Government to reevaluate construction permit for controversial petrochemical facility

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will reevaluate a construction permit for a controversial petrochemical facility in Louisiana, the Corps said in a Wednesday court filing. 

“It has now come to the Corps’ attention that an element of the permit warrants additional evaluation,” the court filing said. “The Corps expects to take regulatory action on the permit.”

The Corps last year issued a permit for the plant, which would be operated by FG LA LLC, part of the Formosa Plastics Group.

Environmental groups have sued over the permit. Among the arguments they’ve made in court is that the Army Corps failed to consider the potential cumulative effects of allowing another petrochemical facility in a heavily polluted area of Louisiana sometimes referred to as “Cancer Alley.”

They also argued that the Corps didn’t consider the potential cumulative impacts of “wetlands degradation, and destruction of cultural and historic resources, including the burial grounds of enslaved people.”

The new filing announcing that the Corps would reevaluate the permit came just one day before it was supposed to file court documents defending its decision. 

In the new filing on Wednesday, the Army Corps asked the court to halt that deadline in light of its new decision, adding that reevaluating the permit “may address some of the various concerns raised” by the facility’s opponents.

FG LA LLC director of community and government relations Janile Parks  said in a statement that the company “has worked cooperatively with the Corps throughout the permit process, and will continue to cooperate with them to provide any additional information they may need.”

“The company has been very diligent to make sure it has done everything required to ensure proper issuance of, and compliance with, its permits and will continue to do so,” Parks said. 

The plaintiffs in the case celebrated the news. 

“This hopefully marks the beginning of our victory over Formosa Plastics,” Sharon Lavigne, the founder of local environmental and racial justice group RISE St. James, said in a statement. “We’ve always said this project would harm our community. Now we need Formosa Plastics to leave St. James.”