River Folks Fight Hazardous Waste Plant : ‘Cancer Alley’: Poor residents along lower Mississippi River spurred to action by plans for new source of toxic emissions.

To be poor is bad enough. To be forced to choke on industry’s fumes while doing without is just too much, say residents fighting the creation of another chemical plant in their neighborhood.

With a sigh, 66-year-old carpenter LeRoy Alfred says it’s no coincidence that the poor along the lower Mississippi River are also black. Their forefathers were the slaves who built the planters’ mansions. Their descendants became sharecroppers who were slaves to the company store, he said.

A number of the mansions still exist, draws for tourists. But the beauty of the once-lush stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is marred by smokestacks and vast docking structures. Toxic emissions around Carville are more than three times the state average.

“They call us Cancer Alley now,” Alfred said in an interview. “We got 100 plants between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. There’s 10 in a 6-mile area around my house.”

The announcement of plans for an 11th plant finally stirred Alfred to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to investigate possible civil rights violations. Supplemental Fuels Inc. is still in the state permitting process, hoping to operate a plant in nearby St. Gabriel that incinerates hazardous waste in a cement kiln.

The Clinton Administration has agreed to investigate whether certain plant locations in the nation violate the Civil Rights Act. In Mississippi, residents of Noxubee County, whose population is 68% black, hope to block a $100-million hazardous waste landfill and a cement kiln.

“Why do they have to build them in poor, black communities?” Alfred asked. “If that’s not racism, what is? We’ve just traded one form of slavery for another. We’re no better off than our granddaddies.

“At least we had food, our own gardens. Thirty years ago the chemical plants came. Our gardens die; we all cough and drink water we think is poisoned. We’re poor and we can’t move. On top of that, I don’t think 25 black people in this community work in those chemical plants.”

Last fall, Louisiana’s state committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigated complaints and said it could find no evidence that plants handling hazardous materials are located near minorities for racist reasons.

The panel, which has several minority members, did acknowledge that black communities are “disproportionately impacted” when permits are issued.

Dan Borne, president of the Louisiana Chemical Assn., further acknowledged that the industry had not adequately addressed residents’ “anxieties, fears and complaints.” The industry is now establishing committees that include residents to discuss those fears “and work out any problems.”

As for locating plants near black communities, Borne said, “Industry locates for business reasons only. We needed the natural gas, the Mississippi River for transportation and large acreage at a reasonable price. It’s that simple.”

The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, representing residents in both the Mississippi and Louisiana cases, does not allege intentional discrimination, but contends the states’ permitting procedures lead to discriminatory results.

Alfred said he knows only “that black folk are trapped in this polluted environment. The plant managers don’t live in our communities. Most of the employees don’t live in our communities. Thirty years ago they promised us prosperity. We’re still poor. We still don’t have enough jobs. That’s the bottom line.”