A civilian Pentagon official on Wednesday ordered the US Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a full environmental assessment of a US$9.4 billion Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) complex planned in Louisiana, drawing praise from environmentalists.
US Army Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jaime Pinkham ordered the review after a virtual meeting with opponents of a corps wetlands permit that allowed Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) member FG LA LLC to build 10 chemical plants and four other major facilities on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Critics praised the decision.
“The Army Corps has finally heard our pleas and understands our pain. With God’s help, Formosa Plastics will soon pull out of our community,” said a statement by Sharon Lavigne, who founded the local group Rise St James to fight the planned complex announced in 2018.
Photo: AP
Formosa, based in Taiwan, wants to produce polyethylene, polypropylene, polymer and ethylene glycol on 970 hectares in St James Parish. Dubbed “The Sunshine Project” because it is near the Sunshine Bridge, the project is expected to provide 1,200 permanent jobs and up to 8,000 construction jobs, the state has said.
Formosa yesterday said the company would re-evaluate the investment and expects a result by the end of the year.
The environmental assessment would certainly delay the progress of the factory construction, Formosa said.
The corps issued a permit in September 2019 to let FG LA dredge and fill wetlands, and create detention ponds in wetlands, a lawsuit by opponents said.
It said the site includes more than 364 hectares of wetlands, of which nearly 25 hectares of wetlands and nearly 20 hectares of other waters would be permanently affected.
It could take years to put together a full environmental impact statement, Lavigne said in an interview.
She said she silently thanked God when Pinkham said he was planning the order.
“I had to touch myself to see if I’m real,” said Lavigne, who earlier this year was awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize honoring grassroots environmental activism.
Within an hour, Pinkham’s memo to the corps’ commanding general was posted on his office’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, she said.
Pinkham, who supervises and sets policy for the corps’ civil works, wrote that he is committed to having the army “be a leader in the federal government’s efforts to ensure thorough environmental analysis and meaningful community outreach.”
The corps needs “to thoroughly review areas of concern, particularly those with environmental justice implications,” Pinkham wrote.
Major construction has been on hold since the corps agreed in November last year to reconsider its permit for the plants in Welcome, where the US Bureau of Census estimates nearly 97 percent of the 880 residents are black.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft