Environmental groups challenge plastics complex permit

NEW ORLEANS — Conservation and community groups sued the Trump administration Wednesday, challenging environmental permits for a Taiwan company’s planned $9.4 billion plastics complex in Louisiana. She added the state should at least “require a thorough analysis of this company’s potential impact on our water, our air, our drainage, and our communities.” The lawsuit said members of that and other groups worry that destroying wetlands will hurt wildlife and leave neighborhoods more vulnerable to flooding, that toxic emissions will hurt their health and the environment, and that increased truck and barge traffic will increase noise, pollution and danger. It continued, “Federal documents show that another Formosa Plastics Group facility in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been in violation of the Clean Air Act every quarter since 2009.” In addition to Healthy Gulf, plaintiffs are the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental group; the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, another New Orleans-based environmental group; and Rise St. James, a community group based in St. James Parish, where the 14-plant complex would be located. Rather than preparing a full environmental impact statement, the lawsuit said, the Corps put together “a deeply flawed and inadequate” assessment which failed to meet requirements to take a “hard look” at the plant’s direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts. The lawsuit mentions that St. James Parish is in the area often called “Cancer Alley,” along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, with a “disproportionate concentration” of refineries and chemical plants.