Researchers using high-tech air monitoring equipment rolled through an industrialized stretch of southeast Louisiana in mobile labs and found levels of a carcinogen in concentrations as much as 10 times higher than previously estimated, according to a paper published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University raises new health concerns for communities that sit among the chemical plants lining a stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — dubbed “cancer alley” by environmentalists.
