Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people” (Isaiah 10:1). I was reminded of this verse from the Bible when I read about the town of Reserve in Louisiana. It is the place in America with the highest risk of cancer due to air toxicity, caused by a raft of government and corporate failure that has deprived residents – many of whom are poor and black – of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Reserve is home to the Pontchartrain Works facility, the only chemical plant in America to produce chloroprene, a likely carcinogen, that has spewed from the plant for almost 50 years. US government science has indicated this makes the risk of cancer in that area 50 times higher than the national average.
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It is a clear example of what I describe as “policy violence”, which disproportionately affects poor communities of every race, but especially poorer communities of color. The plant’s operators, first the chemicals giant DuPont and now the Japanese corporation Denka, have for decades benefited from Louisiana’s lax environmental rules and tax breaks to essentially target a community for profit.
It has happened for generations across political lines. Both Democrats and Republicans have chosen corporate process over people’s lives in Reserve, and elsewhere in the area between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known locally as Cancer Alley. But would any politician; a governor of Louisiana, a member of the house of representatives or a US senator, stand for this if it were their community or their family? The answer, of course, is no.
But what about the jobs? The Rev. Dr. Barber suggests what he thinks is a simple answer: invest in clean energy.
“Too often, corporate exploitation and government failures occur in the darkness, away from the media spotlight. We must expose what is happening there to the light now.” — Rev. Dr. Barber