10 ms·

The Louisiana Environmental Apocalypse Road Trip

123 points by kawera 9y ago

QAPereo 9y ago
The only fate of Louisiana is that it's a problem with its own inevitable solution; it will be inundated and become relatively unlivable. I have to wonder how much that plays into the decisions made by the people who understand that it's not really a long-term project as a state. This is still a hell of a way to treat people living there, but truly, no one should live there.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Which will put all that stuff in the oceans.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    It's already running into the oceans; for better or worse this is going to be a disaster for humans more than anything else. For humans, by humans.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Sure, but that's a slow leach. For the cumulative poisons which are stable (such as heavy metals) it won't make much of a difference but inundation will increase the concentrations tremendously in a very short time.
- ta871263 9y ago
  http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/new-orleans.shtml http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/new-orleans.shtml Not an expert by any means, but aren't we looking at +2 meters sea level rise by 2100? Maybe less than 1 meter by 2050? Try it out! IMHO, it would be better not to wait for global warming to take care of this for us. Coastal erosion due factors other than climate in Louisiana is a different (probably more urgent) problem which actually can be solved without world government. Just better government in Louisiana, which...well, OK, yeah, it's probably not going to happen. :)
- scurvy 9y ago
  A little background about myself: I was born and raised in New Orleans to a middle class family that valued education (both parents 1600 SAT and English majors, MD, and MA). I went to one of the best private schools in the New Orleans area, coincidentally built on top of a former dump. All of my family still lives in New Orleans. I live in San Francisco now and haven't lived in New Orleans since my high school graduation. I return to visit New Orleans about three to four times per year. On every visit, someone will half-jokingly ask me, "So when are you going to leave crazy California and move back?" I simply reply, "When are you going to flee Louisiana?" I have a convenient excuse in that I work in tech, and my family members convince themselves that's the only reason I don't move back. I tell them that I'm never moving back, but they stubbornly hold on to hope. My family isn't the stereotypical American-without-a-passport untraveled, uncultured types. My sisters have lived in Paris, London, Oregon, Maine, Maryland, DC, Texas, Georgia etc. My mom lived in Barcelona for stretches and speaks three languages. Yet they all end up back in the New Orleans area. Family bonds are that strong. Maybe I'm cold and too calculating for not living there with them. After every good visit with the kids, nephews, aunts and uncles, my wife prods me, "Hey maybe we should live closer to your family." I just reply "No." The answer is simple: Louisiana, and New Orleans especially, is doomed as an ongoing entity. Call it fatalism, call it blindness, or call it stupidity, whatever the reason -- the people of Louisiana just keep on doing the same thing with the same reaction every time something bad happens; "Oh that's such a shame." New Orleans' nickname is the "big easy"; I call it "the tiny difficult". Nothing ever changes. Progress is slow and glacial. Everyone knows everyone and has their nose in everyone else's business. You live a good life in Old Metairie with a nice weekend home in rural Louisiana. You find out that the wilderness near your home has recently been purchased. The land hasn't ever been touched, so you do some digging into it. You find out that they're going to clearcut the forest and wetlands and build an "oil services facility" on it with "mixed use commercial and residential" on the other side. This worries you because of the loss of wetlands and buffer zone (the forest would soak up flood waters in storms), and you're worried about pollution from the increased land use. You object to the project formally because you're well off and have some free time. Only later, you find out that your opponents are your very rich neighbors in Old Metairie -- doctors and lawyers speculating on land with their friends in the oil business. They start saying bad things and calling you names like a tree hugger and eco-mentalist. Others say that you're blocking progress and aren't thinking of the community and jobs. Eventually, the crooked tentacles of corruption will make their way through the bureaucracies and you will lose. Your neighbors will make more money, "progress" will happen, and you'll now deal with floods annually on a property that never flooded in hundreds of years. The craziest thing about this tale isn't that it's true. It's that the very people profiting from this and pulling the levers are in the state. They're not always far-off corporations. They're your neighbors: pillars of local industry and commerce who are lauded for their success. It's insane to me that these people are looting and ravaging the very land that they live, and that they will continue to live on. It's one thing to be a wild tycoon, burn the locals and flee. But they're knowingly (or blindingly) hurting themselves, their families, and future generations. Maybe it's the constant layer of corruption in the state at every level. Maybe there's a sense of fatalism. But the very people whose livelihoods are on the line just don't care. One would think that Louisianans would be the most read, most vested people in the US on the topic of climate change. They're not. They don't believe in it. Despite losing all the barrier islands, wetland loss, extinction of species from habitat loss, facing worse storms every year, etc. They just think of their jobs and their family. People don't like being told that their job and way of life is going away because of their own ignorance, but it's the truth. There's not much that will save Louisiana at this point. Maybe the federal government (not in this administration) will step in and help? The best thing that happened to the New Orleans public school system was Katrina (the feds took over the local school system and turned it around). It pains me to write this. I love my homeland. I truly do. I love my family. I love my culture. I just can't be there. Especially now as I tend to my father's estate after he passed away at a relatively young age from a hyper rare cancer (squamous carcinoma of the pancreas). I like breathing clean air. I like drinking (relatively) clean water. I like being healthy. You won't get those things in Louisiana, and sadly, no one with any clout seems to give a damn.
jacquesm 9y ago
This is an interesting contrast to the VW scandal and the response to it.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Good observation. The VW emissions cheating was a technical violation that didn't have much of a real-world impact, because the percentage of diesel cars sold in the USA is tiny. It often seems that there's something of an inverse proportion in the public outrage over some event vs. the actual damage caused. VW cheats on emissions for cars that are a tiny of a percent of total cars sold in the USA --- huge fines, mass outrage, because why not? There's really no downside. New Orleans is chemically polluted for decades, cancer hot zone, etc --- shut up, business as usual, because we need the jobs.
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    The percentage of diesel cars in the EU, on the other hand, is huge: as late as 2015, many large countries like France and Germany had >50% shares. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Passenger_cars_in_the_EU http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
stickfigure 9y ago
I skimmed it and noticed this: Pentachlorophenol contains dioxins, which are used in making chemical weapons, like Agent Orange Agent Orange is not a chemical weapon, it is a defoliant. Dioxin contamination was a result of improper manufacture, not a deliberate ingredient. Read the wikipedia page, FFS. I hate it when this happens. Do I now have to question the rest of the article?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > Read the wikipedia page, FFS. Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Agent_Orange_on_the_Vietnamese_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Agent_Orange_on_the... Relevant quote: "Agent Orange is a chemical weapon most notably used by the US armed forces during the Vietnam War, classified as defoliant. "
  - troisx 9y ago
    Just because some Wikipedia editor writes something doesn't make it a fact. There are other relevant quotes in there from the governments of the U.K. And US saying that it's not a chemical weapon.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      GP explicitly references Wikipedia as an authority, that should not suddenly be grounds to dismiss a reply. The US saying it is not a chemical weapon is a bit like them declaring 'enhanced interrogation' not torture.
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    It depends on the meaning of the word. Agent Orange is both a chemical and a weapon, so yes, it's a "chemical weapon", but its primary purpose is killing trees, not people, and its health effects were largely an unintended consequence of a manufacturing side product, dioxin. Most people understand "chemical weapon" to mean weapons intended to kill people, like mustard gas, sarin, VX, ec. And yes, the original article definitely plays pretty fast and loose with scientific terminology to amp up the scare factor. A cup of coffee contains "likely carcinogens", mutagens and teratogens, the issue is the quantity and the likely effect.
reservelanote 9y ago
This is a good read for those concerned about pollution, and it's very important to remember that climate change is not the only environmental threat around. Chemical pollution is a bad situation. I was disappointed with a lack of a practical call to action: it's mostly a TED-style exhortation for the "government to do something", along with "chemical plants are bad". There are surely environmental laws, programs, and other regulatory procedures that could help this pollution. Was DuPont breaking the law? Should they have been? How about getting some quotes from the EPA or environmental lawyers? Ranting about "Jazzfest sponsored by Shell" isn't going to inform a citizen or government official about what steps to take next. Additionally, the second paragraph of the article contains a misleading statement about the risk of cancer in Reserve -- "800 times the national average". The data [1] is still shocking and generally backs up the article: there is a lot of chloroprene being dumped in the air in John the Baptist Parish, and the cancer risk there is the highest in the nation. But the 800x metric is only a summation of specifically enumerated, mostly chemical "point sources". If you sort by total cancer risk (most notably including emissions from cars and trucks), some of the tracts in the parish are only 2-4x the cancer risk of tracts in Manhattan and San Francisco. [1] https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/2011-national-air-toxics-assessment https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/2011-nati...
- beeeebo 9y ago
  2 to 4 times what it ought to be or not? Maybe it's ok
  - reservelanote 9y ago
    The particular situation with the neoprene plant couldn't possibly be OK, but the article is short on details. But I do think the risks of living in the general vicinity (yet outside the explosion range) of industrial facilities is oversold. For example, the east side of Houston towards the ship channel and its hundreds of refineries, terminals, plants, and other facilities shows a higher cancer risk than the rest of the metro area, but it's still less than many parts of LA, Seattle, NYC and San Francisco, due to other factors. The EPA doesn't recommend making these kind of comparisons for several reasons [1]. Also this dataset only covers air (not water / food / lifestyle) risks. [1] https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/nata-frequent-questions#background4 https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/nata-freq...
beeeebo 9y ago
You would be surprised that area is like what I imagine California is like people are laid back and friendly and never forget a good turn or complement and have the coolest accent it's a shame
nn3 9y ago
So why do these sick people not get some lawyers and start suing? Obviously there must be something stopping them, what is it?
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  I assume it's a lack of resources, namely money, time, energy, and knowledge.
- bhuga 9y ago
  A family member of mine used to take medical malpractice cases from these communities while I was growing up. She was routinely harassed and hassled by whatever (exclusively white) sheriff of whatever town was the brother-in-law of the doctor she was suing. Just driving around in these places trying to drum up support for such a suit would be a risk. They have a way of arresting you for imagined vehicular infractions right after the judges go home for the weekend, then letting you out Monday morning as soon as you're arraigned, where you can pay the bill to let out your impounded car. If that sort of pressure can be applied to people working cases that affect just one doctor in a community like this, I sure wouldn't want to to see what kind of pressure the chemical companies could bring to bear.
- bwhitty 9y ago
  These are poor communities. I know you realize how much lawyers cost. Could a firm step in in hopes of getting a big pay day going up against the huge titans of the Chemical industry? Probably. Just hasn't happened yet, I'd say.
lisper 9y ago
> The risk of cancer in Reserve, a community founded by freed slaves, is 800 times the national average I stopped reading there because I could think of no interpretation of that statement where the claim was even remotely plausible. The overall risk of developing some kind of cancer at some point in your life in the U.S. is about 40% [1]. Life expectancy is just shy of 80 years, so the annual risk of cancer is 0.5%. For the risk in Reserve to be 800 times that, the entire population would have to come down with cancer every three months. If that happened, it would be a bigger story. [1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/lifetime-probability-of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer.html https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/lifetime-probabi...
- eksemplar 9y ago
  That's not how probability works, and the risk of developing cancer isn't stable throughout your life, it increases significantly with age.
  - lisper 9y ago
    Yes, I know that. That analysis was a bit of a straw man. Like I said, the real problem is that I couldn't think of any interpretation under which that claim was plausible. Maybe that's simply due to a lack of imagination on my part, but the way to argue that is to present a plausible interpretation, not to simply proclaim that "that's not how probability works."
- jacquesm 9y ago
  https://www.epa.gov/la/laplace-louisiana-frequent-questions#highest-risks https://www.epa.gov/la/laplace-louisiana-frequent-questions#... It's 826 per million. http://www.fox8live.com/story/33542135/air-of-uncertainty-epa-singles-out-small-louisiana-community-as-highest-cancer-risk http://www.fox8live.com/story/33542135/air-of-uncertainty-ep...
  - reservelanote 9y ago
    The sum of the "point cancer risk" from local carcinogenic emissions, including chloroprene, is about 800x the national average.
hammock 9y ago
Chloroprene is the monomer of neoprene, meaning that when neoprene breaks down it creates chloroprene? Interested what evidence we have about the dangers of neoprene for humans/the environment
narrator 9y ago
We need to make chemicals somewhere. Where do we put the chemical plants then? Maybe somewhere where nobody lives where the prevailing winds blow over the ocean? The only place I can think of like that is southern Argentina, but nobody lives there so how do you get all the plant engineers and workers into the plant everyday? It's a tough problem.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > The only place I can think of like that is southern Argentina I doubt the Argentinians will go along with that.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - balladeer 9y ago
    I believe you are underestimating the capability of subversive diplomacy and corruptibility of bureaucracy :-)
    - ryanmarsh 9y ago
      Yes, it's called Louisiana.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  How about making chemicals in a way that doesn't release pollution? Alternatively, put them next to the houses of the owners and management and the schools of their children.
  - ryanmarsh 9y ago
    Show me how to make neoprene at competitive prices with no pollution and I'll quit my job and fund raise for you tomorrow.
    - 9y ago
100k 9y ago
There's a good treatment of the politics of Louisiana's environmental catastrophe in "Strangers in Their Own Land": https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Their-Own-Land-Mourning/dp/1620972255 https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Their-Own-Land-Mourning/dp/... The author talks to a lot of people in the state about the conflict between loving the outdoors (outdoor sports/hunting/recreation are big) and supporting companies that dump chemicals in the bayous, because of jobs. There's a lot of fatalism.
strictnein 9y ago
> "Many cases of cancer have occurred in communities on both sides of the river, though the Louisiana Tumor Registry claims the numbers are not higher than the national average" So... what are we then supposed to gather from this statement?
- delinka 9y ago
  We gather that the author did not acquire numbers from either side of the river, the Louisiana Tumor Registry, nor anything representing the national average.
- thrillgore 9y ago
  The numbers represent reported values and the real data may be significantly more? The writer has clickbait syndrome?
singularity2001 9y ago
I just love that caption "Crowd of about one hundred people" [Yes yes there are probably 98 hidden behind the sign] also since when is binary camouflage a thing for the military?
- njharman 9y ago
  If you mean digital pattern camouflage, then since early 2000's for the USA military.
ryanmarsh 9y ago
Louisiana is a wonderful mix of good things tainted with backwards thinking and selfishness. It is uniquely great and tragically flawed. There are several things at play in Louisiana: - the US economy runs on noxious chemicals made in Louisiana - families are tight - people are at peace with adversity - the food and music are like nowhere else - everyone knows everyone - the well off who stay in Louisana are very greedy and small minded - people there have a way of life that is slowly going away and they feel threatened and short changed This produces exactly what you'd expect. I lived in central and western Louisiana for two years and also had business there off and on for several more years. I love Louisiana. I love the closeness of the families, the polite friendly attitudes, the amazing food, the laid back fun culture. I love the salt-of-the-earth people. Mixed in is a lot of ignorance, backwardness, and amongst those with money or power: selfishness, corruption, and nepotism. Louisiana will remain in this low simmer of tragedy forever. As long as there are chemical plants there will be small communities of working poor. As long as there are small tight nit communities of working poor that can endure, along with pollution, there will be environmental tragedies. Louisiana will never change. I imagine 200 years from now Louisiana will be one big superfund site which elite Americans are (once a year) horrified to find people still live in. It'll probably be some long-form bit of journalism just like this. People will say "oh that's terrible" and things will continue on as they always have.
- MisterBastahrd 9y ago
  Louisiana is a lot like the Rust Belt in the sense that people have been able to graduate with a high school degree for generations and with the right connections, land a life-long job at a chemical plant paying good money with better-than-average benefits, mostly due to pension plans being baked into their benefits because they work for multinational corporations. They have been conditioned to believe that education is not important while being constantly exposed to casual racism and are thus heavily conservative... the large Catholic population in the southern part of the state has certainly played a part in moving in that direction given the Democratic Party's stance on women's rights. They are also highly sensitive to any issue that negatively affects the petrochemical industry. Local politicians have tried to introduce other types of business to the region, but who wants to go to an area where the heat is oppressive, the education system sucks, and you're a hurricane away from not having power or clean water for a month? Most people in that state are like most people in other states with respect to banal "exceptionalism." They believe that their culture and way of life is greater than that of other areas even though the average citizen is poorly educated.
brooklyntribe 9y ago
Louisiana sounds like hell. Guess they sold their souls for jobs. They seem OK with that. > The risk of cancer in Reserve, a community founded by freed slaves, is 800 times the national average, making the community, by one EPA metric, the most carcinogenic census tract in America—the cause is a DuPont/Denka chemical plant adjacent to the town that annually spews 250,000 pounds of the likely carcinogen chloroprene into the air. If you think the situation in Flint is bad, there are approximately 400 public water systems in Louisiana with lead or other hazardous substances leaching into the drinking water. Meanwhile, hundreds of petrochemical plants peppered across the state’s lush swampy interior freely emit carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and neurotoxins into the air and water, as well as inject them deep into the earth.

123 points by kawera 9y ago

The only fate of Louisiana is that it's a problem with its own inevitable solution; it will be inundated and become relatively unlivable. I have to wonder how much that plays into the decisions made by the people who understand that it's not really a long-term project as a state. This is still a hell of a way to treat people living there, but truly, no one should live there.

jacquesm 9y ago
Which will put all that stuff in the oceans.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  It's already running into the oceans; for better or worse this is going to be a disaster for humans more than anything else. For humans, by humans.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Sure, but that's a slow leach. For the cumulative poisons which are stable (such as heavy metals) it won't make much of a difference but inundation will increase the concentrations tremendously in a very short time.
ta871263 9y ago
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/new-orleans.shtml http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/new-orleans.shtml Not an expert by any means, but aren't we looking at +2 meters sea level rise by 2100? Maybe less than 1 meter by 2050? Try it out! IMHO, it would be better not to wait for global warming to take care of this for us. Coastal erosion due factors other than climate in Louisiana is a different (probably more urgent) problem which actually can be solved without world government. Just better government in Louisiana, which...well, OK, yeah, it's probably not going to happen. :)
scurvy 9y ago
A little background about myself: I was born and raised in New Orleans to a middle class family that valued education (both parents 1600 SAT and English majors, MD, and MA). I went to one of the best private schools in the New Orleans area, coincidentally built on top of a former dump. All of my family still lives in New Orleans. I live in San Francisco now and haven't lived in New Orleans since my high school graduation. I return to visit New Orleans about three to four times per year. On every visit, someone will half-jokingly ask me, "So when are you going to leave crazy California and move back?" I simply reply, "When are you going to flee Louisiana?" I have a convenient excuse in that I work in tech, and my family members convince themselves that's the only reason I don't move back. I tell them that I'm never moving back, but they stubbornly hold on to hope. My family isn't the stereotypical American-without-a-passport untraveled, uncultured types. My sisters have lived in Paris, London, Oregon, Maine, Maryland, DC, Texas, Georgia etc. My mom lived in Barcelona for stretches and speaks three languages. Yet they all end up back in the New Orleans area. Family bonds are that strong. Maybe I'm cold and too calculating for not living there with them. After every good visit with the kids, nephews, aunts and uncles, my wife prods me, "Hey maybe we should live closer to your family." I just reply "No." The answer is simple: Louisiana, and New Orleans especially, is doomed as an ongoing entity. Call it fatalism, call it blindness, or call it stupidity, whatever the reason -- the people of Louisiana just keep on doing the same thing with the same reaction every time something bad happens; "Oh that's such a shame." New Orleans' nickname is the "big easy"; I call it "the tiny difficult". Nothing ever changes. Progress is slow and glacial. Everyone knows everyone and has their nose in everyone else's business. You live a good life in Old Metairie with a nice weekend home in rural Louisiana. You find out that the wilderness near your home has recently been purchased. The land hasn't ever been touched, so you do some digging into it. You find out that they're going to clearcut the forest and wetlands and build an "oil services facility" on it with "mixed use commercial and residential" on the other side. This worries you because of the loss of wetlands and buffer zone (the forest would soak up flood waters in storms), and you're worried about pollution from the increased land use. You object to the project formally because you're well off and have some free time. Only later, you find out that your opponents are your very rich neighbors in Old Metairie -- doctors and lawyers speculating on land with their friends in the oil business. They start saying bad things and calling you names like a tree hugger and eco-mentalist. Others say that you're blocking progress and aren't thinking of the community and jobs. Eventually, the crooked tentacles of corruption will make their way through the bureaucracies and you will lose. Your neighbors will make more money, "progress" will happen, and you'll now deal with floods annually on a property that never flooded in hundreds of years. The craziest thing about this tale isn't that it's true. It's that the very people profiting from this and pulling the levers are in the state. They're not always far-off corporations. They're your neighbors: pillars of local industry and commerce who are lauded for their success. It's insane to me that these people are looting and ravaging the very land that they live, and that they will continue to live on. It's one thing to be a wild tycoon, burn the locals and flee. But they're knowingly (or blindingly) hurting themselves, their families, and future generations. Maybe it's the constant layer of corruption in the state at every level. Maybe there's a sense of fatalism. But the very people whose livelihoods are on the line just don't care. One would think that Louisianans would be the most read, most vested people in the US on the topic of climate change. They're not. They don't believe in it. Despite losing all the barrier islands, wetland loss, extinction of species from habitat loss, facing worse storms every year, etc. They just think of their jobs and their family. People don't like being told that their job and way of life is going away because of their own ignorance, but it's the truth. There's not much that will save Louisiana at this point. Maybe the federal government (not in this administration) will step in and help? The best thing that happened to the New Orleans public school system was Katrina (the feds took over the local school system and turned it around). It pains me to write this. I love my homeland. I truly do. I love my family. I love my culture. I just can't be there. Especially now as I tend to my father's estate after he passed away at a relatively young age from a hyper rare cancer (squamous carcinoma of the pancreas). I like breathing clean air. I like drinking (relatively) clean water. I like being healthy. You won't get those things in Louisiana, and sadly, no one with any clout seems to give a damn.

jacquesm 9y ago

This is an interesting contrast to the VW scandal and the response to it.

ams6110 9y ago
Good observation. The VW emissions cheating was a technical violation that didn't have much of a real-world impact, because the percentage of diesel cars sold in the USA is tiny. It often seems that there's something of an inverse proportion in the public outrage over some event vs. the actual damage caused. VW cheats on emissions for cars that are a tiny of a percent of total cars sold in the USA --- huge fines, mass outrage, because why not? There's really no downside. New Orleans is chemically polluted for decades, cancer hot zone, etc --- shut up, business as usual, because we need the jobs.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  The percentage of diesel cars in the EU, on the other hand, is huge: as late as 2015, many large countries like France and Germany had >50% shares. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Passenger_cars_in_the_EU http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

stickfigure 9y ago

I skimmed it and noticed this: Pentachlorophenol contains dioxins, which are used in making chemical weapons, like Agent Orange Agent Orange is not a chemical weapon, it is a defoliant. Dioxin contamination was a result of improper manufacture, not a deliberate ingredient. Read the wikipedia page, FFS. I hate it when this happens. Do I now have to question the rest of the article?

jacquesm 9y ago
> Read the wikipedia page, FFS. Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Agent_Orange_on_the_Vietnamese_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Agent_Orange_on_the... Relevant quote: "Agent Orange is a chemical weapon most notably used by the US armed forces during the Vietnam War, classified as defoliant. "
- troisx 9y ago
  Just because some Wikipedia editor writes something doesn't make it a fact. There are other relevant quotes in there from the governments of the U.K. And US saying that it's not a chemical weapon.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    GP explicitly references Wikipedia as an authority, that should not suddenly be grounds to dismiss a reply. The US saying it is not a chemical weapon is a bit like them declaring 'enhanced interrogation' not torture.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  It depends on the meaning of the word. Agent Orange is both a chemical and a weapon, so yes, it's a "chemical weapon", but its primary purpose is killing trees, not people, and its health effects were largely an unintended consequence of a manufacturing side product, dioxin. Most people understand "chemical weapon" to mean weapons intended to kill people, like mustard gas, sarin, VX, ec. And yes, the original article definitely plays pretty fast and loose with scientific terminology to amp up the scare factor. A cup of coffee contains "likely carcinogens", mutagens and teratogens, the issue is the quantity and the likely effect.

reservelanote 9y ago

This is a good read for those concerned about pollution, and it's very important to remember that climate change is not the only environmental threat around. Chemical pollution is a bad situation. I was disappointed with a lack of a practical call to action: it's mostly a TED-style exhortation for the "government to do something", along with "chemical plants are bad". There are surely environmental laws, programs, and other regulatory procedures that could help this pollution. Was DuPont breaking the law? Should they have been? How about getting some quotes from the EPA or environmental lawyers? Ranting about "Jazzfest sponsored by Shell" isn't going to inform a citizen or government official about what steps to take next. Additionally, the second paragraph of the article contains a misleading statement about the risk of cancer in Reserve -- "800 times the national average". The data [1] is still shocking and generally backs up the article: there is a lot of chloroprene being dumped in the air in John the Baptist Parish, and the cancer risk there is the highest in the nation. But the 800x metric is only a summation of specifically enumerated, mostly chemical "point sources". If you sort by total cancer risk (most notably including emissions from cars and trucks), some of the tracts in the parish are only 2-4x the cancer risk of tracts in Manhattan and San Francisco. [1] https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/2011-national-air-toxics-assessment https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/2011-nati...

beeeebo 9y ago
2 to 4 times what it ought to be or not? Maybe it's ok
- reservelanote 9y ago
  The particular situation with the neoprene plant couldn't possibly be OK, but the article is short on details. But I do think the risks of living in the general vicinity (yet outside the explosion range) of industrial facilities is oversold. For example, the east side of Houston towards the ship channel and its hundreds of refineries, terminals, plants, and other facilities shows a higher cancer risk than the rest of the metro area, but it's still less than many parts of LA, Seattle, NYC and San Francisco, due to other factors. The EPA doesn't recommend making these kind of comparisons for several reasons [1]. Also this dataset only covers air (not water / food / lifestyle) risks. [1] https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/nata-frequent-questions#background4 https://www.epa.gov/national-air-toxics-assessment/nata-freq...

beeeebo 9y ago

You would be surprised that area is like what I imagine California is like people are laid back and friendly and never forget a good turn or complement and have the coolest accent it's a shame

nn3 9y ago

So why do these sick people not get some lawyers and start suing? Obviously there must be something stopping them, what is it?

lotsofpulp 9y ago
I assume it's a lack of resources, namely money, time, energy, and knowledge.
bhuga 9y ago
A family member of mine used to take medical malpractice cases from these communities while I was growing up. She was routinely harassed and hassled by whatever (exclusively white) sheriff of whatever town was the brother-in-law of the doctor she was suing. Just driving around in these places trying to drum up support for such a suit would be a risk. They have a way of arresting you for imagined vehicular infractions right after the judges go home for the weekend, then letting you out Monday morning as soon as you're arraigned, where you can pay the bill to let out your impounded car. If that sort of pressure can be applied to people working cases that affect just one doctor in a community like this, I sure wouldn't want to to see what kind of pressure the chemical companies could bring to bear.
bwhitty 9y ago
These are poor communities. I know you realize how much lawyers cost. Could a firm step in in hopes of getting a big pay day going up against the huge titans of the Chemical industry? Probably. Just hasn't happened yet, I'd say.

lisper 9y ago

> The risk of cancer in Reserve, a community founded by freed slaves, is 800 times the national average I stopped reading there because I could think of no interpretation of that statement where the claim was even remotely plausible. The overall risk of developing some kind of cancer at some point in your life in the U.S. is about 40% [1]. Life expectancy is just shy of 80 years, so the annual risk of cancer is 0.5%. For the risk in Reserve to be 800 times that, the entire population would have to come down with cancer every three months. If that happened, it would be a bigger story. [1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/lifetime-probability-of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer.html https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/lifetime-probabi...

eksemplar 9y ago
That's not how probability works, and the risk of developing cancer isn't stable throughout your life, it increases significantly with age.
- lisper 9y ago
  Yes, I know that. That analysis was a bit of a straw man. Like I said, the real problem is that I couldn't think of any interpretation under which that claim was plausible. Maybe that's simply due to a lack of imagination on my part, but the way to argue that is to present a plausible interpretation, not to simply proclaim that "that's not how probability works."
jacquesm 9y ago
https://www.epa.gov/la/laplace-louisiana-frequent-questions#highest-risks https://www.epa.gov/la/laplace-louisiana-frequent-questions#... It's 826 per million. http://www.fox8live.com/story/33542135/air-of-uncertainty-epa-singles-out-small-louisiana-community-as-highest-cancer-risk http://www.fox8live.com/story/33542135/air-of-uncertainty-ep...
- reservelanote 9y ago
  The sum of the "point cancer risk" from local carcinogenic emissions, including chloroprene, is about 800x the national average.

hammock 9y ago

Chloroprene is the monomer of neoprene, meaning that when neoprene breaks down it creates chloroprene? Interested what evidence we have about the dangers of neoprene for humans/the environment

narrator 9y ago

We need to make chemicals somewhere. Where do we put the chemical plants then? Maybe somewhere where nobody lives where the prevailing winds blow over the ocean? The only place I can think of like that is southern Argentina, but nobody lives there so how do you get all the plant engineers and workers into the plant everyday? It's a tough problem.

jacquesm 9y ago
> The only place I can think of like that is southern Argentina I doubt the Argentinians will go along with that.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- balladeer 9y ago
  I believe you are underestimating the capability of subversive diplomacy and corruptibility of bureaucracy :-)
  - ryanmarsh 9y ago
    Yes, it's called Louisiana.
maxxxxx 9y ago
How about making chemicals in a way that doesn't release pollution? Alternatively, put them next to the houses of the owners and management and the schools of their children.
- ryanmarsh 9y ago
  Show me how to make neoprene at competitive prices with no pollution and I'll quit my job and fund raise for you tomorrow.
  - 9y ago

100k 9y ago

There's a good treatment of the politics of Louisiana's environmental catastrophe in "Strangers in Their Own Land": https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Their-Own-Land-Mourning/dp/1620972255 https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Their-Own-Land-Mourning/dp/... The author talks to a lot of people in the state about the conflict between loving the outdoors (outdoor sports/hunting/recreation are big) and supporting companies that dump chemicals in the bayous, because of jobs. There's a lot of fatalism.

strictnein 9y ago

> "Many cases of cancer have occurred in communities on both sides of the river, though the Louisiana Tumor Registry claims the numbers are not higher than the national average" So... what are we then supposed to gather from this statement?

delinka 9y ago
We gather that the author did not acquire numbers from either side of the river, the Louisiana Tumor Registry, nor anything representing the national average.
thrillgore 9y ago
The numbers represent reported values and the real data may be significantly more? The writer has clickbait syndrome?

singularity2001 9y ago

I just love that caption "Crowd of about one hundred people" [Yes yes there are probably 98 hidden behind the sign] also since when is binary camouflage a thing for the military?

njharman 9y ago
If you mean digital pattern camouflage, then since early 2000's for the USA military.

ryanmarsh 9y ago

Louisiana is a wonderful mix of good things tainted with backwards thinking and selfishness. It is uniquely great and tragically flawed. There are several things at play in Louisiana: - the US economy runs on noxious chemicals made in Louisiana - families are tight - people are at peace with adversity - the food and music are like nowhere else - everyone knows everyone - the well off who stay in Louisana are very greedy and small minded - people there have a way of life that is slowly going away and they feel threatened and short changed This produces exactly what you'd expect. I lived in central and western Louisiana for two years and also had business there off and on for several more years. I love Louisiana. I love the closeness of the families, the polite friendly attitudes, the amazing food, the laid back fun culture. I love the salt-of-the-earth people. Mixed in is a lot of ignorance, backwardness, and amongst those with money or power: selfishness, corruption, and nepotism. Louisiana will remain in this low simmer of tragedy forever. As long as there are chemical plants there will be small communities of working poor. As long as there are small tight nit communities of working poor that can endure, along with pollution, there will be environmental tragedies. Louisiana will never change. I imagine 200 years from now Louisiana will be one big superfund site which elite Americans are (once a year) horrified to find people still live in. It'll probably be some long-form bit of journalism just like this. People will say "oh that's terrible" and things will continue on as they always have.

MisterBastahrd 9y ago
Louisiana is a lot like the Rust Belt in the sense that people have been able to graduate with a high school degree for generations and with the right connections, land a life-long job at a chemical plant paying good money with better-than-average benefits, mostly due to pension plans being baked into their benefits because they work for multinational corporations. They have been conditioned to believe that education is not important while being constantly exposed to casual racism and are thus heavily conservative... the large Catholic population in the southern part of the state has certainly played a part in moving in that direction given the Democratic Party's stance on women's rights. They are also highly sensitive to any issue that negatively affects the petrochemical industry. Local politicians have tried to introduce other types of business to the region, but who wants to go to an area where the heat is oppressive, the education system sucks, and you're a hurricane away from not having power or clean water for a month? Most people in that state are like most people in other states with respect to banal "exceptionalism." They believe that their culture and way of life is greater than that of other areas even though the average citizen is poorly educated.

brooklyntribe 9y ago

Louisiana sounds like hell. Guess they sold their souls for jobs. They seem OK with that. > The risk of cancer in Reserve, a community founded by freed slaves, is 800 times the national average, making the community, by one EPA metric, the most carcinogenic census tract in America—the cause is a DuPont/Denka chemical plant adjacent to the town that annually spews 250,000 pounds of the likely carcinogen chloroprene into the air. If you think the situation in Flint is bad, there are approximately 400 public water systems in Louisiana with lead or other hazardous substances leaching into the drinking water. Meanwhile, hundreds of petrochemical plants peppered across the state’s lush swampy interior freely emit carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and neurotoxins into the air and water, as well as inject them deep into the earth.