Industrial Growth and Water Pollution in Lake Charles, Louisiana

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Louisiana State University Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2007 Unwelcome neighbors? industrial growth and water pollution in Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1940-1960 Jonathan Zachary DeLaune Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation DeLaune, Jonathan Zachary, "Unwelcome neighbors? industrial growth and water pollution in Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1940-1960" (2007). LSU Master's Theses. 636. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/636 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNWELCOME NEIGHBORS? INDUSTRIAL GROWTH AND WATER POLLUTION IN LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA, 1940-1960 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Geography and Anthropology by Jonathan Zachary DeLaune B.S., Louisiana State University, 2004 December 2007 To Andra F. DeLaune (1948-2002) Who I hope would have been proud. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I am indebted to Dr. Craig Colten for his unwavering enthusiasm, persistent support, and extensive library. His door was always open, and he was quick to offer advice, answer questions, and tell bad jokes. He showed me what true passion for a field looks like, and this thesis could not have been written without his assistance and input. My thesis committee, Dr. William Rowe and Dr. Kent Mathewson, were instrumental in directing me towards a cohesive, finished research product. For all of their comments, advice, and citations, I am extremely grateful. I would like to thank the Department of Geography & Anthropology at LSU for funding my stay through research and teaching assistantships. Special thanks goes out again to Dr. Colten, and also to the graduate director, Dr. Patrick Hesp, for their extra efforts in helping me secure this funding. The staff of the main office (Dana Sanders, Linda Strain, Nedda Taylor, and Vicki Terry) also deserve thanks for their assistance both in my journey through a master’s degree and in my co-presidency of the Geography & Anthropology Society. My field work would not have been possible without the assistance of many people. I must thank Kathy P. Smith and the rest of the staff of the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury for their assistance with the Police Jury records, and for allowing me use of their conference room for my research. I also must thank the staff of the Calcasieu Parish Court, who went out of their way to retrieve the hundreds of case records I needed. The staff at the Department of Environmental Quality was also very helpful in my search for the records of the Stream Control Commission. I must thank my friends who, during this time, gave me support, jobs, advice, and a sense of belonging. They made graduate school a truly memorable experience. I find myself lucky enough to consider the faculty of the Department of Geography & Anthropology as a part of this iii group. They are always available for a chat over research, a beer, or a table of crawfish, and have made this department an amazing place to live for the past two and a half years. Finally, I must thank my family. Special thanks go to my parents, Rene and Andra DeLaune, and my sister, Joanna DeLaune, who always encouraged my academic endeavors and supported me in every way possible. I am also grateful to all of my aunts and uncles who supported me, emotionally and financially, without question. iv Preface The first memories I have of the Lake Charles area are from early childhood. My father was born and raised in the area, and we would sometimes visit extended family there. Driving west along Interstate 10, we would pass through Lake Charles, cross the Calcasieu River, and continue west a few miles to Sulphur, where the family lived. At first glance, Lake Charles is not a very remarkable city; its appearance is not much different from any other small urban area. There are schools, slums, ranch houses, malls, a small university, and an airport. The city sits on a nearly circular lake, with man-made beaches and riverboat casinos lining the shores. However, what we saw on the west side of the lake always made me think twice about taking a swim. In Westlake (the community just across the river), the highway seems to run an industrial gauntlet. As we drove, towers, pipes, tanks, and flames surrounded us. The names came into view on tanks, trucks, rail cars, and road signs: PPG, Conoco, Citgo. The sign welcoming you to Westlake hangs from industrial pipes, suggesting the intimate bond this area has with industry. Entrance to Westlake (Photo Credit: Author) Baseball fields lay in the shadow of tank farms. Streets have names such as Cities Service Highway and PPG Road. Windsocks hang from poles around the city, offering crucial safety v information in case of an accidental release. Industry affects nearly every aspect of life in this region, and even at a young age, I could see that this was a unique place. It was much different from the town in central Louisiana where I grew up. The largest industry I had seen at home was a paper mill. While all of these sights and smells in Lake Charles were offensive at the time, I later learned that the plants were the reason my father's family came to Lake Charles. My grandfather was the chief safety officer at the Cities Service refinery, and many of his relatives had moved to Lake Charles (from northwestern Louisiana) for the job opportunities in the petroleum industry. The contradiction of the positive (jobs) and negative (pollution) aspects of industrial agglomerations was my inspiration for this research. I wanted to explore the social, cultural, and geographic forces behind the industrial growth of the area, and how people reacted to this sudden, drastic change. vi Table of Contents PREFACE......................................................................................................................................v ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1 Geography and History............................................................................................1 Lake Charles Attractions .........................................................................................2 Why Lake Charles? .................................................................................................6 Sources ....................................................................................................................9 Organization ..........................................................................................................11 2 INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY ...............13 Industrial Location ................................................................................................14 Growth of the Petroleum Industry ........................................................................19 3 INDUSTRY COMES TO THE SOUTH ......................................................................26 Incentives to Industry ............................................................................................27 Federal Influence ..................................................................................................33 Southern Industrial Growth ..................................................................................35 Pollution for Progress ...........................................................................................40 Regional Differences in Pollution Control ...........................................................47 4 WASTE DISPOSAL IN THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY ........................................51 Petroleum Industry Pollution ................................................................................51 Pollution Parameters .............................................................................................53 Effects of Pollution on Water ...............................................................................56 Industrial Waste Treatment in the Early Twentieth Century ................................58 Municipal vs. Industrial Waste Management .......................................................63 Waste Disposal in Lake Charles ...........................................................................67 5 REACTIONS TO WASTE ...........................................................................................75 Legislation Attempts and the Rise of the API ......................................................75 Public Reactions ...................................................................................................83 6 THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE OF LAKE CHARLES ........................................88 Lake Charles and the War .....................................................................................88

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