(Plant)ation Country

04/26/23 • 48 min

Louisiana is home to the country's largest hotspot for toxic air — an industrial corridor nicknamed “Cancer Alley.” More than 150 petrochemical plants line the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Amid the boom, many Black communities live with a disproportionate amount of pollution.

But years of protest have begun to bear fruit. We travel the Mississippi River to learn what has allowed the industry to flourish on its banks, see how the tide might turn in one neighborhood’s fight for clean air, and ask what’s next for a growing environmental justice movement as federal regulators take firmer action.

Find more information on local activists' tug of war with Denka Performance Elastomers and other environmental justice updates here.

To hear a reflection from Louisiana's former Department of Environmental Quality Secretary, Chuck Carr Brown, listen here.

Explore how the EPA is looking at environmental justice, their pending civil rights investigations and their updates on Denka and air monitoring at these links. Find a copy of the EPA's letter of concern to Louisiana's Department of Health and Department of Environmental Quality here.

You can find Denka Performance Elastomers website here.

A special thanks to members of the Concerned Citizens of St. John Robert Taylor, Mary Hampton, and Larry Soraporu for being so generous with their time. Find their group here.

Hosted by Halle Parker and Kezia Setyawan.

Our managing producer is Carlyle Calhoun. Editing help was provided by Carlyle Calhoun, Rosemary Westwood Priska Neely, Patrick Madden, and Eve Abrams. Our sound designer is Maddie Zampanti.

Sea Change is a production of WWNO and WRKF. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX.

Find more information on local activists' tug of war with Denka Performance Elastomers and other environmental justice updates here.

To hear a reflection from Louisiana's former Department of Environmental Quality Secretary, Chuck Carr Brown, listen here.

You can find Denka Performance Elastomers website here.

A special thanks to members of the Concerned Citizens of St. John Robert Taylor, Mary Hampton, and Larry Soraporu for being so generous with their time. Find their group here.

Hosted by Halle Parker and Kezia Setyawan.

Our managing producer is Carlyle Calhoun. Editing help was provided by Carlyle Calhoun, Rosemary Westwood Priska Neely, Patrick Madden, and Eve Abrams. Our sound designer is Maddie Zampanti.

Sea Change is a production of WWNO and WRKF. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX.

Previous Episode

Music Fights Back

We talk with people working at the intersection of music and the environment and ask how one can influence the other. Grammy-award-winning Cajun punk musician Louis Michot of the Lost Bayou Ramblers and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, who leads the national environmental advocacy group, the Hip Hop Caucus, tell us about how they use music to inspire action on the climate crisis and environmental injustice.

Hosted by Halle Parker and Carlyle Calhoun. Our managing producer is Carlyle Calhoun. Our sound designer is Maddie Zampanti.

Sea Change is a production of WWNO and WRKF. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX.

Next Episode

Salty Chefs

Food connects us to our past, to our memories, to each other, and to the world around us. It’s powerful. But food systems–from how we grow or catch things to how we transport them –are also incredibly complex. As climate change increasingly impacts the world, we are seeing some of the first effects of that through our food.

So we’ve been wondering... How can we keep enjoying the food we love to eat without hurting the ecosystems it comes from? And how can we support the people who make a livelihood producing that food? Today on Sea Change, we meet some amazing chefs to help us answer those questions. First, we go into the kitchen of Top Chef finalist, Isaac Toups, to learn how he connects cooking with activism for saving the coast. And then we speak to a group of chefs who are just as passionate about what they put on our plates as they are about protecting the place we live...from the wetlands of Louisiana to the entire planet.

A special thanks to Chef Isaac Toups, Chef Dana Honn, Chef Erik Nunley, and Chef April Bellows.

For more information about the Chef’s Brigade: https://www.chefsbrigade.org

Hosted by Carlyle Calhoun and Halle Parker. Our managing producer is Carlyle Calhoun. Our sound designer is Maddie Zampanti. Sea Change is a production of WWNO and WRKF. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX.