Water quality testing in and around Lourisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley” revealed levels of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” as high as 268 times the EPA’s interim limit for safe levels in drinking water. “We are not a sacrifice zone, but continually we are the ones that are sacrificed,” Jo Banner, a resident of St. James Paris and co-founder of The Descendants Project, told reporters.

The survey, conducted by the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans, tested water from 31 sites along the Mississippi River — a key source of drinking water for many local communities — from Pointe Coupee Parish (just upriver from Baton Rouge) to St. James Parish in the heart of Cancer Alley, which is generally defined as between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The results come just weeks before the EPA is expected to propose the first-ever enforceable standards on safe per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS). (Louisiana Illuminator, Local Today, The Lens, NOLA.com)