I was honored to meet not one, but two of Cancer Alley’s finest activists, a mother-and-daughter duo: Ms. Sharon Lavigne and her daughter Shamell Lavigne. Both have grown up in this region all their lives, both endured exposures to emissions from the petrochemical plants, but only relatively recently did they begin to link these exposures to problems ranging from respiratory infections to Shamell’s miscarriage, a painful loss given her long-term struggles with infertility, also possibly linked to the high levels of chemicals to which she has always been exposed. Just as her mother said that many of her friends and family dying of cancer felt shame and hid their diagnoses, so Shamell’s many friends who have had miscarriages feel blamed and stay silent about their multiple losses. Shamell thought it must have been lifting boxes that caused her to cramp and bleed, losing a baby before she even realized she was pregnant. She blamed herself. It wasn’t until conversations with the author of the Human Rights Watch report on Rise St. James and the pollution of Cancer Alley that she realized it might not have been her fault at all. She is now the proud and happy mother of a 10-year-old daughter – Amerie, with whom she was about to go play during a historic snowstorm in Louisiana, itself an anomaly potentially linked to climate change.
Shamell believes that the industries that have polluted her life don’t care. She said, “I do believe that the people who are pro-industry are okay with us being a sacrifice zone.” Certainly, all the evidence points that way. That has also been my experience with the pesticide industry. I do not believe they care that their products are killing and maiming children.
She shared that their biggest challenge has been striking a balance when talking with local people who work in the plants: “That’s been the biggest challenge – letting the workers know we’re not against them – we are against being poisoned collectively.” It is essential that people realize that while we can all play a role, the systems by which all are polluted are much greater than individual choices, and those who benefit are astonishingly few. As Shamell said, more people need to realize that green jobs are possible, that she and her community should not have to be a sacrifice zone, that the greater good could both benefit the health of those in Cancer Alley and elsewhere – and the economy more broadly. That said, we spoke shortly after the Inauguration of Donald Trump, an event that did not augur well for the future of the country and the world, and every person and organism in it – and not just the so-called sacrificial victims of Cancer Alley.
As I re-read this interview, I kept hearing Shamell say, “I had buried it so deep down…,” as she spoke of the silence she and others had kept on the topic of environmental contamination and lost children, terrible health effects. I understand this temptation myself – to just fade away into sorrow and silence. But I cannot help but wonder about the metaphor and think about all the other things we have “buried so deep down”: environmental contamination, egregious racism, the blood of innocents, the graves of enslaved people, corporate greed over human health, the destruction of the entire ecosystems upon which all human lives depend. Let us not be silent. Our silence will not protect us.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Figure 1: Shamell Lavigne
INTERVIEW
JMK: Hello, Ms. Levine!
SL: Hey! How are you? Call me Shamell.
JMK: And you can call me Jean-Marie. I had such a nice conversation with your mother.
SL: Well, that's Ms. Levine.
JMK: So you don't get confused!
SL: Yes.
JMK: I'm so glad that you were able to make time to talk to me. I was just rereading your account in the video by Human Rights Watch.
SL: That was the “We're Dying Here” video, probably.
Figure 2: We’re Dying Here (Human Rights Watch 2024).
JMK: It was so movingly done. And I told your mom that I've been reading and teaching about Cancer Alley for going on 30 years. It's still such a terrible problem. And I've always had a special place in my heart for people who have had to suffer through that. I'm so sorry for what you've gone through.
SL: Thank you for saying that. And I'm also sorry about the passing of your daughter – I can't even imagine. I have a – I keep saying 9 – she just made 10 – year-old daughter, Amerie. And so I can’t even imagine losing a child.
But I'm glad that you're fighting and getting your story out there as well – because it needs to be told from all different perspectives. And just, you know, pain is pain. And it doesn't matter where it is.
JMK: Yes. I think most people who have kids realize it is hard. I do feel heartened that I got this contract with Johns Hopkins, because I've been working on this project for a long time. And I really want to elevate lots of different stories related to environmental health.
SL: So I'm an open book, whatever you want to know, I'll tell you. We are having a snowstorm here. Where are you?
Figure 3: Louisiana Snowstorm Raises Worries about Climate Change (https://www.axios.com/local/new-orleans/2025/01/24/snowstorm-louisiana-climate-change-concerns)
JMK: I heard that the Gulf Coast is, and your mom said that she was hoping that the kids would get to play in the snow. I’m in Chicago. It’s very cold up here, but we don’t have much snow.
SL: Oh, y'all don’t have the snow? Well, we have at least 6 inches out there. My daughter is literally out there right now, playing in the snow – like this is like her fourth time going outside. I went out there earlier with her, and we threw snowballs. She’s changed clothes twice.
JMK: That’s awesome – have you ever had 6 inches of snow?
SL: No – it may be more than that. It's at least this much of snow on the top, and I told her I would come outside after this call to build a snowman, so we'll see how that goes.
JMK: I shouldn't keep you too long then.
SL: We had snow back when she was two or one, but she doesn't really remember. And we built a little small one, because it wasn't that much snow, but we were so excited.
JMK: You probably have heard that it’s a predicted outcome of climate change that you all get the cold. We all get the heat, and it's just all messed up.
SL: And California gets the fires – yes.
Figure 4: The LA Wildfires Exacerbated by Climate Change (https://www.reuters.com/pictures/scenes-los-angeles-wildfires-rage-2025-01-08/3TQRCJ3GGFNF5I6YEQ3524YLTE/).
JMK: Yes – the LA fire is just terrible.
SL: Yeah, horrible, horrible, horrible! But it's all about climate change. And if we don't stop, we're going to destroy Mother Earth. And I don't think people really understand that. And part of doing this work is making sure we leave a viable planet to our kids and grandkids. And I don't know if that's gonna happen.
JMK: Yes – I’m very worried.
SL: More people should be worried, but people are going about their day-to-day like it’s nothing.
JMK: And then last night, the US withdrew from the Paris Agreement. That is not what should have happened.
SL: He came out of the World Health Organization, too.
JMK: Isn't that terrible?
SL: I was like – this can't be real life. But it is. This is what we're gonna be dealing with for the next four years, unfortunately.
JMK: It's just terrible. And the more you know about environmental issues and injustice, the more you know what a horrible mistake Americans just made.
SL: Yes. We keep making mistakes. And we're more concerned about – well, he's more concerned about renaming the Gulf of Mexico than all our other worries. [Both scoffing.]
JMK: But it is interesting that the places he's named, and Canada and Greenland – these are going to be growing in importance with climate change.
You've been following this story closely. What do you do for a living?
SL: Rise is my full-time job.
JMK: Oh, wow – awesome!
SL: Coming out of college, I worked at a nonprofit with people living with HIV. So I have always been a champion and advocate for vulnerable populations. I spent at least 20 years of my life doing HIV work, administering grant-funding programs. I started doing street outreach, HIV counseling and testing, and case management, and then got into management, supervision, and administration.
I oversaw the Ryan White program for the city of Baton Rouge – the housing opportunities, people with AIDS program, the HUD program, Medicaid, just a whole gamut of things. And then, I got promoted back in 2017 to head the Community Action Agency for East Baton Rouge Parish. And so I did that up until I came to work for Rise full-time. I’m one of the Founding Members of Rise St. James.
Like you, I’ve been knowing about Cancer Alley since senior year in high school, so since 1994. Since then, it has grown. We have over 180 refineries and petrochemical companies within that 85-mile stretch from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. It’s not the same place I grew up at all. It’s so many chemical plants – you might not know which one to blame for which illness – it’s just that many. I don’t know if my Mama told you that in St. James alone, there are 12 chemical plants within a 10-mile radius.
JMK: I think she did – that’s just crazy.
SL: For me, when I miscarried in early 2014, I didn’t know I was pregnant – so it didn’t hurt as much because I didn’t know. I think if I would have been further along…you start buying stuff for the baby. I think I would have been way more devastated. I was deeply concerned because I already had fertility issues. I thought I couldn’t get pregnant. The doctor didn’t tell me I couldn’t get pregnant, but I know I wasn’t ovulating, and I was insulin resistant.
And then later, as I started working with Rise and the Environmental Justice movement, I learned that a lot of these chemicals cause infertility, reproductive issues of course – and they can cause women to miscarry. I feel pretty sure it played a role in my miscarriage and my infertility. Insulin resistance is so common here, and then some people progress to diabetes. Thank God I haven’t progressed to diabetes, but I am insulin resistant. And we’re breathing in a lot of chemicals – we’re overburdened here with it.
JMK: Your mom said something about you just go outside, and you can really smell it.
SL: Yes. I don’t live in St. James anymore. I live in Cancer Alley, but I don’t live as close to the river. But here in Ascension Parish, where I live, there are still a bunch of chemical plants. I just go down the road, and I’m exposed. I do believe that I have less exposure, but there is still some.
JMK: Did you move in part to protect your daughter?
Figure 5: Exxon Mobil, Baton Rouge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Rouge_Refinery#/media/File:Exxon_Mobil_oil_refinery_-_Baton_Rouge,_Louisiana.jpg).
SL: When I was working in HIV, I lived in Baton Rouge, still part of Cancer Alley, but I wasn’t close to Exxon Mobil initially. When I started working for the City of Baton Rouge, I was within a 2-mile radius of Exxon Mobile – and so I was pregnant with her when I worked near Exxon Mobil. She also goes to school at Southern University Laboratory School, which is within two miles of Exxon Mobil. She has nosebleeds; there are times we both have chronic sinus infections. From what we are hearing, a lot of children are experiencing asthma, nosebleeds, or upper respiratory issues.
For me – we can’t escape it unless I move. I don’t know where I would move – then I would be too far from family. I want to be close to family. I don’t want to be too far away from my mama.
But being in St. James was worse because – if I go to St. James right now – the chemical plants are probably blowing things into the air right now – they do it when it’s a cloudy day. Normally, when I go for a good amount of time, when I come back, I have some kind of sinus issue going on. I get sinus infections at least six times a year, which is too much.
JMK: It's terrible, and it does make life quite miserable, even if it's not going to kill you.
SL: Yes. It impacts your life significantly. A sinus infection sometimes feels like the flu. You can be down for a week or two. It doesn’t feel good at all.
People are suffering from bronchitis, tonsillitis. I’ve had strep at least four times in the last two years.
JMK: Well, and a lot of these chemicals can affect your immune system too. So you have irritation of your mucous membranes, and you have a lower immune system, and so – no wonder.
SL: During COVID, St. John the Baptist had a really high rate of COVID infections and COVID deaths. St. James is the heart of Cancer Alley because we’re in the middle, but right next to us is St. John the Baptist Parish. And just like I miscarried, there are multiple women who have miscarried. I’m definitely not alone in this at all. We’ve heard of women giving birth to stillborn babies. It's pretty bad, and I think that not enough information has been shared on maternal health in terms of the petrochemical industry. So whenever I can speak about it, I do.
JMK: That is wonderful that you are speaking out. It’s true that pre-term births, miscarriages, and stillbirths are much higher because of the air pollution. You mentioned the COVID rates. There is some evidence that where there were high rates of pollution, there were higher rates of death from COVID, including in the Cancer Alley parishes. It just makes sense.
Is there anything else you wanted to tell me about your story?
SL: Well, initially, I felt like the miscarriage could have been caused by what I did. I was packing up my office – I was the program director for Volunteers of American providing HIV services. I thought maybe it was because I was picking up boxes, but the boxes weren’t heavy. But then I had the fertility issues too. When I spoke with Antonia, who put together the piece for Human Rights Watch, she shared with me that those things can both be related to the chemicals that are being embedded in Cancer Alley. I am learning. It’s just – you never know.
We have what we call Rise University – we bring in subject matter experts once a quarter. We do online courses via Zoom one night a week for six weeks. We did one on water – how the water is polluted – and we had the Water Collaborative of New Orleans give a session on PFAS, which has been found in the Mississippi River in different places, from St. James Parish all the way down to the Gulf. The Mississippi River is our water source.
I am learning as I have immersed myself in this full-time now.
JMK: It's a lot to learn.
SL: It’s been extraordinary. Every time I turn around, I learn something else – even about agriculture – how the seeds that grow our food are now genetically modified and the monopoly people have. People are patenting seeds. I said, “What? That’s been happening?” And I just learned that recently. And then, oh my God, are we just eating plastic? What the hell? I learned that plastics have been found in the placenta. And I just ask, what are we doing? You can’t eat plastic. You can’t drink oil.
So I have learned a lot. Learning about PFAS in our water was quite alarming. I know that PFAS is one of those forever chemicals that cause infertility issues. It’s heartbreaking. And I’m not alone in it. So many people are being impacted. Now there’s even a study on infertility in men related to plastic in the scrotum. So more research needs to be done – definitely.
JMK: Absolutely. Well, and we do know enough to change the status quo. Sometimes the industry pushes back and says, “Well, we don't really know for sure – we need more research.” They delay action. And then, of course, if they fund the research, they know what answer they're looking for, which heavily biases studies of health harms from tobacco, pesticides, and petrochemicals.
It is heartbreaking, like you said. Perhaps people don't think about the fact that it's people's homes, and you don’t want to leave family and communities where you’ve been forever.
SL: Yes. You can’t escape it without leaving your family.
JMK: And your mom was saying that she grew up there.
SL: We all grew up here. The house that my mama currently lives in, she and my dad built that house from the ground up, and it’s on family land that was passed down from my mom’s grandparents and then my grandmother and her sister. My grandmother willed her 20 acres to my mom. The other twenty acres is for my relatives who live in LA.
Maybe now they might want to move, but they have never lived here. Thankfully, none of them live out where the wildfires are happening. They are not in Malibu or the Palisades. But in the beginning, we would get a lot of – “why don’t y’all just move?” But Kansas has tornadoes. The North gets winter storms. And people don’t say, “Okay, why don’t you just move?”
I tell people we’re connected to the land and the water. Generations of our family have lived here. And then the other thing that we’re fighting for is the preservation of the graves of enslaved people. A lot of the chemical plants are built where the plantations were. We’re fighting to stop industry from building on the unmarked gravesites of enslaved people on those properties. We’re still trying to identify some of the grave sites.
Figure 6: Enslaved Ancestor Graves on Formosa Land (https://www.desmog.com/2020/06/19/juneteenth-st-james-louisiana-enslaved-graves-formosa-plastics/)
JMK: Jon Bowermaster wrote a great article in Audubon called “A Town Called Morrisonville,” which I first read Spring of 1997. He quoted someone who said, “I guess the industry is the plantation now.”
Figure 7: A Town Called Morrisonville (https://acadianahistorical.org/items/show/29)
SL: Yes. It’s the plantation to plant pipeline. Yep.
JMK: It’s so exploitative.
SL: Some of the plants are named after the plantations. There’s Uncle Sam Mosaic, which is in St. James on the East Bank side, in Convent in St. James Parish. It is named after a plantation. There are gas stations named after plantations. Sometimes you just don’t know.
JMK: It’s the number one classic example of environmental injustice in the United States. It’s just terrible.
SL: There are so many different things we could focus on. We have tried our best to focus on education through Rise University. We also do a chemical of the month – where we highlight a chemical that is being emitted each month. We have TV commercials, radio commercials. We try to lead people to our website just to make sure people understand what is being emitted.
When I was growing up, we didn’t know if it was the things that were coming out of the smokestacks that were harmful, or what they were dumping in the river that was harmful. At some point, we knew not to fish in the river. There was mercury in the river. And I didn’t know mercury was one of those chemicals that messes with the reproductive system as well.
They say, don’t shrimp or fish in the river – but even the bayous and the tributaries have those chemicals in them. And it just goes all over the place.
JMK: It's just so tragic, because that's where people used to get their food – free food.
SL: Yes. Even at the Gulf Coast area, the fishermen are suffering. We are heavy seafood eaters here, you know? Crawfish boils….
JMK: Oh – love it!
SL: Crab boils…. We’re always boiling something. I don’t eat oysters, but people here eat oysters. The oysters have been impacted. And so, it's hurting the fishing industry, the seafood industry.
A lot of people in this state – Republicans – are so concerned about industry and the economy and how it’s going to drive the economy and keep the economy afloat. But then we rank last in everything – education – top for poverty. We have had industry since before I was born – I’m 47 – and I don’t see where it’s improved us at all.
My dad worked for Shell Oil – he worked as the operator on the oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, we all went to private schools. Me and three of my siblings decided to leave and go to Saint James High because my mama taught there, and they let us leave. But we had a pretty good middle-class upbringing because of him working at Shell, and you know, mama was a teacher.
I think that if my daddy was still living, he would be very concerned about the industry and would more be wanting it to change to green infrastructure and move us forward and stop depending so much on oil. But right now?
JMK: It’s horrible. We can’t afford another four years of horrible leaders.
Do you mind me asking how your dad died?
SL: My dad had diabetes – probably since I was a little girl – he was diagnosed in his early forties. He ended up getting congestive heart failure over time. He had a stroke, then a heart attack. After that, he had to have triple-bypass surgery. His heart wasn’t beating properly anymore, though I can’t remember what’s on his death certificate. I was his primary caregiver.
He worked on the oil rigs at least 18 years and then retired. I can’t help but wonder if some of that could have contributed to his death. We always thought diabetes was just hereditary, but who says it’s hereditary? Is it really? Are there any environmental factors that are contributing to it? A lot of politicians who don’t want to believe in climate change and don’t want to believe that the petrochemical industry is poisoning us will say, “Oh it’s your diet.” But we lived off the land. We grew vegetables. They say, we’re all just sitting around, not exercising, and not doing anything, that we’re just eating fast food all day. It’s insulting. It’s appalling.
JMK: Absolutely! That whole narrative – that it's individual responsibility – is insulting.
I know that you and some others have said how horrible is it that you're poisoned. You get diseases from the exposures, and then you're made to feel ashamed – like you felt badly about your lifting boxes, and you’ve had that kind of guilt.
SL: I have – yes.
JMK: It probably wasn't you at all. And actually, there's very good research that links these kinds of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) from petrochemicals and air pollution to diabetes.
SL: Yes. And I was like, who knew?
JMK: Yes – it didn't used to be acknowledged very much. Lots of these things are multifactorial. But many things we could prevent.
SL: We can prevent it. And people don’t have to die. But I do believe that the people who are pro-industry are okay with us being a sacrifice zone. It's either you be sacrificed or you move.
Move where? My mom’s house is on 20 acres of land. I don’t even have one acre here. I have a nice-sized yard for just me and my daughter, but it’s not the land where my mama is. It’s fields of land there. There is no way she can pick up and replicate that somewhere else without paying millions of dollars she doesn’t have. None of us can.
It’s so insensitive to just…. One judge…. We filed a Title 6 complaint with the EPA saying this is racial discrimination, the siting of all of these plants. The EPA was working with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) on coming up with a resolution on different things. Our new Governor, our Attorney General at the time, filed a lawsuit against the EPA. And so in Federal court, the judge filed it in another jurisdiction, where there was a Republican judge, appointed by Trump. And once they went to court and submitted their motion for summary judgement, the judge ruled in the state’s favor.
And so now the EPA cannot use disparate impact to determine whether or not we’ve been discriminated against in Louisiana. The judge didn’t do the ruling for the rest of the United States. But for Louisiana, race cannot be a determining factor.
When he issued his ruling, he suggested that the EPA should just move us. I was like, did he not know? Has he never been to the river parishes? This is hundreds of thousands of people, and you are telling the EPA to just move us? Now it just becomes the Federal government’s problem – to just move us. How about stop building these plants? Or spread them out at least? They shouldn’t be built anywhere – but God, we are full! We don’t need anymore. It’s not like the school systems have gotten any better.
JMK: It's just infuriating. And I really loved something your mom said. She said something like “the more people told me that there wasn’t any hope, the more I got riled up.” And I hear that with the “rise up” motto, too. I was actually just working on the conclusion of the book. And I think I'm going to fit that in somewhere, just because I think we all should rise up. It's a great name.
SL: People are always saying, it’s a done deal. And I'm like, it’s never a done deal – we are literally trying to stop at least ten projects from going forward – three or four are near gravesites of formerly enslaved people. I shouldn’t say formerly, because they died enslaved.
But until we come in and say you can fight, people think they don’t have a voice. They don’t think they can make a difference. You know a lot of white landowners that own the majority of the land. They sell their land first. That’s who industry goes to first. They purchase the land, and then the black residents who are still there who own an acre or two – or even twenty acres – they don’t ask to buy their land. They are asking the white owners who own 600 acres of land.
We’re working with a community in Ascension Parish now on the west bank side of the river called Modeste, and there are two ammonia plants they are proposing to be built within a two-to-three-mile radius. They are going to box in a community. And God forbid one of those plants blow up! They're gonna burn up everybody.
Oh, and Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) – there is so much money in that. A lot of the projects are centered around trying to get those tax incentives that were part of the Biden administration.
JMK: Yes. I remember that. And you know, environmentalists see through this and see that CCS is not the way to go. But I think the compromise was necessary to get the legislation. I remember thinking that Biden probably had to make that deal because you remember how close that was. I think the holdout was Senator Manchin.
SL: Yes – he was. But they are going to want to run the CCS pipelines through vulnerable communities, through the wetlands. And so we’re working to stop it. Part of it is saying to people, you have a voice, you have to rise up. You have to understand what your power is – you are not powerless. And we are there to help them.
JMK: I love that. There's an Alice Walker quote: “The most common way that people give up their power is by not realizing that they have it.”
SL: Oh, I didn't know that quote. Yeah – that's exactly it. A lot of people don’t know the power they have. And I think with Rise, we have been able to show people – you do have power. And if you don’t think you have it, we’re gonna show you how you do have it.
JMK: That's that is so wonderful, such a heartening story. It's almost equal measures tragic, heartbreaking, but also inspiring. And to get a win like you all have gotten – to ever get a win is just incredible.
SL: Yes. We just found out week before last that the Mitsubishi plant pulled out of Ascension Parish where I live in Geismar – I’m about 15 miles away, but I’m so glad that that plant pulled out.
We had worked with EarthJustice, Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club, EarthWorks. EarthJustice submitted about 54 pages of technical comments for us to stop that from happening. We did just general comments about how this is going to pollute the environment, trying to raise awareness about which chemicals would be emitted – and what effects those chemicals have on the human body.
Figure 8: EarthJustice and Sharon Lavigne against Mitsubishi (https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/earthjustice-statement-on-cancelation-of-mitsubishi-petrochemical-plant-in-cancer-alley).
They said they are pulling out because of the cost of the materials and supplies, that it’s a money thing. But we would love to believe that some of it was because of our pushback.
JMK: I'm sure that's true. And I hope that one of the effects y'all are having is that people learn that it was not their fault, or that they should not be ashamed that they have cancer when it's most likely someone else who did that to them. It wasn't that long ago that the 2010 President's Cancer Panel looked at this question of environmental causes of cancer. And the experts going in thought, “Oh, cancer caused by environment is about 4 to 6%.” And what they found is that it's about 80 to 90% environmental. That includes tobacco, but a lot of it is exposures people don't have any control over.
SL: Right? Yes – they don’t have control over it. It’s sad. Even in St. James – people won’t say that they have cancer. They try to hide it – almost like the Scarlet Letter. I dealt with stigma – working with the HIV and AIDS field as many years as I did – but it’s almost the same thing with people in St. James and other places. They don’t want people to know that they have cancer. And I’m like, it’s not your fault. Don’t be ashamed. Let us do something.
They have been so – I don’t want to use the word brainwashed – but they have bought into – we need the plants for jobs, we need the plants to survive. When we started Chemical of the Month, that helped shift people’s understanding of it. A lot of what we are doing is education – making sure people really understand this is what is being emitted. This is what’s being pumped into the water and the soil.
And there are other solutions. We don’t have to burn fossil fuels. There are other things that we can do to still make a living. Some people really don’t want to speak out against the industry – sometimes they may have a family member who works in industry. That makes it a little harder because they are thinking that there is going to be retaliation. The family member might lose their job – and for the most part, these are pretty good jobs. Now, most of the people who retire from there end up deceased within three to five years, or sometimes less than that.
JMK: It is terrible, the choices that are made for people. It's so systemic because people could have lived off the land more. But you destroy the land….
SL: Oh, the land is destroyed. It is not like when I was growing up – and definitely not like when my mom was growing up there. At least when I was growing up, in the 80s and 90s, we played outside for hours. I don’t think my mama even knew where we were. We just couldn't cross the highway to go to the river. We were in the fields. We were climbing trees. I never had a nosebleed. And then for my daughter to have nosebleeds now – when she had her first one, I didn’t even know what to do because I had never had one myself. Oh my God! My daughter is having a nosebleed! Now she has had so many of them, she knows how to make it stop.
JMK: Something I get from people, too, is, how do you make that connection? It's hard to say that a certain nosebleed is from the chemicals – kids get nosebleeds. Well, yes, but epidemiologically, we have really good evidence to think that even if you can't say one on one, chances are…. With my daughter, I say things like, “we have every reason to believe that these exposures caused her leukemia and death.”
SL: Wow. I need to start saying it because I was like, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure it could have contributed to my miscarriage.
JMK: Yes. What first made you think about the role of the chemicals in your miscarriage and infertility? Was it after?
SL: It was way after I miscarried, in 2014. We started Rise in 2018. I did not make the connection. It was before I talked to Antonia at Human Rights Watch, but not that much before, so it was probably in 2022.
I started learning more about the chemicals themselves, and that was when I made the connection. There may have been a study of the air here about that connection, the chemicals that are endocrine disruptors. I attributed my insulin resistance to the chemicals first, and then the miscarriage because for so long, I blamed myself, and I didn’t talk about my miscarriage to nobody – I just put the miscarriage in the back of my mind.
The other thing is that I got pregnant two to three months after that. I didn’t tell people I was pregnant for a while. My mom said, wait until your first trimester is over before you announce it. I am almost certain I waited until the first trimester was over because I was like, “okay well, I might miscarry again.” I definitely didn’t buy any clothes for the baby ahead of time. Because in the back of my mind, I thought, what if I miscarry?
I really watched what I ate…. I just didn’t talk about it. Antonia found out because we were at the state capital library dealing with air monitoring or something, and Kaitlyn Joshua – who was also featured in We’re Dying Here – told me that Antonia was looking for women who had had miscarriages. And I said, “Oh, I had one.” And she was like, “Oh, you did?” Sometimes I would forget that I had one because that’s how much I had buried it. I had buried it so deep down.
Talking to Antonia helped me see that I need to tell this story because there were other women who had miscarriages that I know – people I graduated from high school with, and I tried to get them to tell their story. They don’t want to tell their story. Okay – I’m not the only voice, but I need to at least tell my story to people. I have to speak for the women who don’t want to speak out – or who may be scared to speak out, or just not willing to share this personal information. That’s how I was.
JMK: Absolutely. Already miscarriage is a hidden grief for a lot of women because it’s related to reproduction. I think it's so good that people are starting to tell their stories and speak out about this. Actually, that's broadly true about women, sexuality, and reproduction, that it's just not talked about that much – this sexist sense of shame. You know.
SL: Yes. And all the blame falls on us – like you said, it’s sexist, and it’s one-sided. It’s all about the woman – the woman can’t give you a child, or why she keep miscarrying? Women really go through that, and people don’t understand. We really hear that for a long time. I didn’t have my daughter until I was 37, so all through my childbearing years, people were like, “Why don’t you have a baby? When you going to get pregnant?” I didn’t even a husband, and people were wanting me to have a child. Yeah – at least wait till I get a husband. So it was always on me.
JMK: Well, that's a whole new thing now, with this administration, too. Right?
SL: Oh, God! Yes, I know, I know.
JMK: Elon Musk wanting to impregnate everybody….
SL: That’s all this is about – population control and maintaining this white power structure. But then y’all want to cut food stamps and social services. So they want you to have all these children, but then, when you can’t feed them, there is nothing available. So you shouldn’t be able to tell a woman when and where she could have a child, especially if you’re not going to offer that mother anything when she does give birth to the baby. I’m heavily pro-choice, and I’m also concerned about my daughter.
JMK: Sure!
SL: She was born in 2015, so she did have all the rights I had, but now she doesn’t because in Louisiana, the abortion ban is complete. It’s illegal here.
JMK: Yeah, I've heard it's pretty complete. And also a lot of your neighboring states don't offer services, right?
SL: Yes. She’s 10 now, but if she makes a mistake and gets pregnant – or what if she gets raped? God forbid! I should be able to go and say, she needs to have an abortion. But instead, I’m probably going to be looking for a plane ticket somewhere. And God forbid, she doesn’t come to me and say, “Hey, mama, this is what happened to me” because we all know – you know – usually when a woman gets raped, they hide that too.
JMK: Right.
SL: They feel like it’s their fault. So, it’s just an attack on women, period.
JMK: Absolutely. Audre Lorde has a quote: “your silence will not protect you.” And I think people preserve that silence, thinking it’s their armor, but in some ways, it only makes them more vulnerable.
SL: It does.
JMK: I have to say, even with losing a child…. Ultimately, you can almost always feel guilty about these things. I blame myself that I didn't find out they were spraying these pesticides, that I didn't protect her, because ultimately everything's on us to protect our children. And yet, you know, individuals making good choices alone is not enough.
SL: It's not enough, it's not enough. To put the blame on individual people is a level of inhumanity. How are you supposed to know about that? How are we supposed to know about all these doggone chemicals? It’s at least 40 chemicals that I have – just on one spreadsheet. How are you supposed to keep up with all of this? In addition to what the plants are emitting, we also have pesticides. There’s pesticides that are coming from the north down the river – pesticides in agriculture. Are we supposed to just live in a bubble? And then to blame individuals? I don’t know.
JMK: It’s just terrible.
SL: It is. And something needs to be done.
JMK: So I wonder if you'd be willing to share with me one of the most difficult things of your experience, and then maybe one of the things you're most proud about.
SL: Do you mean in terms of working in environmental justice?
JMK: However you want to interpret that question. I know from my own experience and from others that this is not easy. And going through losses like you and I have both gone through is terrible. But then, too, you all have a lot to be proud of for speaking out and for fighting.
SL: So I would say the most difficult would be the balance between when people have to feed their families – but then the thing that is helping them feed their families is also going to eventually kill them – or their husbands, or wives, or children. I think that’s been the most difficult. We don’t want to isolate the people that work in the plants, but we also want them to understand that this is harming you. I think that’s been very hard because you know people have to feed their families – like my dad—that’s how we were able to do a lot of things that we did growing up. A lot of men who work in these plants are of the mindset – one, I’m going to die of something. Two, it’s almost like going into the military and going off to war – you know you are putting yourself at risk – but you are doing it for your family, so that you can feed your family, so that you can provide for your family.
But getting people to see the bigger picture – how it’s not just impacting people individually, but it’s also affecting the Earth, the climate. It’s reducing the number of years that people are living and increasing the mortality rate. That’s been the biggest challenge – and letting the workers know we’re not against them – we are against being poisoned collectively, whether you work in a plant or not.
The accomplishment would be where we have grown Rise from starting in my mother’s garage. Now she’s won multiple awards. She opened the Notre Dame Latour medal. She was among Time’s 100 most influential people. People know us. They see our commercials. I feel like we are making a difference. Industry is concerned about us – when we walk into the room, they know we’re coming to fight. [Smiling.]
I think to me that says a lot – that they fear us a little bit. The latest win where the South Louisiana Methanol plant pulled out; Mitsubishi pulled out. Formosa is wobbling. They are not down yet, but they were supposed to start building back in 2018 or 2019. We’re in 2025, and they have not broken ground. Those type of accomplishments make me feel very happy and excited, which helps me keep moving and doing this work, day in and day out. But it is a challenge because sometimes you just feel down – because every other day, it’s another plant. It's like we’re playing whack-a-mole. [Both laughing.] They just keep popping up, and it’s hard to keep up. We have a policy and research coordinator who is keeping our eye out for new permits on the state website that have been applied for. It can be stressful.
JMK: Yes – for sure! Industries will sometimes target individuals. I'm very aware of that.
SL: Have they targeted you?
JMK: Well, not much yet – just locally. While my daughter was still alive, we sent out information to every municipality in my county about the organophosphate pesticides they were spraying, and the company threatened to sue us for libel and slander. That’s when I was just a little bitty mom doing this little bitty thing. You have to be aware that they have a lot of money, and just suing you can be very disruptive. So I will be very careful to be correct and to follow the law.
SL: Yes. We haven’t faced any threats to sue for defamation or libel or whatever. We’ve worked with Tulane University and Earthjustice. But if we didn’t have them, they would probably be threatening us at this point.
JMK: Was it EarthJustice that says the earth needs a good lawyer? I love that.
SL: Yes. I love it too!
JMK: So when you communicate with people in your community, and especially parents, where there's a lot of fear and guilt – like we were just talking about – how do you frame that question and share information and make them aware without making parents feel so anxious that they are immobilized?
SL: We try to just provide objective education to them. This isn’t the folks that I’ve talked to about miscarriages, but cancer and asthma – a lot of those parents don’t see it as their fault. For the most part, they know it is something environmental. Sometimes it’s just a matter of pointing them in the right direction. I might provide information on a particular plant that they live close to – the different chemicals that are being emitted at that particular plant. Sometimes I will talk about the violations – because all of these plants are violating their air permits, their water permits.
So I go from that angle – giving out objective information, not just speculative information. That’s what I try to do. We have a Rise meeting every month at the Senior Center in Saint James. If somebody did feel they are the reason something happened, I would say, 9 times out of 10 it is not your fault – that’s not what caused it. All these chemicals in this area are cancer-causing chemicals. A lot of people didn’t know that benzene causes cancer. We have a lot of people with breast and prostate cancer. Both of my uncles have had prostate cancer. Most men over 50 have had some experience with prostate cancer.
We try to make sure people understand it’s not your diet – unless they smoke cigarettes. That’s a different story, and then that would be mostly lung cancer. For the most part, we give objective information that they can really use. We haven’t had people who say, “I’m the reason that I got cancer or that my child has asthma. I think they all have some inkling. But some of them are still not willing to speak out against industry because they have relatives who work in industry.
JMK: That’s really hard. My own former husband worked for BP.
SL: Oh, wow – BP!
JMK: I would ask him, how can you work for the industry that has killed our daughter? He knew it was true. But people get entrenched. Their identity becomes part of that, and they're making money, like you said. I see how it happens. You start off and are just interested in chemistry, and then down the road, you get pulled into it.
SL: What do you do? We try to let people know there are other solutions – there can be green jobs. But until the powers that be really buy into green energy and move away from fossil fuels, it’s hard. The government is going to have to step in.
JMK: And then, of course, a lot of the petrochemical companies just want to move to plastic. You solve the energy thing – and they’ll just move to plastic.
SL: Yes. And then they want to store carbon underground. [Laughing.] I'm laughing to keep from crying, because you know….
JMK: Oh, I get gallows humor!
SL: Yes. Sometimes I just really feel overwhelmed with it all because, what do you do? We stopped one plant, and another one is coming up 10 miles away.
JMK: I hear you. You can feel like just one person, and what difference can you make? But – I’m quoting all over the place today – Margaret Mead said, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, that's the only thing that ever has.” You are that! That is you all!
SL: Yes. We are trying. And you too. I mean, I can’t even…. I probably would have just been burying everything into myself.
But we have to be vocal and to fight – not just for our kids, but for all kids. When I do this work, I’m not just fighting for my daughter. I’m fighting for everybody’s kids, and their grandkids. I think you just have to have that moral compass that guides you to do the right thing. That’s why I do this work.
But it is very challenging. You know. I have days sometimes – I don’t know what else to do, Lord! We keep fighting. We keep showing up at public hearings. We keep making commercials. We keep speaking out. We keep meeting with legislators – our Congressman, the one congressman that will see us. So everybody can play a part.
JMK: Yes, I do think that is true.
And one thing I will say, with this project, I've been interviewing amazing people – people like you, the activists, but also the scientists. They have been working on this all along, and they have quite similar opinions about chemical contamination in this country. They know what's going on. And they're good people.
Well, you've given me so much material, and I know you need to go out with the snow. But just a bit more if you do you have time. Are you okay?
SL: Yes – or she would be by the door.
JMK: If she comes, you go, because you are only ever going to get this once in a while.
In the book, I will cite the studies – but also show people the human face of this. There is suffering involved in these tragedies – it’s not just data points, right?
SL: Right. It’s real-life people that are experiencing this. And it’s not fun. Like I said earlier about my miscarriage, when I did get pregnant again, I was very fearful that I would miscarry again. And some women have experienced multiple miscarriages.
When I talk to people now – women who recently had miscarriages – I’ll say, you know the industry may have something to do with your miscarriage. I’ll say it. We’ll have a whole discussion about it.
JMK: I'm putting together birth defects and miscarriages, because some of those miscarriages may be because that fetus had a defect of some kind.
SL: Yes. I can tell you, a lot of the chemicals emitted around here cause birth defects. When I was miscarrying, I remember – a medical doctor told me there may have been a birth defect with my child, and that may have caused the miscarriage. But what caused the birth defect?
JMK: Did he say that because he had seen your fetus? Or just – that happens a lot.
SL: No. He wasn’t my medical doctor – just a friend of the family. I think he was trying to make me feel better – like, the child probably would have had a birth defect if it had been born, and that would have been challenging. And so I looked at it that way too – and then I buried it.
JMK: I am glad that was successful in making you feel a bit more reconciled.
SL: Yes – other than me picking up that box – that wasn’t even that heavy. But in my mind, I had to have done something wrong.
JMK: Oh, so common and so sad. Okay. Last question, is there anything you want to ask me about the project or about my experiences?
SL: So you mentioned Johns Hopkins – they're funding it? So you know, Johns Hopkins did an air study here where they drove a van that monitored the air along Cancer Alley. Are you doing anything with the folks that are working on that study?
JMK: Well, maybe I should look them up and talk to them. But no – Johns Hopkins University Press is just publishing the book. I don’t work there – I’m in Chicago.
SL: That study showed high levels of ethylene oxide (EtO), which is a carcinogenic chemical, right here in Ascension Parish, where the Mitsubishi plant was going to be built. And so they released part of the study showing that the EtO levels were nine times higher than reported to the EPA. Peter DeCarlo was the Principle Investigator. I may have it and can send it to you.
JMK: Thank you, but I can probably find it as well.
SL: What happened in your case? How old was your daughter?
JMK: She was 4 when she got cancer, and then 8 when she died. She had two bone marrow transplants. And she just – we all just really went through it with her. And you know, she was so smart, and one of the worst things is she realized what was happening. She was too smart for her own good, her doctor said.
SL: What was her name?
JMK: Katherine – thank you for asking.
SL: Katherine, that's pretty.
JMK: Did you name the baby that you lost?
SL: No, I didn't, because it was so early. I was just bleeding – I thought it was just a period that would not go away. There was a lot of cramping and stuff.
JMK: Thank you for asking – she was one of the loves of my life. You know because you have Amerie.
SL: Yes.
Well, thank you for sharing about your daughter.
JMK: Oh, thank you for sharing your story. I'm so glad to get to know you.
SL: Yeah, likewise, likewise. Thank you for looking us up and contacting us.
JMK: You all came right up when I went looking for Cancer Alley activists. And I saw that picture of your mom with Reverend Dr. William Barber, who actually spoke at Benedictine just about a year and a half ago. And I just thought, Wow, these are good people!
SL: Yes – he’s come down a couple of times. I love him. You know, we did the Poor People's Campaign with him in June of 2024. We flew out there to be part of the march and rally, and it was very inspiring. He’s been a supporter since day one.
JMK: I'm not at all surprised by that. I know some people consider him the modern inheritor of MLK.
SL: Yes. And he spoke at the MLK program yesterday with Bernice King. I had a chance to go back and listen to it. I didn’t turn on my TV at all yesterday, trying not to let the news get to me….
JMK: And they want to trigger us and then suck our energy away from fighting. Right? We talked about this, that the job can get you down.
You know, you and your mom both seem to have a rebellious spirit, and I do, too, a little bit. If they're going to try to take my energy, I'm going to try to protect myself enough to keep working. But of course, it takes a toll.
SL: Yes, it does. But you know we gotta disconnect. Keep the noise over there. But just like late last night, when they announced that he was letting everybody out from January 6. I was like, “the hell?! These people killed people! I mean they stormed the Capitol, and y'all just gonna let them out?” Enrique Tarrio had 22 years in jail, and he is now free. And now he can lead the Proud Boys again. I was just like, I don’t even know what to say. How is this even possible?
JMK: You know, Donald Trump – there have always been people like that, right? Always. What I fault is people who are low-information voters or who didn't vote – they have some responsibility to be a good citizen. I really put the blame squarely on voters.
SL: Yes – I do too. And now they are saying that Elon rigged the election, and I’m like, some of y’all just didn’t go vote – 30% of the population didn't care to even go vote. But even when he ran against Hillary, there were people saying they weren't voting for Hillary. And I was like, so y'all gonna just not vote? A not-vote means you vote for Trump.
And then the other thing about society is that we're so forgetful. I don't even remember the stuff that this man did during COVID. He wanted us to drink bleach.
JMK: There are so many things that should be disqualifying that it's hard to even keep track.
SL: It’s hard to keep track. We got something to continue with these next four years. But I'm gonna try not to watch as much TV.
JMK: I know.
Well, it's been such a pleasure. But you gotta go play with your daughter in this snow!
SL: Yes – I gotta go get wet!
JMK: So good to meet you, Shamell, and I will be back in touch with the blog and book.
SL: All right. Sounds good. Nice meeting you. Bye!
