Activists in Louisiana have been fighting to shut down a giant plastics plant in a corridor known as Cancer Alley, where industrial refineries are so densely packed, that a judge ruled this week that the company’s aviation permit would be denied. won a legal victory when it was revoked.
Louisiana’s 19th Judiciary District in Baton Rouge, Justice Trudy White, said in an astute opinion released Wednesday that residents of the small town of Wellcome, where a $9.4 billion petrochemical plant was to be built, would be forced into slavery. said to be of African descent.
“The blood, sweat, and tears of their ancestors are tied to the land,” Justice White said. I was holding it and plowing the land.”
She said that when Louisiana regulators gave FG LA LLC, an affiliate of Taiwan-based giant Formosa Plastics, 14 permits, they said they had “selective” and “inconsistent” data. , and did not consider the impact of contamination, primarily on black communities. .
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relinquish property. Yvon Chouinard, founder of outdoor apparel maker Patagonia, has transferred ownership of the company to trusts and organizations dedicated to fighting climate change. The move comes at a time of heightened scrutiny against billionaires whose rhetoric about making the world a better place often doesn’t align with reality.
The decision is the latest in a series of blows to proposed petrochemical plants. Those who have fought the plant said they hoped it was the death knell.
Sharon Lavigne, founder and president of Rise St. James, the local advocacy group that led the lawsuit against the power plant, said:
The judge’s ruling cited Lavigne’s remarks in court that the land on which the factory would be built was “sacred.”
Janile Parks, spokeswoman for FG LA LLC, a member of Formosa Plastics Group, said in a statement that the company is still planning to build a complex called the Sunshine Project.
“As the project continues to pursue successful permits, we intend to explore all legal options in light of Judge White’s ruling,” the company said.,” Paris wrote. She claimed the permits issued by the state were “sound” and the project met state and federal standards.
“We are reading the judge’s ruling and considering our options,” said Greg Langley, a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
Lavigne, who lives in Wellcome and whose grandmother is buried near where the petrochemical complex used to be, noted that St. James Parish already had 12 petrochemical facilities within a 10-mile radius.
“The air is toxic. You can’t drink the water. You can’t plant a garden,” Lavigne said in a telephone interview Thursday. “It felt like these plants were shortening our lives.”
She likened the court victory to David beating Goliath and said she expected the company to appeal, but “we beat them and it stays that way.”
The plant will be the world’s largest production facility for plastics and plastic raw materials. It has been on hold since November 2020, when the federal government suspended the permit amid protests from local environmental groups.
State and company officials say the 2,500-acre complex will create 1,200 jobs and add millions of dollars to the local economy. Also, according to the lawsuit, using ethane and propane as raw materials to manufacture various products would release 800 tons of harmful air pollutants annually.
A revoked permit would have allowed the company to emit ethylene oxide. Studies concluded that it may cause cancer Even with limited exposure. The facility will also emit more than 13.6 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to 3.5 coal-fired power plants.
State officials said there was no health impact on people living near the plant. In her ruling, Judge White said the state did not conduct cumulative evaluations of carcinogens and other contaminants released and could not provide evidence to support its conclusions about the safety of the plant. called the state’s decision to grant the air permit “arbitrary and capricious.”
The town of Wellcome is part of the district that contains one-third of the chemical plants in St. James Parish.
“It’s a shocking victory that no one could have imagined a few years ago,” said Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice, one of the organizations that sued to overturn the permit. She called the decision “transformative” and argued it would make it more difficult for state officials to grant permission to operate pollution facilities where there is local opposition.