{"id":14199,"date":"2015-11-05T14:17:59","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T19:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14199"},"modified":"2015-11-05T14:17:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T19:17:59","slug":"erasing-mossville-how-pollution-killed-a-louisiana-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14199","title":{"rendered":"Erasing Mossville: How Pollution Killed a Louisiana Town"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span class=\"dropcap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2015\/11\/04\/erasing-mossville-how-pollution-killed-a-louisiana-town\/\" target=\"_blank\">Erasing Mossville: How Pollution Killed a Louisiana Town<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">A<\/span>LLEN LEBLANC LED A VIGOROUS LIFE\u00a0as a young man growing up in Mossville, Louisiana. He had a sheet-rocking business, drove trucks, and worked at the Conoco oil refinery. He helped his mother and stepfather run their nightclub, where Tina Turner and James Brown used to play. He also helped out at home with his five children, and he would paint, fix broken windows, and mow lawns for neighbors who couldn\u2019t afford to maintain their houses. Now, at 71, LeBlanc is on disability, and for most of the last decade he has refused to leave his house. Seizures, liver problems, a stroke, tremors, insomnia, fatigue, and depression plague him. He can no longer drive, and he can\u2019t walk from his front door to the sidewalk without collapsing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"img-wrap align-right width-fixed\"><a href=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/11\/allen-leblanc-widmer.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-41977\" src=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/11\/allen-leblanc-widmer.jpg\" alt=\"Allen LeBlanc sits on his front porch in Mossville, La., Oct. 22, 2015.\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Allen LeBlanc sits on his front porch in Mossville, La., Oct. 22, 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>LeBlanc attributes his debilitation not to heredity or unhealthy habits but to the toxic emissions from industrial plants that have proliferated in the neighboring town of Westlake. Just beyond the curtain of pines and cypress trees surrounding Mossville sits an oil refinery, several petrochemical plants, and one of the country\u2019s largest concentrations of manufacturers of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www3.epa.gov\/airtoxics\/hlthef\/vinylchl.html\">vinyl chloride<\/a>, a\u00a0main ingredient in polyvinyl chloride, the plastic known as PVC. As a matter of course \u2014 and most often within permitted levels \u2014 these facilities emit millions of pounds of toxins into the air, water, and soil each year. \u201cLiving here has messed me up,\u201d LeBlanc said. Although his appearance was disheveled, he spoke clearly and coherently, upright in his chair. \u201cIf I could have another life, I\u2019d take it. This one ain\u2019t worth 10 cents to me,\u201d he said in his thick Louisiana drawl. \u201cI\u2019d like to do things for myself again \u2014 I\u2019d give everything I\u2019ve got for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Erasing Mossville: How Pollution Killed a Louisiana Town ALLEN LEBLANC LED A VIGOROUS LIFE\u00a0as a young man growing up in Mossville, Louisiana. He had a sheet-rocking business, drove trucks, and worked at the Conoco oil refinery. He helped his mother and stepfather run their nightclub, where Tina Turner and James Brown used to play. He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10491,4543,10492,10493,10494,10496,10495],"class_list":["post-14199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-allen-leblanc","tag-intercept","tag-mossville","tag-oil-refinery","tag-petrochemicals","tag-polyvinyl-chloride","tag-pvc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14200,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14199\/revisions\/14200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}