Advocates Are Sparking a Revolution in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”

But it wasn’t always that way in St. James. Sharon Lavigne reminisces about her happy and healthy childhood. Her family, like many others, lived off the parish’s fertile land, and she remembers clean air and water, vegetable gardens, and fruit trees. Her father was a self-employed sugarcane farmer, and they drank milk from his cows and ate eggs from his chickens.

But by the late 1960s, the first chemical plants started moving in. They promised residents secure and well-paying jobs. According to a 1995 survey, however, only 9 percent of permanent, full-time industry positions in nearby St. Gabriel were held by locals. Shamyra says RISE’s fight is about the industries, not about the workers. “We understand you want to take care of your family. We just want to make sure you’re not polluting us in the meantime,” she says. “We’re not against jobs, but we want green jobs.”

By the 1980s, the area had become the country’s de facto headquarters for the petrochemical industry, sparking concerns about health impacts and giving rise to the moniker “Cancer Alley.” In St. James Parish, a 2014 land use plan—created by local government officials without community involvement—made it particularly easy for industry to set up shop by rezoning the majority-Black Fourth and Fifth Districts to “residential/future industrial.”

“Looking back, if my grandfather could see what’s going on right now, I think he would be fighting against these chemical plants as well,” Shamyra says. “I think that generation would choose a different path.”

Solar: A brighter path

As of last year, companies have proposed at least 16 big solar projects for Louisiana, three in St. James alone. But in mid-August, the St. James Parish Council placed a moratorium on the farms’ construction until at least March 2023, citing the need for an economic and environmental study. Local residents also worried about aesthetics and safety of the expansive solar arrays. The idea for a moratorium came up just a couple months after the parish’s planning commission denied a proposal for a 3,900-acre solar project in the town of Vacherie.

Lavigne was outraged that the council would place a moratorium on solar farms while it continued to roll out the red carpet for polluting industries. “Petrochemical plants are the thing that’s killing us, not the solar panels,” she says.

She’s not alone. Other residents, and even Entergy, Louisiana’s main electricity provider, are also concerned about the region missing a critical opportunity to invest in solar energy—especially after this summer’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The law promises to dedicate 40 percent of climate-related funding to historically disadvantaged communities, and this could help boost clean energy production and create jobs. “Despite the opportunities that might be available in the Inflation Reduction Act, their plan is to continue to industrialize St. James Parish, specifically the Black districts,” says Anne Rolfes, director of Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a New Orleans–based nonprofit that supports communities harmed by the petrochemical industry.

Shamyra believes the financial incentives the petrochemical industry provides—for instance, buying the high school football team new uniforms or building a new community park—help local politicians justify public support for these polluters. “That is not going to work if the children can’t breathe the air while they’re playing at the park,” she says. Yet local taxpayers are subsidizing these companies: Local and state governments in Louisiana offered Formosa Plastics $1.5 billion in tax breaks to set up shop in St. James Parish.

While Shamyra’s vision for the future extends beyond the expansion of solar—a strong community with good jobs and good health, one that demands transparency and invests in its young people—the solar farms are a good place to start. Community advocates are waiting to take the next steps once the moratorium period ends.