Guest guest Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Louisiana is a major center for refining oil into gasoline and many other petrochemical products. The area right next to New Orleans-an area devastated by Katrina-has been dubbed Cancer Alley for all of the pollution its refineries spew onto adjacent poor communities of color, and for the cancer clusters found to correlate with this contamination. The people of Cancer Alley have suffered the scourge of oil several times over. Every day they breathed the filthy air and drank the contaminated water that the neighboring petrochemcial corporations served up. Many are sick. Some are dead. Now their homes are gone, swept away by a hurricane likely fueled by global warming caused in part by the oil refining that poisoned their community in the first place. On top of this, almost all 140 chemical plants between New Orleans and Baton Rouge have sustained damage. " At least two hazardous waste sites are underwater, at least two oil refinery sites in Chalmette are shut down and possibly flooded, " said Darryl Malek-Wiley a grassroots Environmental Justice Organizer in Louisiana. Rigzone.com, an oil and gas industry website reports that refineries and drilling rigs in 13 different sites have spilled tens of thousands of barrels of oil. A toxic stew of this oil, gasoline, vinyl chloride, and other hazardous chemicals threatens to profoundly contaminate the area for generations to come. Janice ________ Find your next car at http://autos..ca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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