Corps will take closer look at Formosa plant's impact on environment, minority residents in St. James

By David J. Mitchell | August 18, 2021 | The Advocate

Construction on an enormous $9.4 billion plastics plant proposed in St. James Parish must be delayed so the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can do a more extensive and lengthy review of the facility's impacts on the environment and nearby minority communities, a top Army official said Wednesday.

Jaime A. Pinkham, acting assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said the new review of the Formosa Plastics complex would have a particular focus on any environmental justice concerns. The proposed plant would be located near the largely African American community of Welcome on the parish's west bank.

In a two-page memo, Pinkham didn't offer many details for the reasons behind the decision. But the Corps of Engineers already acknowledged to a federal judge late last year that an earlier, less intensive review for the permit had errors in part of its analysis.

At the time, the Corps had suspended that original, flawed permit, which would allow Formosa to fill in wetlands on the more than 2,300-acre site along the Mississippi River. 

Proposed by an affiliate of Formosa Plastics, the Sunshine Project has been praised by Gov. John Bel Edwards and many other government leaders for the thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic development it will bring.

But it has become a lightning rod for some other local leaders and environmental and community groups, who have criticized its toxic air emissions, risk of accidental release of plastic pellets, the ramp-up in plastics production it represents, and its proximity to antebellum graves that may hold deceased slaves.

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