FRI-FS-08: Water as Conduit of Violence: How the Mississippi River Shaped Cancer Alley

Field Session Leader(s)

• 

  Pilar Zuluaga, ASLA (she/her/hers)

  Senior Designer
  Spackman Mossop Michaels
  New Orleans, Louisiana
• 

  Jessica A. Dandridge-Smith

  Executive Director
  The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans
  Metairie, LA

Field Session Presenter(s)

• 

  Taya Fontenette (she/her/hers)

  Policy and Research Coordinator
  The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans
  New Orleans, Louisiana
• 

  Kimberly Terrell

  Research Scientist
  Tulane Environmental Law Clinic
  New Orleans, LA
• 

  Jo Banner

  The Descendants Project

Cancer Alley, LA, courtesy Pilar Zuluaga, Spackman Mossop Michaels

Where plantations once stood, now over 150 high-polluting industrial plants threaten the livelihood of poor, divested freetowns and other working-class communities in an area known as Cancer Alley. Our field session examines how the Mississippi River has inadvertently laid the foundation for systemic exploitation, failed infrastructure, and widespread environmental injustice.

Includes transportation and catered lunch.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the historical relationship between water, extractivism, and environmental racism in Louisiana, with a focus on climate change and disaster preparedness challenges.
• Analyze the Bonnet Carre Spillway’s impact on local ecosystems and future remediation plans and its connection to African American and Indigenous burial grounds.
• Examine the intersection of historic preservation, community restoration, and environmental justice through the Descendants Project and the Woodland Plantation House.
• Understand current environmental injustices and water pollution in Louisiana and how policies at all levels of government fail vulnerable communities.