Why this Louisiana plastics plant has become a national lightning rod for environmentalists
By David J. Mitchell | 6/1/21 | The Advocate
At a recent meeting of the St. James Parish Council meeting, chairman Alvin "Shark" St. Pierre held up a mailer that went throughout his district with his face on it.
"St. James Parish deserves better," the flier, paid for by the Protect our Parish group, charges. "Tell Councilman Chairman Alvin St. Pierre: Don't be fooled by Formosa."
The flyers, which went out last week for all seven Parish Council members, were slick, professionally produced pieces that are rare in this rural parish's politics. They are emblematic of a pressure campaign against the planned $9.4 billion plastics plant a Formosa Plastics affiliate plans to build there — a pressure campaign that is unusual in recent Louisiana history for its intensity, duration and national scope, advocates and observers said.
In the past few months, Formosa has faced criticism from the United Nations, the Biden administration, the top members of a U.S. House environmental committee and a group of attorneys general from states in the Northeast. And it has faced years of sustained opposition from local advocates who are backed by regional and national environmental groups.
So why has Formosa become such a lightning rod?
Some critics and outside observers say Formosa has become an early test case in a battle over the expansion of plastics production in North America, which some environmentalists see as the next front in the battle with 'Big Oil.' And the plant's sheer size — 14 individual units on nearly 2,400 acres along the Mississippi — has made it a poster child for what a growing progressive movement calls 'a fight for environmental justice,' arguing its emissions would have a disparate impact on poor, minority communities.
"It's a real test of the Biden administration and how serious are they are about combating climate change," said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, an effort based at Bennington College in Vermont to end plastic pollution.
But all the outside pressure has not swayed many local leaders so far, including Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat. Since the project was announced in 2018, they have praised the 1,200 permanent jobs it's expected to generate, plus the thousands of temporary construction jobs and other spin-off employment — not to mention the tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue.