Activists in Louisiana won a legal victory this week when a judge canceled the air permits of a company that wants to build a huge plastics plant in a dense area.
In an opinion released Wednesday, Judge White of Louisiana's 19th Judicial District in Baton Rouge wrote that the residents of Welcome are descendants of slaves.
The land is tied to the ancestors' blood, sweat and tears. Their ancestors worked the land with the hope and dream of passing it down to their families.
Sign up for the Climate Forward newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Your must-read guide to the climate crisis.She said that when Louisiana state regulators granted 14 permits to FG LA L.L.C., they had failed to consider the pollution effects on the predominantly Black community.
Relinquishing a large amount of money. The founder of the outdoor apparel maker, Yvon Chouinard, gave his company's ownership to a trust and an organization dedicated to fighting climate change. At a time when billionaires talk about making the world a better place, they often don't match reality.
The ice is melting The study found that the melting of the ice sheet could raise global sea levels by at least 10 inches. The study used a different measure to measure ice loss that takes into account the warming that has already happened.
There have been a number of setbacks to the proposed plant. The people who have been fighting the plant hoped it would be the end.
Sharon Lavigne is the founder and president of Rise St. James, a local advocacy group that led the lawsuit against the plant.
Ms. Lavigne told the court that the land where the plant would be built issacred.
According to Janile Parks, a spokeswoman for FG LA L.L.C., a member of the Formosa Plastic Group, the company still plans to build the complex.
Ms. Paris wrote that the company would explore all legal options in light of Judge White's ruling. She said the permits issued by the state were sound and that the project had met standards.
Greg Langley is a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
According to Ms. Lavigne, St. James Parish already has 12 petrochemical facilities in a 10 mile area.
Ms. Lavigne said that the air was toxic and that she couldn't plant a garden. I felt like these plants were shortening our lives.
She said that she expected the company to appeal, but that it would stay that way.
The plant would be the largest in the world. The permit was suspended by the federal government in November of 2020.
The 2,500-acre complex would create 1200 jobs and add millions of dollars to the local economy, according to state and company officials. 800 tons of hazardous air pollutants would be released annually by using ethane and propane as raw materials, according to the lawsuit.
The canceled permits would have allowed the company to emit a substance that the EPA found could cause cancer. The equivalent of 3.5 coal-fired power plants would have been created by the facility.
The health of those living around the plant would not be affected, according to state officials. Judge White said that the state did not conduct a cumulative assessment of the carcinogens and other pollutants that would be released and could not provide evidence to support its conclusion about the plant's safety. She said the state's decision to grant air permits wasarbitrary and irrational.
A third of the chemical plants in St James Parish are located in the town of Welcome.
The president of Earthjustice, an environmental group that had sued to overturn the permits, said it was a shocking victory. She argued that the decision would make it harder for state officials to grant permits to operate in places where there is opposition.
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