The petrochemical industry is under attack unlike anything in recent history.
While resistance to industry is nothing new, the challenges we face today target an area that is difficult to fight against without coming across as completely out-of-touch. In today's world, many rely on emotion, paying no attention to facts.
In February, the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic (TELC) published an environmental research letter in lOPScience claiming residents in poor and/or Black industrial communities in Louisiana have higher rates of cancer due to toxic air pollution. Although these claims are misleading and incorrect, it is tough to argue against them without coming across as insensitive.
The TELC letter was based on a report the group published in June 2021. Upon review, the study showed what public health professionals have known for decades and what's true across the country: higher cancer incidence is linked to poverty, not industrial exposure. Experts link this to lack of preventive care, poor nutrition and other factors that the state and others are working to address.
To reach its desired conclusions, the TELC study changed the boundaries of the typical seven-parish Louisiana Industrial Corridor to include parishes with higher cancer rates, omitted census tracts and parishes that reported no cancer cases, and excluded smoking and obesity, the factors most strongly linked to cancer. Additionally, it used old National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) data, opting to use a 2005 NATA rather than any of the later years that show lower rates of pollution as industries have reduced their emissions over time. Even then, it still only proved what we have known for a long time: Income is a significant determinant for cancer risk because it tends to establish whether someone has access to preventive health care and healthy lifestyle options.
The study blamed local industrial facilities, state and local officials, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, and the Louisiana Department of Health, as well as the Louisiana Tumor Registry (LTR) for failing to address a perceived problem of health disparities in industrial areas. In fact, the LTR published a response titled "Don't Believe Everything You Read or Hear," noting a number of groups have tried to elevate their causes by propagating distrust in the LTR and its data, and by attacking its methods and misrepresenting its responsibilities. The LTR's reports, which have received national acclaim for data accuracy every year since the late 1990s, show there is no widespread increase of cancer incidence in the industrial corridor.
According to the American Association for Cancer Research, environmental pollutants account for only 2 percent of relative contribution to cancer incidence, whereas tobacco use and obesity make up 33 percent and 19 percent respectively. Louisiana has some of the highest smoking and obesity rates in the nation. Conversely, over the past 50 years, air pollution from industrial activity has dramatically decreased as industrial facilities have implemented better technologies to mitigate emissions.
TELC and similar groups are prepared to do anything it takes to rid Louisiana of industrial businesses that provide good jobs, much needed local tax dollars, and products we depend on while providing no alternative plans to replace them.
Meanwhile, Louisiana's chemical industry is constantly seeking new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while creating sustainable products that meet the evolving needs of communities across the world. We're utilizing the latest science and technology to prioritize efficiency and safety in everything we do and everything we make.
And that's worked.
Significant investments by the entire industry in Louisiana have allowed us to reduce emissions by 75 percent in the past 30 years - an achievement once considered unthinkable.
We must stand up against the opposition's efforts by disputing these claims with hard, scientific facts and continuing to be a part of efforts to improve the state's health and environment. Only by working together can we secure our state's future.
For more information, visit www.lca.org or email info@lca.org.
