Foreign owned Factories along the Mississippi river have polluted our environment for years on in and the people of South Louisiana are suffering because of it. Entire communities have been severely impacted and are being diagnosed with cancer at rates that far surpass even neighboring communities. The 85 mile stretch of land between Baton Rouge and New Orleans accounts for 25% of the petrochemical production that occurs within US soil. Affecting the parishes of East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Ascension, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines. This area is referred to as a “sacrifice zone” however, a population of roughly 1,600,147 Louisiana residents reside within these parishes according to the 2020 census. The area immediately adjacent to the Denka/DuPontneoprene plant in St. John the Baptist Parish has been recognized by the EPA as having a likelihood of its residents getting cancer from air pollution over 700 times the national average. Chemical plants such as DENKA and EVONIK need to have federal intervention for the severe damage they are causing to the American people residing within South Louisiana. In In April 2024, the EPA announced a new rule targeting more than 200 chemical plants across the U.S, requiring them to cut enough toxic emissions to reduce cancer risks for people living in those areas by 96%. It marked the first time the EPA had amended national emissions standards for hazardous organic pollutants in more than 30 years. Within those 30 years, these major petrochemical plants have caused irreversible damage upon the citizens of southern Louisiana find not only killing off family members, but also by damaging the livelihood and ecosystem of our people. Local communities around this area have formed activism groups, such as a group entitled RISE that has been actively fighting against the petrochemical industry in Cancer Alley within St. James parish. RISE of St. James parish is a faith-based grassroots organization that fights for environmental justice and works to defeat the proliferation of petrochemical industries in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The organization successfully defeated the construction of a $1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant in 2019 and is currently fighting to prevent Formosa Plastics from building a multibillion-dollar plant in the parish.