I’ve never enjoyed reading legal opinions. But the recent judgement for “RISE St. James et al vs. Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality” changed that. I whooped with joy as I read the entire 30 page document!
RISE St. James is one of several community groups located in what’s commonly called “Cancer Alley”, an eighty five mile stretch of oil refineries and chemical plants along the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. More than 140 toxic facilities operate there. People living in the area are 50 times more likely to get cancer and five times more likely to die from Covid than average Americans. They are predominantly Black and working class.
In my book, Advocating for the Environment I wrote this: “The Cancer Alley story is a dark example of power gone awry at every level—local, state and federal.” Here’s why I said that:
In 2018 Formosa Plastics proposed a 2500 acre complex of 14 plastics plants to be sited just one mile from a local school in the town of Welcome. County officials made zoning changes to accommodate the project, and offered the company $1.4 billion in tax breaks. They did this without local input.
Then the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) issued permits, ignoring Clean Air Act standards, and the effect more emissions on communities already bearing a heavy toxic load.
Finally, Trump’s EPA Secretary withdrew a report stating that the LDEQ “had failed to provide critical information to nearby residents about the ethylene oxide emissions and the elevated cancer risks” associated with the project. This cleared the way for the project.
Around the same time, a special ed teacher named Sharon Lavigne was beginning to question the foul odor around her home. It didn’t take her long to find out that emissions from nearby plants was the cause of disease and death in her extended family and community. She prayed about what to do.
God told Lavigne to rise up and fight, and she did—with passion. In a few short years, her organization joined six other community groups in a lawsuit against the state of Louisiana seeking to overturn the permits. In September, they won. The opinion from Judge Trudy M. White is beautiful. In it she says:
“Remarkably, the black residents of Welcome are descendants of men and women who were kidnapped from Africa, who survived the Middle Passage, who were transported to a foreign land; and then sold on auction blocks and enslaved. Their Ancestors worked the land with the hope and dream of passing down productive agricultural untainted land along the Mississippi to their families.”
She goes on to cite ten compelling reasons for overturning the permits. Among them is a violation of environmental rights established in the Louisiana state constitution. These rights mandate that the state consider “the health welfare and wellness of the people” in making environmental decisions. *
The RISE St. James case will likely be appealed to a higher court. But the people of St. James Parish will never be the same. Their eyes are now open to what has been done to them. And they’ve had a taste of victory. Siting toxic plants there and elsewhere has just gotten quite a bit harder.
*Constitutional environmental rights give people a legal basis to stand up to serious threats. New York, Montana. Louisiana, and Pennsylvania have these rights. Maine is one of fourteen states currently campaigning to add them to their state constitutions.