US court to review civil rights lawsuit alleging environmental racism in a Louisiana parish

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appellate court is set to hear oral arguments Monday in a civil rights lawsuit alleging a south Louisiana parish engaged in racist land-use policies to place polluting industries in majority-Black communities.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is reviewing a lawsuit filed by community groups claiming St. James Parish “intentionally discriminated against Black residents” by encouraging industrial facilities to be built in areas with predominantly Black populations “while explicitly sparing White residents from the risk of environmental harm.”

The groups, Inclusive Louisiana, Rise St. James and Mt. Triumph Baptist Church, seek a halt to future industrial development in the parish.

The plaintiffs note that 20 of the 24 industrial facilities were in two sections of the parish with majority-Black populations when they filed the complaint in March 2023.

The parish is located along a heavily industrialized stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, known as the Chemical Corridor, often referred to by environmental groups as “Cancer Alley” because of the high levels of suspected cancer-causing pollution emitted there.

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The lawsuit comes as the federal government has taken steps during the Biden administration to address the legacy of environmental racism. Federal officials have written stricter environmental protections and committed tens of billions of dollars in funding.

In the Louisiana case, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana in November 2023 dismissed the lawsuit largely on procedural grounds, ruling the plaintiffs had filed their complaint too late. But he added, “this Court cannot say that their claims lack a basis in fact or rely on a meritless legal theory.”

Barbier said the lawsuit hinged primarily on the parish’s 2014 land-use plan, which generally shielded white neighborhoods from industrial development and left majority-Black neighborhoods, schools and churches without the same protections. The plan also described largely Black sections of the parish as “future industrial” sites. The plaintiffs missed the legal window to sue the parish, the judge ruled.

Yet the parish’s land-use plan is just one piece of evidence among many revealing ongoing discrimination against Black residents in the parish, said Pamela Spees, a lawyer for the Center of Constitutional Rights representing the plaintiffs. They are challenging Barbier’s ruling under the “continuing violations” doctrine on the grounds that discriminatory parish governance persists, allowing for industrial expansion in primarily Black areas.

The lawsuit highlights the parish’s decision in August 2022 to impose a moratorium on large solar complexes after a proposed 3,900-acre (1,580-hectare) solar project upset residents of the mostly white neighborhood of Vacherie, who expressed concerns about lowering property values and debris from storms. The parish did not take up a request for a moratorium on heavy industrial expansion raised by the plaintiffs, the lawsuit states.

These community members “have tried at every turn to simply have their humanity and dignity be seen and acknowledged,” Spees said. “That’s just been completely disregarded by the local government and has been for generations.”

Another part of the complaint argues the parish failed to identify and protect the likely hundreds of burial sites of enslaved people by allowing industrial facilities to build on and limit access to the areas, preventing the descendants of slaves from memorializing the sites. The federal judge tossed out that part of the lawsuit, noting the sites were on private property not owned by the parish.

At its core, the complaint alleges civil rights violations under the 13th and 14th amendments, stating the land-use system in the parish allowing for industrial buildout primarily in majority-Black communities remains shaped by the history of slavery, white supremacy and Jim Crow laws and governance.

Lawyers for St. James Parish said the lawsuit employed overreaching claims and “inflammatory rhetoric.” St. James Parish did not respond to a request for comment.

“The Civil War ain’t never been over,” said lifelong St. James Parish resident Gail LeBoeuf, 72, a plaintiff in the case who co-founded the local environmental justice organization Inclusive Louisiana. “They’re trying to destroy the Black people in this country in any way they can.”

LeBoeuf, who lives 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from an alumina plant, was diagnosed with cancer in 2022 and blames her illness on the high levels of industrial pollution she has been exposed to for decades. She acknowledges the link cannot be proven but counters there is no way to prove industrial pollution was not the reason.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found in a 2003 report that St. James Parish ranked higher than the national average for certain cancer deaths. In August, a federal judge barred the EPA from using the Civil Rights Act to fight industrial pollution alleged to have disproportionately affected minority communities in Louisiana.

Besides a moratorium on industrial expansion in the parish, LeBoeuf’s organization calls for real-time air monitoring of pollution and buffer zones around residential areas.

Community groups have battled for years against plans by Taiwanese company Formosa to build a $9.4 billion plastics plant near a predominantly Black town in the parish.

LeBoeuf and other prominent, local environmental activists met with White House officials in September to discuss the Biden administration’s progress in responding to concerns raised by United Nations human rights experts over industrial expansion in the Chemical Corridor.

LeBoeuf said she had rescheduled a doctor’s appointment to meet with White House officials. She believes her advocacy for environmental justice is just as important a cure for her community as her ongoing chemotherapy treatment is for her body.

“Both are medicine,” LeBoeuf said. “Fighting is medicine.”

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Jack Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96.