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mississippi river
Cancer Alley Activists Hold DC Funeral March Asking Biden to Declare Climate Emergency
"People are dying," pleaded RISE St. James leader Sharon Lavigne outside the White House. "This an emergency. If he will not declare this an emergency, we are going to die."
Oct 25, 2022
Environmental justice activists from Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" on Monday held a funeral procession in Washington, D.C. to remember victims--overwhelmingly Black people--killed by petrochemical industry pollution and to demand that U.S. President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency and do more to stop deadly fossil fuel projects.
"President Biden, you are drinking clean water, and we are not. You can plant a garden over here; we cannot, the soil is destroyed."
Activists led by the frontline action group RISE St. James held a second-line march--the procession, replete with brass band musicians and parasol-toting dancers, that rallies behind relatives of the deceased in a traditional New Orleans funeral--to the White House, where they held large photos of dead cancer victims and pleaded with Biden to take action to protect their lives and their environment.
"I want the world to know what's going on in St. James Parish and throughout the Gulf Coast," said RISE St. James president Sharon Lavigne outside the White House.
"People are dying," she continued. "Cancer is taking over our lives in the river parishes, in St. James Parish, and throughout the Gold Coast. So we're asking President Biden to declare St. James Parish, Cancer Alley, to declare this an emergency. If he will not declare this an emergency, we are going to die."
\u201cLIVE: "Cancer Alley" climate activists are holding a funeral procession in D.C. for lives lost to fossil fuels. Frontline leaders are demanding @POTUS protect residents of Cancer Alley, the Gulf Coast and declare a climate emergency. https://t.co/wcAZu8A7sA\u201d— People vs. Fossil Fuels (@People vs. Fossil Fuels) 1666710037
"We are already dying, slowly but surely," Lavigne said. "Sometimes we have one funeral per week for someone dying of cancer. If this don't stop, we won't have anything left of our area. We need you all to work with us to help us to declare this a climate emergency."
"We won the fight with Formosa Plastics. The judge rules in our favor on all counts," she added to loud applause, referring to last month's court order blocking the construction of a highly controversial petrochemical factory along the Mississippi River in St. James Parish. "With God's help we're gonna win any other fight that's coming to our neighborhood, and that's a fact. We will not allow any more because we're gonna stand together, and we will fight any industry that tries to come into our neighborhood and destroy us."
\u201cHAPPENING NOW: Activists from Louisiana\u2019s St. James Parish are holding a 2nd line funeral march in DC to commemorate those residents lost in \u201cCancer Alley.\u201d #ClimateEmergency\u201d— act.tv (@act.tv) 1666711336
St. James Parish sits in the middle of an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known as Cancer Alley due to its nearly 150 oil refineries and plastics and chemical plants.
According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the cancer risk in predominantly Black areas of St. James Parish is as high as 105 per million, compared with 60 to 75 cases per million in majority white areas. The EPA's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators database reported an 800% cancer hazard increase due to petrochemical facilities in the parish between 2007 and 2018.
"President Biden, you are drinking clean water, and we are not. You can plant a garden over here; we cannot, the soil is destroyed because of [the] petrochemical industry," Lavigne said, inviting the president to "come to St. James Parish" and "see what we are going through."
"We need your help," she added, "and we are pleading with you and your staff."
\u201cAt the "Funeral March to the White House", a protest led by Sharon Lavigne and her nonprofit Rise St. James, calling President Biden's attention to deaths as a result of petrochemical pollution in South Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" and the larger Gulf Coast. https://t.co/gQFryb02l1\u201d— Nate Tinner-Williams \ud83c\uddfb\ud83c\udde6\u270a\ud83c\udffe\ud83c\udf39 (@Nate Tinner-Williams \ud83c\uddfb\ud83c\udde6\u270a\ud83c\udffe\ud83c\udf39) 1666710365
In a letter to Biden published Tuesday, Lavigne wrote:
St. James Parish now has the most polluted air in America, with cancer rates more than 50% higher than the national average. Our air is quite literally killing us, and no one seems to really mind. Sure, there have been promises. You yourself uttered the words "Cancer Alley," during your first week in office, something very few politicians of your stature have been willing to do. This has given us hope, and when you sent EPA Administrator Michael Reagan down to visit me and other activists, we were encouraged that change will come.
"However, we are still dying, struggling to breath polluted air, and without clean water to drink," she stressed. "President Biden. Please save us. You too understand the gut-wrenching pain of losing a loved one to cancer. Help to make it so that no one else in St. James Parish has to feel this pain. "
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An Open Letter to Biden: People Are Dying From Petrochemical Plants
President Biden, I am coming to D.C to honor the hundreds of lives that have been taken from us due to the petrochemical and fossil fuel industry.
Oct 25, 2022
Dear President Biden:
As a little girl growing up in St. James Parish, Louisiana, my family lived off the land. We raised cattle, sowed seeds, and fished the Mississippi River. But what used to be our lifeblood has now turned to poison. Where there were once fig and pecan trees, there are now petrochemical plants. Known to many, including yourself, as "Cancer Alley," with more than 200 deadly plants along an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River, my hometown is quickly becoming Death Row.
St. James Parish now has the most polluted air in America, with cancer rates more than 50 percent higher than the national average.
I used to be a special education teacher, a profession I know you admire deeply. Led by God, I left the teaching profession in 2019 to fight for environmental justice full-time in my community. After watching too many in my community become sick, I founded RISE St. James, a faith-based, grassroots environmental organization that started from just one small meeting in my den with my daughter, Shamell, taking notes.
At first we didn't know why we were getting sick. Around us, our family and friends were suddenly falling victim to debilitating illnesses. It felt like almost every day another loved one was receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis and we couldn't figure out why. But it didn't take long to connect these illnesses to the rise of petrochemical plants in our backyards.
When these fancy fossil fuel CEOs marched into our predominantly Black neighborhoods and promised us good jobs and financial freedom, we didn't even have time to bat an eye. We could never have imagined that years later these same companies would turn our land and everything that grows from it into poison.
St. James Parish now has the most polluted air in America, with cancer rates more than 50 percent higher than the national average. Our air is quite literally killing us, and no one seems to really mind. Sure, there have been promises. You yourself uttered the words "Cancer Alley," during your first week in office, something very few politicians of your stature have been willing to do. This has given us hope, and when you sent EPA Administrator Michael Reagan down to visit me and other activists, we were encouraged that change will come.
However, we are still dying, struggling to breath polluted air and without clean water to drink. Our gardens are producing inedible vegetables, and our bath water leaves us itching for days. I myself have developed autoimmune hepatitis and was found to have aluminum and lead in my body after years of living next to mega-polluting chemical plants. It is as if we have been written off as sacrifice zones, an entire community exchanged for a corporate profit. But you can save us. You must save us.
President Biden, I am coming to D.C to honor the hundreds of lives that have been taken from us due to the petrochemical and fossil fuel industry. Joining me will be dozens of other activists who have lost loved ones, and we will be holding a New Orleans style second line funeral procession that will end at your front door. Please meet me there. Let us talk about how we can save my communities and the others like it.
These petrochemical plants are cutting our lives short, and our children are being robbed of their futures. As a fellow devout Catholic and grandparent, I am making a personal plea to you, President Biden. Please save us. You too understand the gut-wrenching pain of losing a loved one to cancer. Help to make it so that no one else in St. James Parish has to feel this pain. Use your power to declare Cancer Alley a State of Emergency, especially St. James Parish, declare a climate emergency, halt the petrochemical build out in the Gulf South and help our children and grandchildren to live long, healthy lives. Meet me in Washington, D.C on October 25th and let us save our children and grandchildren's futures, together.
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Advocates Applaud State AGs' Call for Review of Proposed 'Cancer Alley' Petrochemical Plant
"I believe that if there's an honest assessment of the environmental racism behind this project's approval then it will never be permitted," said one leading local activist. "We must stop Formosa Plastics."
May 24, 2021
Citing the imperative to "protect the residents and natural resources of St. James Parish and to prevent public health and environmental harms across our jurisdictions," attorneys general from four states and the District of Columbia on Monday sent a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers asking it to thoroughly evaluate the adverse impacts of Formosa Plastics' massive proposed petrochemical complex in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley."
"The corps must reevaluate the environmental justice implications of issuing the permit, including the plastics complex's disproportionate impacts on low-income African-American communities in St. James Parish."
--state AGs' letter
The Center for Biological Diversity, Healthy Gulf, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and RISE St. James last year sued the Trump administration over a federal permit for the proposed project--which could cost up to $12 billion--prompting the Army Corps of Engineers to suspend that permit pending a broader environmental review.
"The corps must reevaluate the environmental justice implications of issuing the permit, including the plastics complex's disproportionate impacts on low-income African-American communities in St. James Parish that are already overburdened by pollution from existing refineries and petrochemical facilities," states the letter (pdf)--which was led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and signed by William Tong, Karl Racine, Maura Healey, and Gurbir Grewal--her counterparts in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, respectively.
\u201cBREAKING: Attorneys General Demand Deeper Army Corps Analysis of Formosa Plastics\u2019 Louisiana Project. Letter Asks Feds to Examine Environmental Justice, Wildlife, Climate Impacts. Thank you @NewYorkStateAG and other AGs for helping #StopFormosaPlastics https://t.co/qWErOiq0uC\u201d— Ctr4BioDiv Ocean (@Ctr4BioDiv Ocean) 1621872525
"We also request that you reevaluate the plastics complex's greenhouse gas emissions and contribution to the global climate crisis, as well as its impacts on migratory birds and other species resulting from the destruction of forested wetlands and degradation of water quality," the five attorneys general wrote. "By reevaluating these environmental and public health impacts, the corps will comply with applicable law and prevent harm to our residents and natural resources."
"Such comprehensive analysis furthers the Biden administration's important environmental justice policies, which direct federal agencies to address the disproportionate health, environmental, and climate impacts of agency programs and decision-making on disadvantaged communities," the letter states.
St. James Parish residents--nearly half of whom are Black--and environmental advocates strongly oppose the proposed plant, which they say will release carcinogenic chemicals and, according to one environmental watchdog, spew 13.6 million tons of planet-heating emissions into the atmosphere each year.
Formosa Plastics has also faced intense criticism for failing to follow through on a promise to alter the plant's layout to lessen the exposure of nearby residents and schoolchildren to toxins, and for its failure to notify the community of the discovery of a burial ground for enslaved Black people.
"Any serious analysis should cause the Army Corps to reject this major threat to public health and our climate. We can't let industry pollute another working-class Black community as it creates mountains of plastic the world doesn't want or need."
--Julie Teel Simmonds,
Center for Biological Diversity
St. James Parish is located amid an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge commonly called Cancer Alley due to its nearly 150 oil refineries and plastics and chemical plants.
According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the cancer risk in predominantly Black areas of St. James Parish is significantly higher than in majority white areas. The EPA's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators database reported an 800% cancer hazard increase due to petrochemical facilities in the parish between 2007 and 2018.
Local and national advocacy groups praised the action by the attorneys general.
"I'm grateful that these attorneys general understand the threat Formosa Plastics poses to us and are demanding action," Sharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James, said in a statement. "The Army Corps needs to listen and do a proper analysis of a project that would endanger our lives."
"I believe that if there's an honest assessment of the environmental racism behind this project's approval then it will never be permitted," added Lavigne. "We must stop Formosa Plastics."
Louisiana Bucket Brigade director Anne Rolfes said that "it's refreshing to see public servants actually act in the interest of the people they serve... We are glad that at least some attorneys general actually have a backbone, and we are grateful for their support. We will continue to push the Biden administration to take a stand for environmental justice and permanently revoke this project's permits."
Julie Teel Simmonds, a lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that the group is "pleased these state attorneys general are joining our coalition's call for stronger federal scrutiny of Formosa Plastics' terrible project."
"Any serious analysis should cause the Army Corps to reject this major threat to public health and our climate," Teel Simmonds continued. "We can't let industry pollute another working-class Black community as it creates mountains of plastic the world doesn't want or need. I'm hoping this letter will help convince Formosa Plastics to abandon this dangerous project."
St. James Parish has been the site of numerous protests against the proposed Formosa complex, including the youth-led Sunrise Movement's "Generation on Fire" 400-mile march from New Orleans to Houston.
\u201cGulf South Marchers with @VarshPrakash, the ED of Sunrise, are in St James, LA demanding the @JoeBiden admin revoke the Formosa Plastics permit to build a $10 billion petrochemical facility in Cancer Alley\u201d— Resist Reckless Redevelopers (@Resist Reckless Redevelopers) 1621274302
Around 175 advocacy groups and numerous Democratic lawmakers have also voiced their opposition to the proposed plant.
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