On this edition of Your Call’s One Plant Series, we're discussing a major court victory against Formosa Plastics Group, which planned to build a $9.4B petrochemical complex in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The complex, located just one-mile from an elementary school in St. James Parish, would have included 10 chemical manufacturing plants and numerous support facilities spanning 2,400 acres. It would have been used to make plastics, much of it single use.
Activists have been fighting this plan for years, saying the multi-billion corporation has a record of damaging communities and ecosystems around the world. The St. James Parish complex would have doubled to tripled the levels of cancer-causing pollutants currently harming residents from existing industrial plants, according to EarthJustice. This area has among the highest concentrations of toxic chemicals in the US. The cancer rates are 50 times higher than the national average.
Guest:
Sharon Lavigne, founder of the faith based environmental justice group RISE St. James
Web Resources:
Earth Justice: Louisiana Court Vacates Air Permits for Formosa’s Massive Petrochemical Complex in Cancer Alley
Scientific American: The Race to Stop a Plastics Plant Scores a Crucial Win
