In 1987, when residents of one street in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, primarily African-American and low income, noticed the abundance of cancer cases within their community, “Cancer Alley” became the new name for Jacobs Drive. As similar incidences became more and more prevalent in surrounding areas, the “alley” grew to encompass an eighty-five mile stretch along the Mississippi River. Prior to media coverage of the issue, the area between Baton Rouge and New Orleans was simply known as the “petrochemical corridor”. In 2002, Louisiana had the second-highest death rate from cancer in the United States. While the national average is 206 deaths per 100,000, Louisiana's rate was 237.3 deaths per 100,000. However, the death rate from cancer in the area dubbed Cancer Alley was not higher than the rest of Louisiana. The same study says that among people of color, stomach cancer was increased and diabetes and heart disease were significantly higher in the industrial corridor and Louisiana than the USA as a whole. In 2000, Toxics Release Inventory data showed that Louisiana ranked second throughout the nation for total onsite releases, third for total releases within the state, and fourth for total on- and offsite releases. Louisiana, which has a population of 4,469,970 people, produced 9,416,598,055 pounds of waste in 2000. Seven of the ten plants in the state with the largest combined on- and offsite releases are located in Cancer Alley, and four of the ten plants with the largest onsite releases in the state are located there. In 1969, DuPont opened a plant to manufacture the chemical chloroprene, the main ingredient in neoprene. The plant was sold in 2015 to Japanese chemical companyDenka. The area immediately adjacent to the Denka/Dupont neoprene plant in St. John the Baptist Parish has been recognized by the EPA as having the likelihood of getting cancer from air pollution over 700 times the national average.
Cancer studies
In their 2012 book Petrochemical America, photographer Richard Misrach and Columbia University architecture professor Kate Orff explore the social, environmental, and health impacts of the petrochemical industry in Cancer Alley through photography, writing, and infographic-style illustrations.
British industrial metal band Godflesh used a digitally altered image of a crucifix in front of Cancer Alley as the cover art for their 1996 album, Songs of Love and Hate. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild discusses the environmental and health conditions in Cancer Alley, as well as the socioeconomic and political ramifications, in her 2016 book Strangers in Their Own Land.
