Toxic Racism
CHEMICAL CORRIDOR A CANCER ON COMMUNITIES AS WELL AS ENVIRONMENT

Greenpeace Press Release

Environmental Groups Unite to Link Louisiana, Global Concerns -News Conference on Greenpeace Ship, Thursday, Aug. 12

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 10, 1993 (GP) Louisiana's infamous 'Cancer Alley' is at the center of a circle of poison devastating communities around the world, say local activists joining with Greenpeace to campaign against toxic racism at home and abroad.

Groups including the Gulf Coast Tenants Association, Louisiana Citizens for Tax Justice and Louisiana Environmental Action Network will welcome the M.V. Greenpeace -- one of eight ships in the Greenpeace fleet of action vessels -- and issue a statement condemning environmental racism at a news conference at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 12. The news conference will be on the M.V. Greenpeace, berthed at the Bienville Street Pier, near the Aquarium of the Americas.

"The industries lining 'Cancer Alley' between Baton Rouge and New Orleans produce almost one-third of the nation's petrochemicals -- mostly in African-American communities," said Pat Bryant, executive director of Gulf Coast Tenants Association.

"But the pattern of poison extends far beyond Louisiana, as these toxic substances are shipped through our communities to every corner of the world," said Bryant. "Racism guarantees a safe place to poison communities that are deemed expendable, whether in the housing projects of New Orleans, the farm fields of Africa and Latin America or the factories of Southeast Asia."

Bryant said the M.V. Greenpeace's visit -- continuing the campaigns against the organization has waged in Louisiana since 1987 -- will point up the connections between the state's environmental problems and worldwide environmental devastation:

-- The commercial extinction of red drum, speckled trout and other Gulf Coast fisheries are part of a worldwide fisheries crisis that has led the United Nations to classify most major commercial species as depleted, over-exploited or fully exploited. Overfishing and contamination by toxics such as PCBs and DDT have created a large "Dead Zone" in the Gulf.

-- The "Cancer Corridor" between Baton Rouge and New Orleans produces 30 percent of the nation's petrochemicals, including gasoline, plastics and other products that contribute to global warming and depletion of the ozone layer.

-- The Port of New Orleans is the nation's largest exporter of banned and never-registered pesticides, shipping at least 20 million pounds of such poisons last year -- more than one-third of the U.S. total.

-- New Orleans is also a major port for the export of other toxic wastes, with almost 1 million pounds of plastic scrap and more than 6.6 million pounds of scrap metal shipped so far in 1993 -- most of it to Latin America and Southeast Asia.

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