BLAC Lunch and Learn Series Resumes

This summer, join the Black Appalachian Coalition- BLAC and Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI) for a lunch & learn series on the impacts of petrochemical development on Black communities in Appalachia.

Petrochemicals—oil- and gas-based chemicals used to make plastics and pesticides—are harmful to human health and the environment. The process of making petrochemicals creates dangerous air and water pollution. People, and especially children, living near petrochemical production facilities have higher risk of many types of cancer, birth complications, asthma and respiratory illness, and kidney disease.

These facilities tend to be located in Black communities and poor communities because of decades of racial discrimination in housing and financial services. In majority-Black census tracts, the estimated risk of cancer from toxic air emissions is more than twice the risk found in majority-white tracts, research shows. In 2021, the United Nations officially declared petrochemical growth along “Cancer Alley” in the US Gulf Coast a form of environmental racism.

Join us to learn more & take action. Bring your lunch and tune in at noon on the fourth Thursday of each month to hear from experts & frontline residents about petrochemical development and its outsized threat to Black communities:

Register