HJBR Jan/Feb 2020

In a Notoriously Polluted Area of the Country, Massive New Chemical Plants Are Still Moving In The industrial stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a region known as “Cancer Alley,” is one of the most highly polluted areas in the country. A ProPublica analysis using a scientific model developed by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that some of the neighborhoods where new plants are being built already have very high con- centrations of toxic chemicals. But Louisiana continues to approve the building of these new plants and the expansion of existing ones. The EPA model ProPublica used, known as Risk-Screen- ing Environmental Indicators, or RSEI, calculates the estimated chemical concentrations from toxic in- dustrial plant emissions across the country, down to 810-by-810-meter blocks. We then used that model to find where toxic levels of cancer-causing chemicals are highest in the seven parishes. By Lylla Younes, Al Shaw and Claire Perlman ProPublica Illustrations by ProPublica