Black St. James Parish residents are suing the parish council and seeking a moratorium on future industrial projects, arguing that the parish’s current land-use and zoning policies are rooted in a history of slavery and Jim Crow laws.
The plaintiffs – Inclusive Louisiana, Rise St. James and Mount Triumph Baptist Church – filed the federal lawsuit March 21 in the Eastern District of Louisiana. They allege that residents of the majority-Black Fourth and Fifth districts have seen their quality of life deteriorate as a result of land-use policies that locate pollution-generating projects near their residences.
“Plaintiffs’ members reside in some of the most polluted, toxic – and lethal – census tracts in the country, situated within a stretch of land along the Mississippi now widely known as ‘Cancer Alley,’” the lawsuit states. “The defendants, obviously mindful of this historically segregated land distribution, have intentionally chosen to locate over a dozen enormous industrial facilities in the majority-Black Fourth and Fifth districts, while explicitly sparing white residents from the risk of environmental harm.”
An attorney representing two of the plaintiffs, Inclusive Louisiana and Mount Triumph Baptist Church, said the parish has not yet responded to the lawsuit. Instead of seeking damages, the plaintiffs are petitioning for injunctive and declaratory relief to end policies they find to be racist, Astha Sharma Pokharel told the Louisiana Record in an email.
“... More generally, plaintiffs seek: a moratorium on all new sitings of industrial facilities and expansions of existing facilities; protection of unmarked cemeteries of people once enslaved in the parish; and a court-monitored process involving directly affected communities to help assess remediation and guide transformation,” Pokharel said.
A positive outcome of the litigation will end up benefiting the lives of all parish residents, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is among the groups representing plaintiffs. The plaintiffs argue that current parish policies violate their 13th and 14th Amendment protections under the U.S. Constitution – and also violate provisions of the Louisiana Constitution and federal law.
“That (land-use) system is now the cause of an environmental and public health emergency directly threatening … the majority-Black residents also residing there,” the legal complaint says.
St. James Parish officials did not respond to a request for comment.