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Published Thursday, March 4, 2021
International News
Environmental racism in the U.S.
Cancer Alley must end, said U.N.
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
On Tuesday, the United Nations raised serious concerns about further industrialization of the so-called Cancer Alley in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana, saying the development of petrochemical complexes is a form of environmental racism.
According to U.N, the originally called Plantation Country where enslaved Africans were forced to do labor, the petrochemical corridor along the lower Mississippi River has not only polluted the surrounding water and air but also subjected its mostly African American residents to cancer, respiratory diseases and other adverse health effects.
"This form of environmental racism poses serious and disproportionate threats to the enjoyment of several human rights of its largely African American residents, including the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to life, the right to health, right to an adequate standard of living and cultural rights," they said.
Federal environmental regulations have failed to protect people residing in "Cancer Alley." In 2018, St. James Parish Council approved the "Sunshine Project." This would be one of the largest plastics facilities in the world to be developed by FG LA LLC, a subsidiary company of Formosa Plastics Group.
The Parish Council also approved plans to build methanol complexes by YCI Methanol One and South Louisiana Methanol.
Formosa Plastics' petrochemical complex alone will more than double the cancer risks in St. James Parish affecting disproportionately African American residents, they said.
According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency's National Air Toxic Assessment map, the cancer risks in predominantly African American Districts in St. James Parish. They believe the diagnoses could be at 104 and 105 cases per million, while other districts with a predominantly white population, could have a cancer risk ranging from 60 to 75 per million.
The construction of the new petrochemical complexes will exacerbate the environmental pollution and the disproportionate adverse effect on the rights to life, to an adequate standard of living and the right to health of African American communities. The combined emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year in a single parish could exceed those of 113 countries, the experts said.
According to the UN, there are concerns at possible violations of the cultural rights of the affected African American communities in the area, where at least four ancestral burial grounds of enslaved Africans are at serious risk of destruction by the construction of the Sunshine Project.
"The African American descendants of the enslaved people who once worked the land are today the primary victims of deadly environmental pollution that these petrochemical plants in their neighborhoods have caused," they said. "We call on the United States and St. James Parish to recognize and pay reparations for the centuries of harm to Afro-descendants rooted in slavery and colonialism."
U.N said in its statement, that they welcome the January 20 Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis and the pledge of the US government to listen to science, strengthen clean air and water protections, and hold polluters accountable for their actions.
"The experts call on the U.S. government to deliver environmental justice in communities all across America, starting with St James Parish," the UN said in its statement. "Corporations also bear responsibility and should conduct environmental and human rights impact assessments as part of the due diligence process."
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