What to know about the controversy over a cancelled grain terminal in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

Associated Press/Report for America

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An industrial agricultural company abruptly cancelled an $800 million grain terminal in a historic Black town in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley after facing stiff local opposition and permitting delays. The company, Greenfield Louisiana LLC, and its supporters, including Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, blamed “special interest groups” and “plantation owners” for halting a facility which promised hundreds of jobs and economic growth. But opponents of the facility said it would have harmed unique and sensitive cultural sites such as several nearby plantations and a cemetery of descendants of formerly enslaved people. The fight has driven lawsuits, vitriol and racist flyers.