CHAPTER 3 

Case Study 2: The Environment of Toxic Governance

 The Dammed Paradigm of Environmental Justice 

Francis Adeola is a sociology professor at University of New Orleans, who was writing and researching back in 1994 on hazardous waste and environmental injustice in Louisiana. He calls out both chemical companies as well as statiscians who make discriminant interpretations of data. A 1994 article states that Louisiana had already become one of the “major industrial toxic waste dump sites in the United States” reporting over 700 hazardous waste sites throughout the state (Adeola, 1994: 99). Fast-forward to 2000, he asserts the Gulf has been shaken by so-called ‘natural’ disasters and “severe environmental burdens” (Adeola, 2000: 209) that have left a huge imprint on the physical and social contours of the area with African American men and women bearing an unequal burden of the sickness and mortality rates (Singer, 2011: 147). The Gulf area hosts various pipelines belonging to oil companies which have seen corroded, unmaintained pipes rupture causing toxic oils spills into the Gulf and areas nearby the Mississippi “Red” River in both 2010 (Deepwater Horizon oil) and again at the beginning of this year, 2022 (Pemex oil).  

While the flooding of New Orleans following Katrina displaced residents, many people were eventually relocated. The floodings also displaced natural and human built defences and toxic sediment, something which has propagated noxious chemicals into local water and soil supplies. Studies carried out post-Katrina showed high levels of arsenic and other toxic chemicals in the soil “These findings suggest that the flooding resulted in the deposition of arsenic-contaminated sediments.” (Rotkin-Ellman et al., 2009: 19). This is clearly an environmental crisis with serious health implications. However, when one looks at the narrative in more detail, we see that this crisis of toxic infrastructure is nothing new and is simply another example of the infrastructural violence and toxic governance of a slighted community.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “defines environmental toxics as any pollutants that could cause adverse effects on human health. Hazardous wastes encompassing both the toxic and nontoxic components are of immediate concern to the public because of their potential to cause serious health problems.” (Adeola, 2000: 211) and has clear regulations as to levels of these toxins that are considered ‘safe’ (EPA, 2022). Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality reports each year consistently record a multitude of toxic chemicals in the water supply as a result of waste dumped from chemical plants, with a notable presence of arsenic, lead, PSAs and a myriad of other noxious chemicals in Louisiana water and soil (DEQ, 2022; Rotkin-Ellman. et al., 2010). 

PFAS 

In quite recent times the 2019 film Dark Waters director Todd Haynes tells the story of Dupont, a manufacturing company whose waste-products contained PFAS which poisoned water supplies in West Virginia for decades (Dark Waters, 2019). PFAS are also known as “Forever Chemicals”, although now illegal due to their toxicity, are behind a range of healthcare problems like cancers, thyroid disorders and generalised immune system disruption and, as the name would suggest, are still found residually in water and soil samples across the USA, specifically in the southern states (Marya and Patel, 2021: 6; Morgenson, 2020). 

LEAD 

Likewise, there has recently been exposure for the public health emergency in Flint, Michigan where local potable water was contaminated with lead, following a contamination of unmaintained broken lead piping into the river water supply (Maqbool, 2021). “There is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe, the World Health Organization has acknowledged (WHO, 2021) as it can cause blood pressure and kidney problems and is also linked to diabetes, cancers and respiratory problems (Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, 2020). Lead poisoning is known to lead to many health complications, specifically in children’s health where extensive research has shown that “childhood lead exposure can cause lifelong and very serious developmental, cognitive, medical, and psychological issues” (Turner, 2016). In recent decades programmes to monitor the lead levels in national water supplies have been setup, yet this fundamental water crisis fails to remain a priority area of health or infrastructure reform (Glenza & Milman, 2019). 

ARSENIC 

Arsenic is another carcinogen that is found in groundwater as well as many farmed animal food produce in various parts of the world including Mexico, Bangladesh, Argentina. India and USA. WHO acknowledges that arsenic is associated with causing various types of cancer including cancers of the skin, lung and bladder as well as diabetes, pulmonary disease and cardiovascular disease (Bjørklund et al., 2017; WHO, 2018) with epidemiologist Claudia Hopenhayn declaring that “The toxicology of arsenic involves mechanisms that are still not completely understood, but it is clear that a number of factors can affect both individual and population-level susceptibility to the toxic effects of arsenic-contaminated drinking water.” (Hopenhayn, 2006: 103). What all of these locations have in common is a comparable set of complex social issues, similarly abandoned to the point of being characterised as doomed backwaters and used as neoliberalism’s dumping ground. 

Mapping health burdens onto chemical infrastructures 

The health implication of regular exposure or consumption of noxious chemicals are becoming clear and perhaps we are getting closer to understanding, to some degree, a reason of the health disparities in the state of Louisiana.  In western society, there is understood to be a strong association between obesity and the development of diabetes 2, like there also is between smoking and lung cancer. While I’m not denying there are undeniable associations between one’s lifestyle habits and health, I would like to draw attention to a rhetoric of blame that exploits these links in order to place the responsibility onto the individual for their body’s suffering. As I have exemplified there have also been multiple studies exposing patterns of association between the ingestion of certain chemicals and NCDs including arsenic, PFAs, and type 2 diabetes (Kuo et al., 2013; Auerbach, et al., 2016; Thayer et al., 2012)and in fact the highest cluster rates of diabetes and cancers in the United States map directly on to regions that sit on the country’s waterways or near landfill sites and chemical plants (note also the concentration of NCD disease burdens and chemical plants in Michigan and West Virginia where the Flint and DuPont environmental water poisonings occurred).    

Gordon Plaza: Cancer Town 

Gordon Plaza, a settlement labelled “Cancer Town”, and built on a municipal landfill site in the Desire district of New Orleans, has been fighting a legal battle since 1981 (soon after the site opened in a residential capacity), after residents reported high levels of cancer, 50 times the national average (Guardian, 2019a) as well as high rates of diabetes, hypertension, asthma and other respiratory disorders reported (Tulane Law School, 2020) due to the toxic water, soil and air. There is an on-going legal battle and movement attempting to regulate the levels of lead and 48 other carcinogens including arsenic, mercury, and dioxins that were found in water and soil supplies (Glenza & Milman, 2019; Gordon Plaza, 2022; Sneath, 2021) and relocate affected residents. In the case of Gordon Plaza, geotextile barriers were disturbed and released into the water and soil supplies because of the 2005 flooding caused further contamination and with the world’s eyes on the area following Katrina, additional traction and media attention became available to communities yet despite this no real yet there has been no claim to accountability for the ongoing sickness and death of residents.   

The Chemical Corridor (where the Red River runs red) 

When driving westward from New Orleans towards Baton Rouge, along the highway that tracks the Mississippi river, the visual silhouettes of chemical plants impose themselves onto the flat and otherwise barren lowlands of the Southern Louisiana landscape. There are around 150 of them operating over the 85km stretch of land, and fierce flames can be seen billowing out of the refinery flares. Welcome to the so-called ‘Chemical Corridor’. 

The Chemical Corridor, also known as ‘Cancer Alley’ as he expands his theory of syndemics towards an understanding of eco-syndemics in the face of the environmental justice crises that is looming globally. He notes that the chemical industry holds great power and political influence in the state of Louisiana, yet remains largely unaccountable for the damaging impact the frequent accidents and explosions (not to mention the noxious chemical waste they emit) have on the local environment, factory workers and communities living in the vicinity (Singer, 2011: 146). 

Singer writes, “One of the main routes of human exposure to killer commodity immunotoxins is through drinking water” and that “between 2001 and 2008 there were over 1,000 toxic industrial chemicals released into Ascension Parish air, water, and soil“.  The public health crisis in the area resembles that of Gordon Plaza, recounting phenomenally high rates of cancers, diabetes, respiratory, cardiovascular and heart disease and in both sites the demographic of affected people are those in challenging socioeconomic situations and black populations.  

Residents living within one mile of a chemical facility are 4.5 times more likely to develop lung cancer and those who got their water from the river had 2.1 increased chance of developing rectal cancer in comparison to residents who did not get their water from the river (Gottlieb et al., 1982). The traumatic event here, cannot be traced back to a single error or moment, but it is a one that has accumulated over time where people are “Experiencing daily trauma at the hands of law enforcement, acute poverty, hunger, discrimination, forced displacement, and disproportionate exposure to toxins – it all makes people sick” (Marya and Patel, 2021: 9). What is significant about Singers’ account of Gottlieb’s work is that she cites the decision to terminate her research for fear she may be harmed by the powerful industry moguls who she was trying to expose (Singer, 2011: 146-7).  This perhaps gives us an idea of how the chemical industries operate, where their priorities lie and how much power they enjoy, something I will now examine. 

Liquid Economics: The Stakeholders of Chemical Contamination 

I think we’re now past the point of attempting to prove the harm these chemicals are having on the communities and surrounding environments. The most illuminating and Franky depressing discovery is that the chemical plants, by law, are not actually doing anything criminal.

These industrial plants and petrochemical companies are not small business. In Louisiana along they make $79.7 billion in annual sales.  $1.1 billion in taxes make its way to the Louisiana treasury, that’s around 1% of annual business profit going to the state. Standard business tax in the United States is 21% (Tax Policy Center, 2020), so there is potentially around $16 billion of tax being held back from Louisiana state, money that would (and arguably should) be federal funds, funnelled back into to local communities in the form of education, infrastructure, health and welfare. This deficiency is largely due to the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP), a state incentive setup in the 1930s in an attempt to bring or keep profitable industry in Louisiana (LED, 2022a). The program offers 100% tax cuts to business property taxes for 20 years, so long as they can evidence compliance to environmental objectives.   

 The Environmental Justice Act which was introduced to congress in 2021 was an attempt, “to address and mitigate the disproportionate impact of environmental and human health hazards on communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities” (Congress, 2022). As Berry discerns “the environmental justice movement is a social movement as well an environmental movement” (Berry, 2003: 23) and due to the level of state compliance with corporate interests, there is significant resistance to it being pushed forward to law and without will of politicians or the EPA, traction for the environmental justice movement remains largely futile (Berry, 2003: 24).  The Chemical Corridor continues to expand and, as Rhoman Hardy, (Senior Vice President, U.S. Gulf Coast, Shell Chemicals and Products) publicly announced “Louisiana chemical production outlook ‘best we’ve seen in several years” (Jacobs, 2022).   

As corporate interest is at heart of American life, the state seems more compelled towards nurturing a neoliberal system of market driven governance that weaponizes water, over cultivating any form of sustainable infrastructure that will benefit the life there for centuries to come, there is little economic gain to be made in this.