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Daily Mail
02-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I live in unassuming US town that's America's cancer death zone... here's disturbing factor fueling crisis
Robert Taylor has seen more death and disease in his small Louisiana town than he can recall after growing up in one of the most toxic areas in America. His wife has breast cancer and his eldest daughter suffers from a rare autoimmune disease that causes her immune system to attack the body's healthy tissue, preventing her from leaving the house. Countless neighbors and friends have perished from cancers and other rare conditions linked to the toxic fumes spewed out by dozens of nearby chemical factories. Many of his deceased family are buried in a graveyard within an oil factory, which was built around the cemetery, highlighting the bleak irony of their situation. St. John the Baptist Parish is one of 11 parishes covering an 85-mile stretch that's been dubbed 'Cancer Alley.' People living in St. John are up to 50 times more likely to develop cancer than the rest of the US on average, which has been linked to the arrival of more than 200 factories including fossil fuel and petrochemical plants that've sprung up along this area in the last seven decades. Taylor was born in St. John in 1940 — a predominantly Black area about 50 miles southeast from Louisiana 's capitol Baton Rouge. At that time, the town was mainly sugar cane fields where Taylor worked alongside his father during segregation. Taylor lived through the Martin Luther King marches and the civil rights movement but says the racial divide only got worse when the factories started being built in 1965. '[White people] who didn't leave the parish altogether went to the northeast section of the parish... farthest away from the plant,' Taylor said. Census records from 1960 show that the demographics in St. John were almost evenly split, with people of color making up 51.6 percent of the population. Within two decades, that number had drastically shifted. Now, people of color account for nearly 70 percent of the total population in St. John, according to Data USA. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acknowledged the racial element in a letter sent to St. John residents in 2022, which has viewed. The letter said that the exposure to toxic air emitted from the factories 'have an adverse disparate impact on the basis of race.' So abundant are these factories that even an elementary school is a stone's throw from a Denka rubber plant that, according to the EPA letter, had exposed residents of Taylor's parish to concentrations of emissions that raised their risk of many types of cancer. Taylor, at 86 years old, has made it his mission to fight companies building toxin-emitting factories in the area and said he feels like it's his 'duty' after watching so many people suffer. He said: 'I'm trying to figure out why I've been there all my life and so many people close to me have gotten cancer and why I haven't.' Factories were sold to locals as a means to help the community stay afloat and bolster the economy. 'They claimed the factories were good for us, that they'd provide jobs, but they just made us sick,' Taylor said. In recent years, research from Johns Hopkins University has revealed that some of the factories are emitting 1,000 times the safety levels for toxins approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and has been blamed for the astronomical cancer rates in St. John. Some factories emit a dangerous carcinogenic chemical called ethylene oxide that has been linked to numerous cancers including lymphoma, leukemia, breast and stomach cancer. Meanwhile, chloroprene has also been detected in high levels in the area. This clear, odorless gas used to make synthetic rubber found in footwear, active wear and car tires has been linked to tumors developing in the lungs, liver, and kidneys when inhaled at high amounts. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates the cancer risk from air pollution in St. John Parish, Louisiana, to be about 50 times the national average. Taylor is one of the few residents who can remember a time before the factories – when children could play in the brooks and streams, eat the fruit off trees and live off the land. His daughter, Tish Taylor, shared pictures with of her father at the local family cemetery which is located in the sugar cane fields where he used to work. 'Dad spent several years of his early life living in housing located in these Sugar Cane Fields,' Tish said alongside photos of her father standing among the tombstones. She added: 'Marathon purchased that land and tore down the houses,' she explained, talking about the oil giant that opened in 1976. 'Our family graveyard is [now] located inside the Marathon facility.' Asked how many people he knows who were diagnosed with a severe illness or cancer, Taylor said there were too many to count. His wife, Zenobia, was diagnosed with breast cancer while his daughter, Raven, suffered an illness that leaves her bed-ridden most days. The family suspects it could be due to the chemicals emitted from the factories like particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and chloroprene. Raven was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder called neuronal VGKC antibody syndrome which causes the immune system to attack the body's healthy tissue. Fewer than 100 people in the US have the condition and it forced doctors to remove most of her uterus, colon and stomach and parts of her breast. There is no evidence directly linking the condition to air pollution, but recent research suggests pollutants and heavy metals may trigger an immune response. Meanwhile, in just two of the houses near Taylor's home, every family member is either a survivor, is battling cancer or died from the illness. 'One guy in particular worked at the plant all his life,' Taylor said. 'He's in his second round with cancer. 'But on the side of him, my good friend Leroy, who I grew up with all my life, he never worked in the petrochemical industry,' but he and his wife both contracted cancer.' Leroy first contracted esophageal cancer 10 years ago and although he initially survived, 'it came back ferociously last year, and he died within weeks,' Taylor said. His son, Leroy Jr, suffered the same cancer and survived, but told Taylor in September that it had returned while his mother and brother were also fighting a cancer battle. Not even children have been spared from Cancer Alley. Those who attend schools located in the shadow of a major rubber factory, experts suggest, may be likewise at risk of developing severe illnesses. In the EPA's letter to residents, the agency suggested that those who are living near the Denka facility or attending Fifth Ward Elementary were subjected to dangerous health impacts. 'We suspected it might have had something to do with it, but we never suspected the reality when we found out, the reason for our suffering was because of this problem, and that there was evidence of it,' Taylor said. The Fifth Ward Elementary School houses 362 students and sits only 400 yards from the Denka synthetic rubber factory, which the EPA report says exposes students to toxic chemicals from a young age. EPA spokesperson Joe Robledo told that the agency has no control over the factories in the area, saying it is up to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) to regulate the amount of toxins. The LDEQ is solely 'required to assess whether any proposed new facility will cause or contribute to a violation of EPA's national ambient air quality standards before issuing a final air permit to the source,' Robledo said. approached the LDEQ for comment but received no response. Taylor said the realization that the community was being poisoned by the dangerous fumes motivated him to do something, so he formed the Concerned Citizens of St. John, a nonprofit that fights against new plants being developed in the community. He claimed the Louisiana Department of Health accused him and the other residents of the community of being the problem. 'They said there is no cancer. They said we're not suffering. I mean, we're dying of cancer every day, and they're gonna tell us, we drink too much, we smoke too much, we eat too much pork,' Taylor said. Taylor and other locals have expressed their outrage at what they feel is gaslighting as the people of St. John were being blamed for falling ill and dying, saying he has known too many people who succumbed to cancer. 'How can we close our eyes to this?' Taylor asked, adding: 'Sometimes I wonder, when am I going to discover that I got some vague cancer like so many people I know who find out it's in the fourth stage, the last stage.' Yet, Taylor said there's still division in the community because people are allegedly afraid to push back against LDEQ. This could allow more toxic factories to open. 'We got to fight it to the last,' Taylor said. 'We got to stand for what's right.'
Miami Herald
16-04-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Lottery winner plans to give cash to help one particular group of people in NC
A jackpot winner in the North Carolina Education Lottery says he intends to start giving away money, with one particular group of people in mind. 'I want to help the homeless people in my community,' Robert Lowman told lottery officials. Lowman paid $5 for a 20X The Cash ticket on Sunday, April 13, and it won him $250,000. That's the top prize in the game and the odds of winning it are 1 in 1,335,942. He bought the ticket at the J & H Mart in Wilson. 'It's a miracle,' Lowman said in a news release. 'I really didn't know what to do or what to think.' He picked up his money Monday, April 14, at lottery headquarters in Raleigh, and the prize came to $179,376 after state and federal withholdings, lottery officials said. 'In addition to helping the homeless, he plans to do some work on his apartment,' officials said. Lowman lives in Wilson, about a 50-mile drive east from Raleigh, and he didn't go into details of how or when he'll start helping the community's less fortunate. Wilson County had nearly 17% of its population 'living with severe housing problems' in 2023, Data USA reported. Meanwhile, homelessness in the state 'rose 19% from 2023 to 2024,' according to the N.C. Housing Coalition. The 20X The Cash game debuted in February 2024 with 10 top prizes of $250,000 and 'Lowman won the last top prize.' 'The lottery will begin the process of ending the game,' officials said.
Miami Herald
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
‘It was not easy': Black women chefs share challenges and triumphs ahead of The Cookout
Kia Damon remembers when she became executive chef at a restaurant and one of the employees didn't want to work with her. The owner told her that the employee was just an older man who was set in his ways and working with a young Black woman made him uncomfortable. The advice she was given: 'figure it out and navigate it.' Damon, who grew up in Orlando, said her beginnings were tough despite becoming an executive chef at a restaurant in New York City at age 24. She even won an episode of Food Network's 'Chopped,' but it still stings to recall what she had to endure. 'It was hard because I just couldn't understand why [being a Black woman] mattered to anyone,' she said. 'I was like, 'I'm good at what I do. I'm good. I got young bones, I got energy, like, I'm hungry.'' Damon's experience highlights the challenges Black women face in the male-dominated industry where Black people in leadership roles are underrepresented. In 2022, only 12.5 percent of chefs and head cooks were Black, according to data culled by Data USA from the U.S. Census. The lack of representation of Black women in the culinary space is why JJ Johnson, the James Beard Award-winning cook book author, chef and co-founder of South Beach Wine & Food Festival's annual event, The Cookout, has been trying to push for more Black women at the event. This year he reached out to Damon. 'It was great for me to tap into her and get her,' he said. Damon, 32, is one of two Black women participating in The Cookout, taking place on Saturday at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach, which highlights Black chefs from South Florida. Now in its third year, Johnson said the goal is to have an even number of men and women at next year's event. The event has become popular since it was added to the food festival in 2023, including such names as Oneil Blake of Nobu Eden Roc Hotel Miami Beach and Amaris Jones of Chick'N Jones. Still, Johnson said, there is room to grow. 'The hope is to grow the cookout in Miami to be at a very large scale, so you can get a robust amount of food and flavor, but it really represents the people of that region,' Johnson said. Open the door and keep it open Finding Black women chefs to lead restaurants isn't as much of a challenge as some make it to be, Red Rooster Overtown founder and host of the food festival's Overtown Gospel Brunch, Marcus Samuelsson told the Miami Herald. Samuelsson said it's his goal to make a pathway for women of color in the culinary world. Samuelsson hired Jones as the chef at large of the Overtown eatery as she was simultaneously working to open her own restaurant, Chick'N Jones. For Samuelsson, it's about being intentional in hiring. 'If you want to make change, and you're going to make changes in the industry, and you're looking at it from a structural point of view, you have to work at it,' he said. 'You have to work hard at it, just like we want a great dish, right? It takes effort. I'm committed to that process.' Like Samuelsson, Damon dismissed the claim that it is difficult to find Black women chefs. 'It's silly and it's a discredit to Black women that are doing phenomenal, incredible, excellent work, and maybe those women aren't as visible,' she said. She noted that historically the kitchen has been a space for women, but that as the culinary world became a competitive industry that leads to 'notoriety, fame, acclaim and awards,' women have been given less opportunity. 'Once it goes into that territory, that's when men are like, 'oh, that's for me.' Not when it's just cooking for family or for love or in service of people — actually true service with no attention or no recognition? That's for women folk,' she said. 'But if it's some cooking that can get me awards and money and put me a pack above the rest, oh, that's for the men folk.' Jamaican chef Taneisha Bernal, who moved to Miami in 2009 and has gained a huge social media following with her home-grown cooking skills, will also be at The Cookout. She's excited to be working alongside the men at the event, but recognizes that it's an opportunity to prove her skills. 'This is a male-dominated field, and to see that I'm just one of two women that will be there, of course, we have to come out, stand out and show out,' she said. Bernal has experienced similar friction from male colleagues, many of whom wouldn't listen to her suggestions and ignored her advice. 'It was not easy,' she said. Knowing the obstacles Black women face in the industry, she's worked to mentor other women chefs. Damon and Bernal hope their work is encouraging to other women. 'When they see us on this platform representing at an event such as this, of this magnitude, it gives them hope because oftentimes, they don't know where to start,' Bernal said. 'Being a part of this, it really is allowing me to showcase that you can too do this.' Damon agreed, but noted that in 2025, it feels 'absurd' that having two Black women working at the event is such a milestone. But she said that if she hadn't known about figures like chef and activist Georgia Gilmore, author and chef Edna Lewis, or restaurateur B. Smith, she might not be where she is today, which puts her in a position to help other Black women. 'You gotta open the door and keep the door open.' If you go: What: The Cookout at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival When: 4-7 p.m. Saturday Where: Eden Roc Miami Beach, 4525 Collins Ave., Miami Beach Cost: $175 Info:
