Wellness is not just about food and exercise. Wellness includes clean water and clean air. The Environmental Protection Agency has cited several Louisiana areas under negligence due to Environmental Racism. The constant plea for clean air has gone ignored by the state.
This is not new; it’s an ongoing fight and investigation stemming as far back as 2010.
The fossil fuel and petrochemical industry in the Louisiana area that has come to be known as “Cancer Alley” has devastated the health, lives, and environment of residents, Human Rights Watch said in a report release. Cancer Alley refers to an approximately 85-mile stretch of communities along the banks of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, where communities exist side by side with some 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical operations.
The 98-page report, “‘We’re Dying Here’: The Fight for Life in a Louisiana Fossil Fuel Sacrifice Zone,” documents how residents of Cancer Alley suffer the effects of extreme pollution from the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry, facing elevated rates and risks of maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harms, cancer, and respiratory ailments. Parts of Cancer Alley have the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the United States. These harms are disproportionately borne by the area’s Black residents.
The Assistant Director of Law and Public Policy was shocked yet pleased at the EPA’s decision to speak out about the crisis. Federal civil rights protections predate the EPA, but they haven’t been enforced, she said: “There’s nothing new to any of this except that we have leadership at the EPA” that “wants to do something about it.”
There are years of data citing this epidemic in these areas which has increased sickness in children and the elderly. The complaint of poor air quality has been dismissed by the state underplaying the dangers of chloroprene, conducted flawed health studies and mischaracterized air monitoring data.
Chloroprene is a mutagen, meaning it causes cancer by attacking and mutating DNA. Mutagens are particularly dangerous for children and infants, whose cells divide much more rapidly than those of adults
Although much of the focus of these legal filings have been centered on Southeast Louisiana it is not to be ignored for the Northern region of Louisiana as well.
Environmental pollution affects memory, fertility, lungs, heart, immunity and dehydration to name a few. We encourage you not to dismiss it. Stay up to date on your annual doctor visits, ask questions and monitor your health.
If you reside in Louisiana or are concerned about those that do complete this form and connect with the organizations that are directly fighting back.
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