ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-18175 

STUDY TITLE: Environmental Justice Considerations in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana 

REPORT TITLE: Environmental Justice Considerations in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana 

CONTRACT NUMBER(S): 1435-01-99-CS-30951-18175 

SPONSORING OCS REGION: Gulf of Mexico OCS Region 

APPLICABLE PLANNING AREA(S): Western, Central, and Eastern Gulf of Mexico 

FISCAL YEAR(S) OF PROJECT FUNDING: FY 2001 to FY 2003 

COMPLETION DATE OF REPORT: April 2004 

COST(S): $42,263 + $17,000 

PROJECT MANAGER: Larry Rouse 

AFFILIATION: Coastal Marine Institute 

ADDRESS: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Craig E. Colten 

KEY WORDS: Environmental Justice, Technological Hazards, Lafourche Parish, 

Petroleum Industry, Outer Continental Shelf 

BACKGROUND: Environmental justice is becoming an increasingly important issue in 

terms of industrial siting and locating hazardous facilities. In 1994, President Bill Clinton 

issued Executive Order 12898, which directs Federal agencies to assess whether their 

actions have disproportionate adverse environmental effects on ethnic or racial 

minorities or with low incomes. These environmental effects encompass human health, 

social, and economic consequences. 

Lafourche Parish provides an ideal situation for a preliminary examination of the 

environmental justice issues in coastal Louisiana as they relate to OCS activity. With a 

total 2000 population of 89,974 it is a manageable size for a pilot project. The 

demographics are also well suited to a project of this type. It is home to a sizable native 

American (2.3%) as well as African American population (12.6%), and a small Asian 

American population (0.7%) overall almost 15% of the parish population is minority. 

Although these numbers are below the state average, they are significant. Furthermore, 

for the parish as a whole, 14.7% of the population is below the U.S. Census Bureau’s 

definition of poverty and 19.7% of the children live below the poverty level. Again, both 

these figures are below the state averages (18.4% and 26% respectively), but are 

significant. 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-18175 

Lafourche is ideal for another reason. Environmental justice literature in Louisiana has 

tended to focus on issues related to petrochemical production and waste disposal, 

downstream uses of petroleum that are not part of MMS’s purview. Lafourche is the 

location of the kinds of activities that are addressed in the agency’s environmental 

assessments such as shipyards, supply bases, pipeline land fills, and onshore transport 

and storage of OCS-related waste. 

OBJECTIVES: The first task of the research entailed a review of the existing literature. 

The literature review included 

a. OCS related activity in Lafourche Parish and coastal Louisiana 

b. Environmental justice literature for Louisiana with an emphasis on the Gulf 

coast area 

c. Studies of ethnic group status and distributions, poverty, and 

environmental impacts in the areas and the parish, along with available 

census data sets 

d. Natural resource use and distribution in coastal Louisiana 

e. Use of geographic information systems (GIS) to characterize 

environmental justice concerns 

The second task involved mapping the Lafourche Parish population. Using U.S. 

Census Bureau data for 2000, the researchers mapped minority and low-income 

populations by census tract. 

The third task was to map zones of expanding OCS activity. Using MMS data and 

information the researchers plotted the areas that have seen recent expansion of OCSrelated activity such as pipeline landfalls, petroleum bulk storage facilities, and 

fabrication/service facilities. 

The fourth task was to map zones of vulnerability. This focused on areas where there 

are low-income and minority populations proximate to potential environmental impacts 

associated with OCS oil and natural gas production. This also includes areas where 

there is overlap between natural resources used by local populations that are proximate 

to OCS-related activity and areas along transportation corridors where OCS-related 

activity could produce spills or leaks and their relationship to local populations. Finally, 

this project includes areas that are likely to witness growth or expansion of OCS-related 

activity and that also house low-income/minority populations. 

DESCRIPTION: The report contains seven chapters and two appendices. The 

“Introduction” introduces the idea of environmental justice and briefly discusses the 

issue as it relates to Louisiana and Outer Continental Shelf oil activity. This section also 

introduced the study area as well as the methods utilized in the project. The “Areas of 

Potential Environmental Justice Concern” section briefly describes the minority 

populations found in the study area and presents information on the geographical 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-18175 

distributions of these populations, identifying areas of high concentrations. The “OCSRelated Environmental Hazards” section identified the potential hazards associated with 

Outer Continental Shelf onshore infrastructure and presented the geographical 

distributions of these. The “Hazardousness of Place Model” identifies zones of 

vulnerability to potential environmental hazards in Lafourche Parish, identifying at risk 

populations. The “Statistical Analysis” used contingency analysis, discriminant analysis, 

and multiple regression analysis to establish the statistical relationship between minority 

population, low-income population, and Outer Continental Shelf oil-related industries. 

The last major section, “Summary and Conclusions”, discusses the patterns of racial, 

ethnic, and economic population distributions found around the oil-related facilities in 

Lafourche Parish, identifying a number of high risk areas. Two large appendices follow 

the “References” section. The “Cross Tabulation Statistical Output for Minority Groups 

and OCS-Related Activities” briefly describes the contingency analysis used and 

provides the statistical output of the analysis. The “Minority and Low-Income Groups in 

the Counties/Parishes along the Gulf of Mexico” appendix presents the findings of a 

related research project in which information on minority and low-income populations 

along the Gulf of Mexico was gathered. These areas were identified and a bibliography 

of literature to be used for future research was created. 

SIGNIFICANT CONCLUSIONS: Five different classes of OCS-related activities were 

identified as being potentially hazardous to nearby communities. Transportation 

corridors, oil and natural gas pipelines, petroleum bulk storage facilities, shipyards, and 

a natural gas processing plant are all located in Lafourche Parish. The areas of 

greatest potential environmental justice impact are in communities along the natural 

levees on the southern portion of Bayou Lafourche, and to a lesser extent along Bayou 

Pointe-au-Cheien, on the parish’s western border. The facilities of south Lafourche, 

with the exception of the petroleum bulk terminals, show a statistically significant high 

Houma Indian population around them. Conversely, the Asian and Hispanic 

populations were much more geographically dispersed, while the African-American 

population clustered in urbanized areas of north Lafourche, where OCS-related 

activities are minimal. 

STUDY RESULTS: Though inequities were found in the distribution of OCS-related 

industries in Lafourche Parish, the research did not seek the causes. This study has 

established the relationship between infrastructure location and socio-economic 

conditions, but not established causality. Nonetheless, this research does provide the 

Minerals Management Service and other agencies involved in the planning process with 

valuable information as to the potential impacts of increasing OCS activity on various 

socioeconomic groups. Since minority groups are disproportionately affected by OCSrelated industry it is important that federal agencies such as MMS ensure that 

environmental regulations are uniformly enforced, regardless of race or class in order to 

ensure that risk to these communities is minimized. 

Areas of Potential Environmental Justice Concern 

 Settlement History 

 The Community 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-18175 

 Native Americans 

 Caucasians 

 African-Americans 

 Asians 

 Hispanics 

 Renewable Natural Resources 

 Trapping and Hunting 

 Fisheries 

OCS-Related Environmental Hazards 

 Frequency of Occurrence 

 OCS-Related Activities 

 Transportation Corridors 

 Refineries and Gas Processing Plants 

 Pipelines, Pumping Stations and Oil Storage Facilities 

 Shipyards and Shipbuilding Yards 

Hazardousness of Place Model 

 Zones of Biophysical Vulnerability 

 Zones of Social Vulnerability 

 Zones of Place Vulnerability 

Statistical Analysis 

 Contingency Analysis 

 Discriminant Analysis 

 Block Level Analysis 

 Block Group Level Analysis 

 Multiple Regression Analysis 

Summary and Conclusion 

 Summary of Findings 

 OCS-Related Impacts 

 Analysis of High Risk Areas 

 Conclusion 

STUDY PRODUCT: Hemmerling, S.A. and C.E. Colten. 2003. Environmental Justice 

Considerations in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana: Final Report. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 

Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS 

Study MMS 2003-038. 348 pp.