"In response to growing public pressure, state legislators created the Stream Control Commission (SCC) in 1940. It advocated cooperation as a way to retain industries and protect their payrolls, and it relied in part on industrial expertise to set pollution thresholds. Touting its early accomplishments, the SCC claimed its policy resulted in an “almost 100% correction of that [pollution] from oil refineries.”13 Thus on the eve of the wartime industrial build up, the state admitted that refiners had created pollution but claimed that the SCC was an effective response and had pollution under control.” (Colten 2012, 96)
"By the early 1950s the SCC suggested that pollution was only noticeable during low-river stages and that “little remains to complain about regarding the effluent coming from this [Baton Rouge Esso] plant.” Such positions accommodated industry’s continuing reliance on the river as a waste disposal sink.14” (Colten 2012, 96-97)
“Escalating pollution problems, however, exposed the inadequacies of the system and prompted a series of water-quality investigations. Federal studies in the 1950s asserted that pollution was a pressing problem, but the prevailing view among state officials was that pollution was a limited, localized issue; their permitting and enforcement actions, which did little to impede uncontrolled discharges to the river, reflected this perception. The state’s lackluster response continued into the 1960s. Following an industrial spill that contaminated public water supplies in 1960, the state created a warning system that placed the burden on water-supply operators to close their intakes and imposed no penalties or new requirements on industries responsible for spills.15” (Colten 2012, 97)
“A major fish kill during the winter of 1963–1964 created a nationally significant event that served as the tipping point for a policy shift. Endrin, an agricultural chemical used in sugarcane fields in south Louisiana, was responsible for an estimated 5 million fish deaths that winter. Louisiana officials were unable to pinpoint the source and requested assistance from the U.S. Public Health Service. The federal investigation pointed toward an Endrin manufacturer far upriver in Memphis, Tennessee, not lower-river sugar planters or grinding mills. Occurring shortly after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), this event captured public attention. Congress conducted hearings on the calamity, and the Public Health Service convened a public conference on interstate pollution of the lower Mississippi. This event transformed public and government opinions about the scale of pollution and recast lower–Mississippi River pollution as a regional problem that could harm people, not just fish.16” (Colten 2012, 97)
“Industrial pollution came under even more intense scrutiny in 1974 when a national exposé reported that the New Orleans water supply contained cancer-causing organic chemicals and that the city’s residents had a history of above-average cancer rates. The exposé sparked a debate among Louisiana officials and garnered considerable national attention as it cast the Mississippi River as a waterway sacrificed for industrial gain.” (Colten 2012, 97)
“By the 1990s the Baton Rouge–New Orleans industrial corridor stood out as one of the most prominent zones of chemical plant explosions. In addition to the threat from a deadly chlorine leak when a barge sank during Hurricane Betsy in 1965, major explosions at the Shell refinery at Norco (in 1979 and 1988) and at the Exxon (former Standard) refinery at Baton Rouge (in 1989) caused fatalities and inflicted damage on neighboring communities.7” (Colten 2012, 94)
Craig E. Colten. 2012. "An Incomplete Solution: Oil and Water in Louisiana." Journal of American History, Volume 99, Issue 1, June 2012, Pages 91–99, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jas023.
