Sharon Lavigne gain ground the2021 Goldman Prizefor environmental shielder this year . She never meant to become an activist , let alone the face of a primal environmental justice fight in the U.S. But in 2018 , when Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced that a party called Wanhua was set to build up a new plastic plant in St. James Parish — her community — she be intimate she had to do something .
That class , she team up up with other local residents to form an environmental justness organisation call in RISE St. James , which played a major part in get Wanhua topull its plansin 2019 . But now , Lavigne and her governance are fight to stop another charge plate industriousness proposal : a $ 9.4 billion plastic coordination compound that Formosa Plastics desire to construct , perversely address the Sunshine Project .
St. James Parish sit in the southeast corner of Louisiana , an hour west of New Orleans . It ’s part of an 80 - mile ( 129 - kilometer ) strip known as Cancer Alley , an country that has one of thehighest densitiesof petrochemical sites in the U.S. and where residents also have thehighest Crab riskin the state .
Sharon Lavigne, a member of RISE St. James, holds a letter addressed to the St. James Parish Sheriff, explaining their legal right to access to a burial site on Formosa property.Photo: Gerald Herbert (AP)
Lavigne get a line that the Formosa proposal was set to produce hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic pollution , include carbon monoxide , volatile organic compounds , and benzene , every year , further threatening public health and the surround .
The fate of people and the smokestacks that surround them are nearly connected to the long history of the slave trade in Louisiana . In the 1740s , nearly four time more enslaved African peoplelived in Louisiana than the number of loose coloniser exist there . Today , posterity of enslavedpeople are ennoble to visit their ancestors ’ burial ground — but Formosa plan to infringe upon that right wing .
RISE St. James and other local groups begin handing out petitions , knocking on doors , and going before the St. James Parish Council to present evidence of two suspected interment grounds filled with the body of enslaved people on the former plantation property where the labor is project .
From left, Myrtle Felton, Sharon Lavigne, Gail LeBoeuf and Rita Cooper, members of RISE St. James, conduct a live stream video on property owned by Formosa in St. James Parish, Louisiana on Wednesday, 10 April 2025.Photo: Gerald Herbert (AP)
“ They require to desecrate the gravesites of our ancestor , ” Lavigne said .
The fight against Formosa recently encounter an supporting development for advocates : The Army Corps of Engineers said it wouldissue a requirementfor an environmental impact statement for the project , meaning Formosa “ can not make it now for about a year and a half or two , ” Lavigne say . That does n’t assure that the project wo n’t move onward , but it ’s a good sign .
Anew reportshows how right the organizer have been to fight the proposed building complex . The field — compiled by Center for International Environmental Law , the Center for Biological Diversity , and Earthworks , and on which Lavigne consulted — alleges that Formosa Plastics Group has been violating environmental , health , and labor regulation in four unlike countries for the six X that the firm has survive . Earther has reached out to Formosa for commentary on the plant life and the findings in the paper .
Lavigne speaks at a protest at the Army Corps of Engineers office in New Orleans. She is holding a photograph of a fellow advocate, Keith Hunter, who died of a sudden respiratory illness.Photo: Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), the Center for Biological Diversity, and Earthworks
“ This reputation is a wake - up call that Formosa Plastics ’ proposed ‘ Sunshine Project ’ is an environmental and human right catastrophe expect to happen , ” report co - writer and Earthworks ’ infrastructure drive coach Ethan Buckner said in a command .
Lavigne say that one way Formosa has render to get topical anesthetic on panel with their new undertaking is by dangling the possibleness of work , but she order it ’s polluting manufacture that drove problem out in the first place .
“ So many businesses left because of all the pollution , ” she said . “ You could find something besides the industry that can make jobs for the mass . ”
And the fresh report suggests that the new job Formosa would convey to the community would be dangerous . Among the company ’s abuses detailed in the 106 - Thomas Nelson Page account is a catastrophe at a brand plant own by the firm . In 2015 , a scaffold at theFormosa Ha Tinh steel plantin Vietnam break down , kill 14 workers . The very next year , the very same Formosa flora had an accidental toxic thriftlessness spill , which polluted more than 125 miles ( 200 kilometers ) of coastline , killing marine life story and jeopardise local economies dependent on sportfishing and tourism .
The company has also faced allegation of abuses here in the U.S. In April 2004 , an burst at a plastic plant in Illinois killed five and injured another eight . The next year , another detonation at a plastic plant in Point Comfort , Texas , injured 16 workers , including one earnestly . At the same Point Comfort plant , a flash blast in 2013 injured another 14 . The authors suggest that there ’s no rationality expect Formosa to suddenly strip up its act if the Sunshine Project is built .
“ The masses of Louisiana deserve a beneficial , safe thriftiness that is supportive of local community and provides reliable , well - pay jobs , ” Jane Patton , the Center for International Environmental Law ’s plastics and petrochemicals campaign managing director , who co - authored the paper and is base in southern Louisiana , enunciate in a statement . “ Our United States Department of State ’s elected leaders should be prioritizing safe and renewable energy engineering science that provide long - terminus accompaniment and stableness . Formosa Plastics will not cater any of those things , and this company and its undertaking are incorrect for Louisiana on all fronts . ”
In gain to these parturiency abuses , the proposed charge plate industrial plant in St. James Parish would lend even more air pollution to the mostly low - income dim communities who hold out in its proposed vicinity . The country already hosts some 200 petrochemical plants , word of mouth , and refinery .
“ Already the emissions are making us sick , ” said Lavigne .
The extra pollution would have a disastrous impact on the climate . The company’sown datashows that its facilities in Delaware City , Baton Rouge , and Point Comfort give off more than 7 million metric loads of carbon copy dioxide equivalent in 2018 .
“ If the contrive petrochemical complex in St. James Parish make out online , it would about double that figure , emitting another 13 million scads of nursery gases a year , ” the new analysis said .
The new story come as fossil fuel companies are progressively linking their future development design to increasing plastic production at the expense of communities like Lavigne ’s . Aseparate reportfrom Beyond Plastics out on Thursday found that plastic plant in the U.S. will give off more climate pollution than coal by the end of this decade .
For her part , Lavigne enunciate she will keep contend to keep the Sunshine Project out of her community of interests , and hopes the Modern findings will cater the trend with even more ammunition to do so . It wo n’t be easy , but she ’s confident .
“ I have a go at it we ’re drop dead to gain , ” she said . “ There ’s no doubt in my head . ”
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