Louisiana greenlights huge pollution-causing plastics facility in 'Cancer Alley'
Source: The Guardian
Cancer town
Louisiana greenlights huge pollution-causing plastics facility in 'Cancer Alley'
The $9.4bn facility, owned by Formosa Plastics, would consist of 14 separate plastic plants in St James parish, known as Cancer Alley
Oliver Laughland in New Orleans
@oliverlaughland
Wed 8 Jan 2020 14.04 GMT
First published on Tue 7 Jan 2020 23.44 GMT
The state of Louisiana has issued a series of key air quality permits for a gargantuan proposed petrochemical complex that would roughly double toxic emissions in its local area and, according to environmentalists, become one of the largest plastics pollution-causing facilities in the world.
The $9.4bn facility, owned by the Taiwanese chemicals firm Formosa Plastics, would consist of 14 separate plastics plants across 2,300 acres of land in St James parish, a largely African American community in the already heavily polluted area in southern Louisiana known as Cancer Alley.
Activists say the plant could release 13m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, the equivalent of three coal-fired power plants, and would emit thousands of tonnes of other dangerous pollutants, including up to 15,400 pounds of the cancer causing chemical ethylene oxide.
The facility has been forcefully opposed by environmental groups and certain local campaigners.
The 16 permits issued by Louisiana’s state environment agency (LDEQ) essentially allow Formosa to begin construction, said the LDEQ spokesman Greg Langley. A spokeswoman for Formosa, which is operating the project under a subsidiary, FG LA, said the company would start “site preparation activities” in the first quarter of 2020. This first phase, including soil testing, could take up to a year to complete, the spokeswoman said.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/07/louisiana-formosa-plastics-facility-air-quality-permits-cancer-alley