Throughout history, manufacturing plants and oil refineries have operated in low-income, disenfranchised areas due to low costs of land and little community backlash. The repercussions of operating chemical plants and oil refineries basically in the backyards of local residents, has been felt for decades. Persistently bad air quality coupled with heightened cancer risks are among some of the factors affecting communities located in close proximity to industrial operations. This practice of establishing environmentally harmful practices in impoverished, struggling communities is known as environmental racism. This term can be used to explain why the poorest, and most ethnically diverse areas of the United States bear the brunt of our country’s most environmentally destructive practices. “Cancer Alley” Louisiana is just one example among many of environmental racism in modern America.
Cancer Alley Louisiana is an 85 mile strip of nearly 150 oil refineries, plastic manufacturers, and chemical plants, located between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. This area is home to a predominantly black population, who experience the most direct effects of these industrial sites. The community of St. James Parish situated in the heart of cancer alley, where over fifty percent of the population is black, recorded almost 17 percent of their residents falling below the poverty line. Subsequently, St. James Parish has an astounding death rate per capita of six. This falls below neighboring St. John’s Baptist Parish, which has a death rate per capita of 24, making it the highest in the country. It is undeniable that environmental racism has played a role in this heightened rate of death in black communities located in cancer alley. From the locations chosen for these industrial sites, to the lack of government intervention, it is clear that the impoverished black families affected by these backyard operations are not a priority in the eyes of policy makers and media producers in the region and nationwide.
When discussing the risks of living close to these chemical manufacturers and oil refineries, accelerated cancer rates are among the biggest concerns. Studies have concluded that living in cancer alley increases residents’ likelihood of developing cancer, diabetes, and respiratory diseases by almost 95 percent compared to the rest of the country. When looking at the demographics of cancer alley itself, it is estimated that black communities experience about 105 cancer cases per million residents, while neighboring white communities in the same region record about 60 to 75 cases per million. The heightened cancer rates in black communities of cancer alley can be directly attributed to environmental racism. This is perpetuated through political and media influence on the consumer, which is ultimately the general population. The stories heard, information presented, and positions advocated for are all ways that those in positions of power skew the media we consume.
The theory of reception analysis, also known as the reception theory, illustrates how the consumer of media interprets and makes informed decisions based on the information they are presented. Media outlets use encoded information, which is usually bias or one-sided perspectives embedded within their work, to influence and shape the views of their audience. Encoded information can be used by political groups furthering their agenda and can precisely be seen in the cancer alley environmental debate today. Louisiana’s large strip of industrial activity generates mass amounts of revenue for the state and helps provide products essential to our country’s success. This region also provides hundreds of thousands of jobs to the state, making cancer alley a financial hub in Louisiana. Therefore, the economic investments in this area reign supreme and are more important to the state than the health of their residents. Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy noted that the state’s high cancer rates are not a result of the petrochemical industry, however, they are a result of poor lifestyle choices among residents. This comment from the Republican Senator downplays the heightened cancer risks in an effort to perpetuate financial gains in the region, causing consumers of this media to side with the senator’s perspective that industrial activity is not the cause of cancer in Louisiana. In order for environmental reform and the elimination of environmental racism to occur in cancer alley Louisiana, this topic must no longer be downplayed in the media and be brought to the forefront of our country’s environmental debate. This environmental disaster unfolding along the banks of the Mississippi River has long been swept under the carpet by politicians and media outlets looking after their deep rooted financial gains in fossil fuels and manufacturing.
During a poll of ten close friends and family, only two of the ten knew what the term environmental racism was. This original data is concerning due to the fact that large scale disparities like cancer alley Louisiana are occurring across our country whether we realize it or not. The issue of environmental racism in cancer alley Louisiana has gotten so bad to the point that locals in the area have protested to stop the Formosa Plastics industrial site from being built on an unmarked burial ground of enslaved descendents from the region. Examples like this show how the disproportionately affected local communities do not have power over the industry collecting revenue from these sites. Similar to the fracking debate in low-income areas of Colorado, Bella Romero Academy, a predominately Hispanic and black school, was located just 828 feet from a 24 drill fracking site. The location next to the low-income school came after backlash was received from parents at a white dominated school, close to the original location for the site. This directly shows the role of environmental racism within industrial operations in our country, proving that low income communities are powerless to the decisions of those with money in fossil fuels. Small-scale community backlash is simply not enough to enact environmental reform. The fact that mass media sources are not aggressively covering these issues and generating public support is the main reason industrial operations in cancer alley are still affecting the health of nearby residents.
The main message here is that industrial sites lining cancer alley Louisiana have disproportionately affected low-income minority groups in the region. The environmental racism occurring here needs to be more widely addressed in the media to gain public support and awareness to this public health crisis. Efforts to protest new industrial sites by locals have ended in failure as bias media, political influence, and financial benefits perpetuate the suffering of the nearby impoverished communities. The solution to this environmental catastrophe is media engagement with a positive agenda. The popular media consumed by the public is often encoded with bias and one sided perspectives to controversial topics like cancer alley, influencing the audience to side with the views of a particular media outlet. In order to achieve environmental justice in cases such as cancer alley, the media needs to play a bigger role in gaining public support and use their influence for good. Sadly, media outlets today are too invested with the financial gains of their corporations than the health and wellbeing of those affected by these tragedies.
Sources
Kaufman, A. C. (2021, March 04). UN says environmental racism in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley must end. https://grist.org/justice/united-nations-environmental-racism-cancer-alley-louisiana/
Hoffman, A. J. (2015). How Culture Shapes the Climate Debate. Stanford, CA: Stanford Briefs, an imprint of Stanford University Press.
Pasley, J. (2020, April 09). Inside Louisiana’s horrifying ‘Cancer Alley,’ an 85-mile stretch of pollution and environmental racism that’s now dealing with some of the highest coronavirus death rates in the country. https://www.businessinsider.com/louisiana-cancer-alley-photos-oil-refineries-chemicals-pollution-2019-11
Republican senator takes offense to Biden’s remarks on Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’. (2021, February 04). https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/bill-cassidy-biden-louisiana-cancer-alley-environment-pollution-b1797627.html
Turkewitz, J. (2018, May 31). In Colorado, a Fracking Boom and a Population Explosion Collide.
