Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Dr. Terrell: EPA maps show heavy cancer-causing pollution between New Orleans and Baton Rouge

Dr. Kimberly Terrell · Introducing Discarded: Episode 1, David vs. Goliath · Mar 13, 2023 · at 15:30

Dr. Kimberly Terrell was not on this episode. A recording of them was played into it, so these are their words but not an appearance on the Green Blueprint. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.

Dr. Kimberly Terrell, staff scientist at Tulane University's Environmental Law Clinic, discusses data on industrial air pollution in Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley.'

0:00 / 0:11exact quote · 11.1s

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“If you look at any map from the EPA of levels of cancer-causing pollution, the entire area between New Orleans and Baton Rouge will light up”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

EPA maps of cancer-causing air pollution show elevated risk levels across the entire corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

EPA cancer-risk mapping tools and datasets—including the National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA), AirToxScreen, and EJScreen—consistently display widespread, highly elevated cancer risks from hazardous air pollutants across the 85-mile corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge (spanning parishes such as St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Charles, Ascension, Iberville, and the Baton Rouge parishes) relative to national baselines. In multiple EPA assessments, census tracts in this industrial corridor rank in the 95th to 100th national percentiles for lifetime cancer risk, with modeled lifetime excess cancer risks reaching several hundred to over 1,500 cases per million individuals.

EPA 2014 NATA data (released August 2018) identified multiple census tracts along the Baton Rouge-to-New Orleans corridor as having the highest air-toxics cancer risk in the United States, exceeding 1,500 cases per million in areas of St. John the Baptist Parish compared to the EPA acceptable benchmark of 100 per million.
EPA AirToxScreen and EJScreen mapping tools show widespread elevated lifetime cancer risk percentiles (95th to 100th national percentiles) across the River Parishes between New Orleans and Baton Rouge driven by emissions of ethylene oxide, chloroprene, benzene, and formaldehyde.

Checked against

[1] humanrightsnetwork.org [2] arcgis.com [3] earthjustice.org [4] targetedonc.com [5] epa.gov [6] nih.gov [7] fractracker.org [8] nolawater.org

EPA AirToxScreen cancer risk Baton Rouge New Orleans corridor "NATA" "Baton Rouge" "New Orleans" cancer risk "corridor" EPA NATA cancer risk Baton Rouge New Orleans Cancer Alley EPA "cancer risk" "National Air Toxics Assessment" "St. John the Baptist" "Baton Rouge" "New Orleans" "AirToxScreen" "Baton Rouge" "New Orleans" "cancer risk" ProPublica EPA cancer risk map Cancer Alley Louisiana Baton Rouge New Orleans "Kimberly Terrell" "cancer" "EPA" "air pollution" "Baton Rouge" "New Orleans"

assessed as of 2026-09-02

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Mentioned

Baton Rouge Environmental Protection Agency New Orleans

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More from Dr. Kimberly Terrell

Opinion

Dr. Terrell: Cancer Alley disproportionately burdens communities of color with pollution and cancer

“To me, Cancer Alley is a place in southeast Louisiana where communities of color are disproportionately burdened with air pollution and with cancer.”

Dr. Kimberly Terrell Mar 13, 2023 ▶ 16:53 Introducing Discarded: Episode 1, David vs. Goliath

Dr. Terrell: EPA maps show heavy cancer-causing pollution between New Orleans and Baton Rouge

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