oil – the corporate bigwigs, governmental officials, and the Louisiana voters themselves – can look at the GDP and feel strongly that the large numbers are evidence of prosperity, but in order to do so, they must ignore every reality surrounding it.
To support America’s demand for oil, we are poisoning our people.
Works Cited
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). USCS data visualizations - CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://gis.cdc.gov/Cancer/USCS/#/AtAGlance/
Jones, T. L. (2022, September 21). What hinders Louisiana’s shift toward renewable energy? voters say their congressional leaders • louisiana illuminator. Louisiana Illuminator. https://lailluminator.com/2022/09/21/what-hinders-louisianas-shift-toward-renewable-energy-voters-say-their-congressional-leaders/
Keehan, C. J. (2018). Lessons from Cancer Alley: How the Clean Air Act Has Failed to Protect Public Health in Southern Louisiana. Colorado Natural Resources, Energy & Environmental Law Review, 29(2), 341–371.
Leach, M.Z., & Zebrowski, E.(2014). Hydrocarbon Hucksters: Lessons from Louisiana on oil, politics, and environmental justice. University Press of Mississippi.
Meaders, J. S. (2021). Health Impacts of Petrochemical Expansion in Louisiana and Realistic Options for Affected Communities. Tulane Environmental Law Journal, 34(1), 113–147.
Robinson, E.S., Tehrani, M.W., Yassine, A., Agarwal, S., Nault, B.A., Gigot, C., Chiger, A.A., Lupoly, S.N., Daube, C., Avery, A.M., Claflin, A.S., Stark, H., Lunny, E.M., Roscioli, J.R., Herndon, S.C., Skog, K., Bent, J., Koehler, K., Rule, A.M., . . . Decarlo, P.F. (2024). Ethylene Oxide in Southeastern Louisiana’s Petrochemical Corridor:High Spatial Resolution Mobile Monitoring during HAP-MAP. Environmental Science & Technology, 58(25), 10881-11204. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c10579
Where Louisiana places in the U.S. News Best States rankings. U.S. & World Report News. (n.d.). https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/louisiana
