At night, the petrochemical plants lining miles of the lower Mississippi River take on an almost fairy tale look from all their bright lights.
But it's become known as "Cancer Alley" among the people who live along the Big Muddy from Baton Rouge south to New Orleans and depend on these chemical plants and petroleum refineries for their livelihoods.For decades, people living in the river parishes - and, for that matter, in all of south Louisiana - have known they are more likely to die from cancer than people in the rest of the nation.
However, a study indicates that the high death toll is caused not by tall industrial smokestacks, but by little white smoke sticks - cigarettes.
"It was surprising even to us," said Vivien Chen, director of the Louisiana Tumor Registry, which has collected cancer statistics across south Louisiana since 1983 and statewide since 1988.
The study was published in April's edition of the Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society but made little impact until this past week.
The correlation between the petrochemical industry and cancer deaths had seemed entirely reasonable.
After all, the seven parishes from Baton Rouge to New Orleans produce 60 percent or more of Louisiana's chemical emissions.
And figures from the National Cancer Institute in 1970 showed that, for white men in south Louisiana, the death rate for all cancers combined was not just higher than the national average, but was in the top 10 percent.
In 1987, "We see the same pattern," Chen said.
But the petrochemical connection that didn't hold up when Chen and other scientists at Louisiana State University Medical Center and the Tumor Registry took a closer look.
Rather than looking only at cancer deaths, they looked at the number of all cases of cancers diagnosed 1983 through 1987.
They discovered that people in "Cancer Alley" did not develop cancer any more often than residents of the rest of south Louisiana, or even the rest of the nation. In fact, where there are differences, south Louisiana and "Cancer Alley" have lower overall cancer rates.
There was one important exception: white men across south Louisiana have much higher rates for cancers of the lung and larynx than those in the rest of the country. White men in the river parishes also have a lung cancer rate above the national average, although that rate is below the south Louisiana rate.
That was the key, Chen said: More people are dying because lung cancer is so common and so lethal.
But the figures were at odds with the idea that something from the petrochemical plants was involved.
"If it is in the air, why do not women have a higher rate? Why are African-American men not having a higher rate? If it was something in the environment, you would expect it would uniformly affect everyone," Chen said.
Moreover, the highest cancer rate - like the highest death rate - wasn't even in the river parishes, but in the New Orleans area.
Chen noted that an earlier statewide study found that 90 percent of all lung cancer cases were linked to smoking. Other studies have found that about the same percentage of white and black men smoke, but white men tend to be heavier smokers, she said.
At a news conference earlier this month about statewide cancer statistics, Dr. Charles Brown, a cancer specialist who is on the board which runs the Tumor Registry, said there is one simple reason for lung cancer:
"Tobacco, tobacco, tobacco. And, particularly in this state, tobacco."
There was no comment Saturday from the Tobacco Institute, the industry organization. Calls the home of spokesman Walker Merryman were not answered.