A Louisiana district judge has reversed state environmental regulators’ decision to issue 14 air permits that were key to the development of a 2,400-acre plastics and chemical manufacturing complex in St. James Parish.
Judge Trudy White of the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge issued the opinion Sept. 12 that sided with environmental groups seeking to block the project advanced by FG LA, which is part of the Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group.
The plaintiffs, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and the Center for Biological Diversity, had argued that the soot, ozone-forming chemicals, greenhouse gases and other pollutants produced by the industrial site would adversely affect the mostly Black population in nearby communities.
The defendant in the case, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ), failed to take into account the St. James Parish master plan, which designated lands near the FG site as residential, according to White’s opinion.
“Relying on FG LA’s characterization of the site without considering the effect of the permit decision on the parish’s plan that is designed to encourage residential growth in an area just downriver of the FG LA’s site – especially where it is undisputed that modeled emissions of ethylene oxide exceed (the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s) cancer risk threshold in that area – does not display ‘active and affirmative protection’ the public has the right to receive,” White said in her decision.
A spokeswoman for FG LA said the company disagrees with the judge’s conclusion and would weigh all its options as the industrial enterprise, called The Sunshine Project, pursues its needed permits.
“We believe the permits issued to FG by LDEQ are sound and the agency properly performed its duty to protect the environment in the issuance of those air permits,” Janile Parks told the Louisiana Record in an email. “... LDEQ found the proposed project met all state and federal standards designed to protect the health and safety of FG employees, the St. James community and the environment with an added margin of safety.”
The issues brought up in the petitioners’ and intervenor’s arguments have been fully addressed by LDEQ, according to Parks, and the department used legitimate procedures in granting the permits to FG.
Environmentalists characterized the court’s actions as “a nail in the coffin” for the plastics project.
“They won’t build in St. James Parish, and we will make sure that they won’t build this monster anywhere,” Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, said in a prepared statement.