Day Eight: The Mississippi River

Subsistence and Toxicity

Today our group visited the Louisiana State University (LSU) Center for River Studies and went on a bike tour with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental health and justice organization that works with communities that neighbor oil refineries and chemical plants in the state. Much of our group agreed that today was a packed day— relaying everything we learned, heard, and felt would be impossible. 

Our day at LSU began with a short tour of the interactive display of the Center’s research of and plans for the Mississippi River delta, given by Joseph McClatchy, Coastal Resources Program Specialist. We learned the basics: when a river begins to slow down, it deposits sediment, which creates a delta. Southeastern Louisiana is this delta for the Mississippi River. In just the last 5000 years, the delta has moved tremendously as the river has snaked— 3000 years ago, there wasn’t even land above the surface where New Orleans currently sits.  

Despite the river’s natural tendency to change its path, humans have artificially—and detrimentally—restricted its movement. The expansion of industries such as that of oil and gas caused many structures (namely, refineries) to be built just along the river banks for ease of shipping. In turn, levees were and are installed to separate land and river, essentially putting a brace on the river. This has had harsh environmental impacts: because the delta is meant to flood, the coastal ecosystems are dependent on this flooding and are suffering without it. Additionally, projected sea level rise further complicates the riparian ecosystem, with even more “protective” infrastructure put in place to mitigate damage.

 

In an effort to combat negative impacts of changes, groups like LSU and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) are working to restore the landscape. At LSU’s Center for River Studies, we learned about some of these plans. First, we saw the Lower Mississippi River Physical Model, a 10,000 square foot, three-dimensional model of the river bed, used to model sediment transport. It uses data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey to mimic the river’s behavior and predict future trends—it does so by changing the water and sediment levels every 65 seconds (the equivalent of 5 days in real time). There, we also learned about the CPRA’s Coastal Master Plan, a $50 billion plan renewed every 5 years that outlines various measures to preserve the entire ecosystem such as march creation, shoreline protection, and sediment diversion. Though these measures seem positive with given funding, many of our group members couldn’t help but think that they were short-term solutions to a very long-term problem. We continually asked ourselves, wouldn’t it be better to move everyone out of the delta, so that the river could move and deposit as it pleases? Of course, we realized there is no answer as simple as that. People have a deep connection to place and home, and larger forces such as the legacy of oil and gas industry infrastructure as well as the immobility from poverty prevent that solution from being possible. 

Later in the afternoon, we got to see the impacts of poverty and the legacy of segregation in Louisiana firsthand. 

The second half of our day was spent with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade with Anne Rolfes, the Founding Director, and Iris Carter, a Community Liaison. We biked along an area along the Mississippi called “Cancer Alley.” Cancer Alley is an area in which multiple, large-scale petrochemical plants and neighborhoods exist right next to each other. Much of the land is former plantation land and the neighborhoods were founded by freed slaves. Corporations such as Shell and Valero built their plants on this undervalued land. The proximity of these populations to these plants has led to perpetual and irreversible health impacts— the risk of cancer in Reserve, one of the communities, is 800 times that of the national average. The neighborhood, nearly 100% black, is caught in an inescapable positive feedback loop— when the oil companies came into the neighborhoods of these already vulnerable populations, they destroyed the standard of living by polluting the air with carcinogens, disproportionally harming these communities of color. While many community members feel a strong connection to the land and are determined to stay, many hope to move away. This is challenging because property values have plummeted. As these issues of race and economic disparity compound on each other, the cycle is near-impossible to break out of, and the impacts (health, and otherwise) are irreversible. The Bucket Brigade works to raise awareness of these injustices through events, legal representation, and overall, advocacy through the sharing of stories. 

 

We learned about most of this from Iris, who was born and raised in Diamond, a neighborhood in Norco, Louisiana (Norco is short for “New Orleans Refinery Company”). She shared stories with us that we could barely fathom. As we stood in what seemed to be in an open field, she explained that there used to be houses there. She told us the story of a 15 year-old boy who was mowing his lawn and hit a pipe in the ground that the neighborhood did not know was under their land. His lawn mower exploded, and because of the oil now in the ground, he caught on fire and was killed. Shell paid his mother just $500 for his funeral. Iris asked us, “how do you put value on a human life?” 

Iris and Anne also pointed out the ironies present in the neighborhood of Norco. A plantation house still exists today as a tourist destination. The “Welcome to Norco” sign shows the sun shining over a neighborhood with a refinery in it. A banner reading “Mile of History” has a picture of a plantation house as its logo.  

Throughout the tour, they reminded us of the 1811 slave revolt, in which slaves walked along the Mississippi downstream to New Orleans, damaging the plantations in their path. They stood up to the most powerful force suppressing them. As Margie Richard, a local environmental activist, once said, “If my ancestors could stand up to slavery, I can stand up to Shell.” They encouraged us to keep these sentiments in mind with whatever we do— it’s how they continue their advocacy. 

No news story, professor in a classroom, nor myself could ever convey Iris' emotions as she shared her stories. They were real and unfiltered, and they taught us the injustice the oil and gas industry has wrought onto the people of Norco, of Louisiana, and of the country. Having met many of the executives working in the companies that control the petrochemical plants, our group grappled with how genuine their efforts are to reduce their harm. How can a company that claims to value “sustainability” continue to violate the basic human rights of so many people? We were forced to confront our complacence as we witnessed the companies that supply our energy inflict so much harm on the people of Norco. Today reminded us that the equation for energy does not exclude people. Even so, no one group of people should have to bear the burden of our society’s energy production. We internalized a crucial message: when developing solutions for our energy future, all voices must be heard. 

--Shannon Sartain '21