The southeastern Louisiana city of St. Gabriel has zero major fast food chain restaurants, pharmacies or laundromats. But there are nearly a dozen chemical facilities within city limits and at least 30 within a 10 mile radius.
“We have bad smells here at night,” said Reginald Grace, 72, a retired counselor and lifelong resident. “Like a rotten egg, like chlorine.”
The air on a regular day in St. Gabriel is acrid — but many residents seem not to notice anymore. Grace has spent the last 10 years organizing residents against the growing chemical industry. The city is located in Louisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley” — an 85-mile stretch of land between Baton Rouge and New Orleans home to over 200 industrial facilities along the Mississippi River, where the risk of cancer from industrial air pollution is the highest in the nation…