ExxonKnews
September 18, 2025
This piece is being co-published with The Lens, the New Orleans area’s first nonprofit, nonpartisan public-interest newsroom, dedicated to unique investigative and explanatory journalism.
London Toussaint, 8, points to the sugarcane field just behind her home.
“That’s where we play at,” she says, “Me and Lyric, my best friend.”
For children in rural St. James Parish, Louisiana — which straddles the Mississippi, about an hour upriver from New Orleans — the sugarcane fields that dot the area are perfect for games of hide-and-go-seek, running down the rows between the tall plants.
They like to play there during the cooler months, said London’s mother, Nylah Toussaint, as she hoisted her one-year-old daughter Dream up to her hip. Nearby, there’s a berry tree they like to sit under.
But unknown to the Toussaints, Exxon has quietly pushed through a plan to bury a controversial pipeline in their playing field — one that experts say will be seriously under-regulated, and far too close to homes like the Toussaints’.
