For this professorship, I am proposing the production of a documentary that looks at the issues of environmental racism in 1996 and the attempts by then Governor Foster and the state of Louisiana to violate the constitutional rights of citizens of Convent, Louisiana. Specifically, among other constitutional rights, I will be looking at the violations of First Amendment, specifically the right to free speech and the right to peacefully assemble.
Background:
In 1998, Robert Kuehn and Oliver Houck, professors of environmental law at Tulane University and the student organization they created and directed, the Environmental Law Clinic came under attack from then Governor Mike Foster and many business organizations.
For thirty years, the clinic, which was staffed by 20-30 “student attorneys,” represented clients along “the Chemical Corridor.” This area of the state lies along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and is home to seven major oil refineries and hundreds of other chemical and industrial sites. The clinic is the largest faculty-supervised environmental law clinic in the country according to Tulane Law School. It had received a number of national awards for their work, and Tulane’s environmental law program was ranked at number five in the country by U.S. News and World Report (Martinello). In 1996, poor African-American residents in Convent, Louisiana approached the Environmental Law Clinic for representation and assistance in stopping Shintec, a subsidiary of the Japanese company Shin Etsu, from moving forward with their plans to build a $700 million polyvinyl chloride plant. …show more content…
The citizens of Convent, who were mostly African American and underprivileged formed a group called St. James Citizens for Jobs and the Environment (SJCJE). It was through this organization that the citizens approached the Environmental Law Clinic for assistance in fighting Shintech. Incidentally, the state of Louisiana ranks third out of 56 states and territories nationwide based on total releases of toxic chemicals per square mile, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. St. James Parish, where Convent is the county seat, according to the Environmental Defense Fund is one of the top 25 polluted counties in the United States. St. James Parish is in the middle of an area known as "Cancer Alley," an eighty-five mile stretch along the Mississippi River that has over 140 petrochemical and other industrial plants This particular area has some of the higher rates of cancer and other medical problems have been associated with industrial chemical plants. Convent already had eight chemical plants, and a number other industrial storage sites. In 2014, four of those plants reported to the EPA 625 thousand pounds of toxic waste into the environment. The Shintech plant would have been permitted to emit over 600 thousand pounds of toxic air contaminants, including dioxin, if they had proceeded with the build. If this plant had been completed, it was expected to receive around $130 million in subsidies, including property …show more content…
Today in that area, the environmental situation is not much better than it was in 1996. In 2016, the media has brought the issues of racial inequality into our living rooms. This presidential election has ignited an onslaught of racially motivated speech on all sides of the issue. The incidents of lead poisoning in Flint, MI suggest that environmental racism is still prevalent today.
Finally, I have a personal stake in this documentary. My parents have lived more than sixty years in Convent. I grew up in St. James Parish and saw the immense growth of the chemical plants in this area. My father retired from Ormet, a bauxite refinery in Burnside, Louisiana.
My mother and father’s neighbors have always been African American. One afternoon about fifteen years ago, one my parent’s neighbor went out to the mailbox to collect her mail. At that moment, the plant across the river had a leak in one of their lines, and a cloud of hydrochloric acid omissions came across the river, and she breathed it in. Her larynx, her lungs and her esophagus had severe chemical burns, to the point were she could not eat solid food for the rest of her life. She had difficulty speaking, and was plagued with pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses. About five years ago, after living with this condition for ten years, she passed away. During her lifetime, she was unable to receive
Background:
In 1998, Robert Kuehn and Oliver Houck, professors of environmental law at Tulane University and the student organization they created and directed, the Environmental Law Clinic came under attack from then Governor Mike Foster and many business organizations.
For thirty years, the clinic, which was staffed by 20-30 “student attorneys,” represented clients along “the Chemical Corridor.” This area of the state lies along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and is home to seven major oil refineries and hundreds of other chemical and industrial sites. The clinic is the largest faculty-supervised environmental law clinic in the country according to Tulane Law School. It had received a number of national awards for their work, and Tulane’s environmental law program was ranked at number five in the country by U.S. News and World Report (Martinello). In 1996, poor African-American residents in Convent, Louisiana approached the Environmental Law Clinic for representation and assistance in stopping Shintec, a subsidiary of the Japanese company Shin Etsu, from moving forward with their plans to build a $700 million polyvinyl chloride plant. …show more content…
The citizens of Convent, who were mostly African American and underprivileged formed a group called St. James Citizens for Jobs and the Environment (SJCJE). It was through this organization that the citizens approached the Environmental Law Clinic for assistance in fighting Shintech. Incidentally, the state of Louisiana ranks third out of 56 states and territories nationwide based on total releases of toxic chemicals per square mile, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. St. James Parish, where Convent is the county seat, according to the Environmental Defense Fund is one of the top 25 polluted counties in the United States. St. James Parish is in the middle of an area known as "Cancer Alley," an eighty-five mile stretch along the Mississippi River that has over 140 petrochemical and other industrial plants This particular area has some of the higher rates of cancer and other medical problems have been associated with industrial chemical plants. Convent already had eight chemical plants, and a number other industrial storage sites. In 2014, four of those plants reported to the EPA 625 thousand pounds of toxic waste into the environment. The Shintech plant would have been permitted to emit over 600 thousand pounds of toxic air contaminants, including dioxin, if they had proceeded with the build. If this plant had been completed, it was expected to receive around $130 million in subsidies, including property …show more content…
Today in that area, the environmental situation is not much better than it was in 1996. In 2016, the media has brought the issues of racial inequality into our living rooms. This presidential election has ignited an onslaught of racially motivated speech on all sides of the issue. The incidents of lead poisoning in Flint, MI suggest that environmental racism is still prevalent today.
Finally, I have a personal stake in this documentary. My parents have lived more than sixty years in Convent. I grew up in St. James Parish and saw the immense growth of the chemical plants in this area. My father retired from Ormet, a bauxite refinery in Burnside, Louisiana.
My mother and father’s neighbors have always been African American. One afternoon about fifteen years ago, one my parent’s neighbor went out to the mailbox to collect her mail. At that moment, the plant across the river had a leak in one of their lines, and a cloud of hydrochloric acid omissions came across the river, and she breathed it in. Her larynx, her lungs and her esophagus had severe chemical burns, to the point were she could not eat solid food for the rest of her life. She had difficulty speaking, and was plagued with pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses. About five years ago, after living with this condition for ten years, she passed away. During her lifetime, she was unable to receive