Louisiana Officials Urged to Rescind Permission for Petrochemical Plant Over Cancer Dangers and Discovery of Burial Grounds for Enslaved People

Louisiana residents, environmental justice groups, and legal advocates joined together Monday to pressure the St. James Parish Council to rescind its decision to allow a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group to build a $9.4 billion petrochemical plant in a predominantly African-American community.

The legal organizations Earthjustice and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) sent letters to the council on behalf of RISE St. James and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade to encourage members—who were scheduled to meet Monday at 6pm local time—to reconsider the land use application of Formosa’s subsidiary, FG LA.

The letters, as a statement from CCR summarizes, “cite new and alarming information about the levels of cancer-causing chemicals the facility would emit, the company’s failure to follow through on its promise to alter its layout to lessen exposure to school children and residents nearby, and its failure to alert parish officials and residents of the existence of graves of enslaved people.”

CCR senior staff attorney Pam Spees said that “it is no exaggeration to say that this facility presents an existential threat to the surrounding communities, who have already borne a heavy toxic burden.” As The Intercept reported last week:

“We continue to fight for our lives against these toxic industries, and now we are fighting for our ancestors too,” Sharon Lavigne, founder and president of the faith-based community group RISE St. James, said Monday. “They had no choice about where they lived, where they died, or where they were buried, but we are going to fight for the respect that their resting places, and our homes, deserve.”

The good news, added Spees, is that “it’s not too late—the council must do the right thing now to prevent irreparable harm in the present and to begin to reckon with the past in ways that honor those who suffered immeasurably under slavery.”

The letter (pdf) from CCR, which focuses on the burial sites, states that “though Formosa has known of the burial sites for more than a year, it did not bring this pivotal information to the attention of the planning commission, the parish council, the council member representing the Fifth District in which the burials are located, RISE St. James, or other interested and concerned parties while its land use application was pending before the parish.”