Community Atlas

Amelia

Amelia and Morgan City are located in St. Mary Parish in the Atchafalaya River Basin. As of 2010, the Population of Amelia was approximately 2,500 (U.S. Census 2010).

In the 1980s, six children in the area were diagnosed with a rare cancer called neuroblastoma. Doctors at Ochsner’s in New Orleans connected that the common denominator between these diagnoses was that the children were playing near the Marine Shale Processors site (LA Times 1995).

Marine Shale Processors was the largest hazardous waste ‘recycling’ facility in the country. The facility primarily incinerated hazardous waste (creosote) in a giant rotary kiln and sold the aggregate as fill for railroads (News Star 2021).

A small group of Amelia residents and mothers formed South Louisiana Against Pollution (SLAP) with the goal of closing the facility. These women petitioned local and state government officials to close the facility. After more than a decade of work, Marine Shale Processors was closed in 1996 (St. Mary Now 2013).

Tanks were left at the site filled with hazardous waste residue, along with piles of untreated waste. It took until September of 2013 (16 years) for the cleanup to be completed. (St. Mary Now 2013).