"Lawyers for residents say that zoning that concentrates pollution in Black districts is a violation of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery."
"In a pocket of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley,” Black residents bear the generational toll of “plantation country” becoming “pollution country.”
Now, a federal district court has given those residents something they almost never get: a chance to put the whole system on trial.
On Feb. 9, a judge in New Orleans ruled that groups representing residents of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, which stretches from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, can proceed with their landmark lawsuit seeking a pause on toxic industrial plants in two majority‑Black districts in St. James Parish.
The court rejected the parish government’s attempt to throw the case out and allowed every claim to move forward. At the core of these claims are two arguments: The parish’s decades‑old land-use practices violate the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the 14th Amendment, which grants all Americans equal protection under the law."
Adam Mahoney reports for Capital B February 11, 2026.
