A US federal judge has dismissed a challenge to Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPG, 台塑集團) plans for a US$9.4 billion plastics complex in Louisiana because the US Army Corps of Engineers is reconsidering its permit.
The Taiwanese group plans to build 10 chemical plants and four other major facilities in Welcome, a predominantly black neighborhood in St James Parish.
The corps in November last year said that it would study five possible sites in a predominantly white area that were omitted from earlier analysis because of incorrect predictions that they would not meet air quality standards.
Photo: Bloomberg
“This is a big win for opponents of Formosa Plastics. Our lawsuit forced the corps to suspend and re-evaluate its permit decision for this massive super-polluting petrochemical complex,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney Julie Teel Simmonds wrote on Wednesday.
US District Judge Randolph Moss on Friday last week wrote that the court agreed with the corps and FG LA LLC, the Louisiana member of FPG, that it made more sense to dismiss the case than to keep it in court while the corps reconsidered.
The company is pleased that the suit is over “in light of the corps’ decision to perform further limited analysis,” FG LA community and government relations director Janile Parks said.
“FG continues to cooperate with the corps throughout this process,” she said on Wednesday.
In a separate lawsuit challenging 14 air quality permits approved by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, a state district judge on Dec. 14 ordered the department to take public comment and redo its environmental justice analysis.
The permits remain in effect, she said.
“Conclusions without analysis are not enough. Show me the data,” District Judge Trudy White told attorneys during a Nov. 18 hearing.
White also said that she trusts that the department will “exercise its institutional power and balance the competing interest of the people of Louisiana.”
Teel said that the plaintiffs are ready to return to court “to block this monstrous project” if the corps again approves the water permits.
The week after the corps suspended the water permits, Teel wrote to it, saying that it “should meaningfully consider the role that systemic racism and racial bias may have played in its decision.”
Ascension Parish is 72.6 percent white, while St James Parish is 48.8 percent black, the US Census Bureau said.
The Center for Biological Diversity also called for a full environmental impact statement, which was not done earlier.
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