The
Opponents of the plans called Wednesday's ruling in
“Stopping Formosa Plastics has been a fight for our lives, and today David has toppled Goliath,” said
The judge, who is Black, wrote that for Lavigne and other residents, “the blood, sweat and tears of their Ancestors is tied to the land” once dominated by plantations where enslaved people labored.
FG LA wants to build 10 chemical plants and four other major facilities on 2,500 acres (1,000 hectares) in
“FG respectfully disagrees with Judge White’s conclusion,” the company, which intervened in the lawsuit to support the department, said in a statement emailed Thursday. “We believe the permits issued to FG by LDEQ are sound and the agency properly performed its duty to protect the environment in the issuance of those air permits.”
The complex is among current and proposed facilities involved in an
Gov.
White's 35-page ruling said
“LDEQ never weighed the impacts associated with the 13.6 million tons per year of greenhouse gases that LDEQ has authorized ... against the purported benefits of the project, and the added environmental burden to already over-burdened majority-Black communities,” she wrote.
And, she wrote in bold italics, the agency "must take special care to consider the impact of climate-driven disasters fueled by greenhouse gases on environmental justice communities and their ability to recover."
“It sends a clear message to the government of
The judge also wrote that the permits would go against
A new source must provide computer models to show that it won’t “cause or contribute to” violations of the standards or of allowable increases, she wrote. But she said that under FG LA’s modeling “the violations are not even close in some instances.”
The state acknowledged this but argued that
It can’t do that, White ruled.
She said the department violated its duty to protect the public by dismissing threats to health as unrealistic "when the record shows the opposite.”
The company’s air quality model shows that emissions would increase violations of air quality standards even if it complied with the permit, and doesn’t explain how that would avoid a requirement to avoid harm to the maximum extent possible, White wrote.
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