“Toxic Air”: Meet the Mother-Daughter Duo Fighting Pollution in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

A group of activists from Louisiana have traveled to New York this week to confront the financial backers of destructive natural gas projects in what’s known as “Cancer Alley.” The protests come just days after the U.S. liquefied natural gas company Venture Global announced it’s going ahead with plans to build a massive new liquefied natural gas facility in Louisiana, after the company secured $15 billion in financing.

During a series of actions here in New York, protesters have been targeting big banks, including Barclays, Bank of America, as well as the homes of executives. On Thursday, protesters visited the home of Frances Townsend, who served as homeland security adviser for President George W. Bush, now a board member of the insurance company Chubb. This is Roishetta Ozane of The Vessel Project speaking outside Townsend’s home.

ROISHETTA OZANE: We came to the door of the murderers, and the murderers ran from us. I actually find that funny. Like, we don’t have weapons. They have made the weapons of mass destruction. These weapons go by the names of LNG.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Roishetta Ozane, founder and director of the environmental justice group The Vessel Project in Louisiana. She’s joining us here in our Democracy Now! studio with her 12-year-old daughter, the climate activist Kamea Ozane. She suffers from asthma, like so many in Cancer Alley.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I also covered you months ago, when you came and were involved in a lot of these protests. A number of people got arrested. First of all, Roishetta, start off by telling us: What is Cancer Alley? Where does it extend from in Louisiana? And why do you call it that?

ROISHETTA OZANE: Yes, thank you so much for having us, Amy.

So, Cancer Alley is traditionally known as the 85-mile stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Well, we live in Sulphur, Louisiana, in south — 

AMY GOODMAN: Sulphur?

ROISHETTA OZANE: Yes, Sulphur. It smells just like the name. Sulphur is in southwest Louisiana, near Lake Charles. But what we’ve grown to know is that the entire state of Louisiana is Cancer Alley. So, we live where what’s called the mouth of Cancer Alley, where we have dozens and dozens of petrochemical, LNG, oil and gas polluting facilities.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, if you can talk about: What is this “Toxic Billionaires Tour” that you’ve traveled all the way from Louisiana to New York for this week?

ROISHETTA OZANE: We’ve come here because we’ve asked, we’ve requested, we’ve emailed for the CEOs of banks like Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, insurance companies like Chubb and AIG — we’ve asked them to come to our communities, breathe the air, drink the water and get a taste of what we live every day. And they’ve refused to come. Yet they sit here in New York and in offices in D.C., and they make decisions for our community, decisions that are killing our children, decisions that are harming our air, our water and our wildlife. So we brought our community here to them.

AMY GOODMAN: So, why today Citibank?

ROISHETTA OZANE: Today, we’re going to be in front of Citibank, because Citibank continues to be the number two leader in financing fossil fuels, even though they proclaim that they’re doing better, they’re making better choices, they’re adhering to free, prior and informed consent. We know that numbers don’t lie. Citibank has put billions of dollars behind fossil fuel projects since the Paris Agreement.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Kamea Ozane. She is 12 years old, but it’s not the first time she’s taken part in a climate protest. I want to go back to last year, when we filmed her here in New York during another protest outside Citibank.

KAMEA OZANE: The Citibanks keep funding these fossil fuel industries in our communities. They put them in the small Black and Indigenous communities on purpose, because they know that we can’t do anything about that. They put them in poor communities and low-income communities on purpose. This is not OK. This is racist.

AMY GOODMAN: “This is not OK. This is racist,” Kamea. Kamea is joining us in our studio, and I want to be the first to wish you a happy pre-birthday — 

KAMEA OZANE: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — because tomorrow you will be 13.

KAMEA OZANE: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: But talk about the conditions that you suffer from, and describe Sulphur for us. Your mom said — basically, you’re saying your community smells.

KAMEA OZANE: Yes. So, when you walk outside — right? — as soon as you walk outside of my house, if you look over, you can see the industries from right outside of in my front yard. And from the industries, you could see, like, the bulging fires, and you can smell this really toxic air. And it’s not — that’s not good air to be breathing in. And it’s not good for the kids to go outside and play outside, because the air is making them sick with conditions like cancer, asthma, eczema. My brother even has epilepsy from these plants and these industries harming him and his health, because they want to put them in communities like mine, in communities where people — like, they can’t control what the banks are funding and putting in our communities.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you suffer from eczema and asthma?

KAMEA OZANE: Yes, ma’am.

AMY GOODMAN: What happens with your asthma?

KAMEA OZANE: With my asthma, it makes me feel like it’s hard to breathe, and it feels like an elephant’s sitting on my chest. And I’m thankful that my grandma, like, helps me have natural remedies to help me get through this process of asthma.

AMY GOODMAN: Roishetta, you look like you’re crying.

ROISHETTA OZANE: I am, because it’s so sad that I had to bring all of my children here to New York to go in front of these CEOs and go in front of these banks to plea our case that our children are dying. My 7-year-old son is also here. He’ll be speaking today. He goes outside to jump on the trampoline, to play on the swing set, and he comes back in the house, and he says, “Mom, it stinks out here. It smells like rotten eggs. I don’t want to be outside.”

You know, in 2025, where children are so prone to devices and sitting in front of iPads, which I’m not condemning, but to have children who still want to go outside and play, but they can’t because the air is horrible, and to be paying a water bill in a community where every day we’re getting an alert that says, “Don’t drink the water. There’s a boil water advisory. There’s E. coli in the water,” every single day — and also, Louisiana just announced four deaths from bacteria in the water. Something has to be done. And it just makes me sad. This is not a happy occasion to be here in New York, where otherwise it should be. We’re here because we’re fighting for our lives.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re holding two protests today.

ROISHETTA OZANE: We’re holding two protests today. We’re going from Citibank, which is the second-largest funder of fossil fuels, and we’re heading to Jane Fraser, who is the CEO of Citibank. We’re heading to her house next, because she has refused to meet with us in person, so we’re going to her doorstep.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are you going to ask her for? What are you demanding? And I want to ask both of you that, starting with Kamea.

KAMEA OZANE: We are demanding that she stops funding these plants and putting them in industries like ours, because she would never put them in her community. She only puts them in our low-income communities.

ROISHETTA OZANE: What we’re asking for is that they listen to us, they understand that we are real people. We are not small people from small towns that are sacrifice zones. We are people with culture, with family, who are fighting for our right to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And we want them to change their investments — invest in renewable energy, invest in the community, invest in small businesses, invest in our schools, in green spaces, in resources that our communities need to survive and thrive.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Roishetta and Kamea Ozane. Roishetta is the founder and director of the environmental justice group The Vessel Project. And Kamea, a climate activist, turns 13 years old tomorrow. Again, happy birthday.

KAMEA OZANE: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Next up, we go to Texas, where Republican state lawmakers are moving to redraw the congressional districts, at President Trump’s urging, with the goal of picking up five more Republican congressional seats. Ari Berman [writes], “Trump’s Texas Gerrymander Is Supercharging a New War on Democracy.” That’s the title of his new piece in Mother Jones. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “If I Was President,” Las Cafeteras, here in our Democracy Now! studio.