From left, Myrtle Felton, Sharon Lavigne, Gail LeBoeuf and Rita Cooper conduct a livestream video on property owned by Formosa on March 11, 2020, in St. James Parish, La. LeBoeuf, a co-founder of Inclusive Louisiana, has liver cancer, which she acknowledged can’t be traced back to petrochemical plant pollution with certainty, but said it can’t be ruled out either. Gerald Herbert/Associated Press file
NEW ORLEANS — 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.
Advertisement
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.
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.
Advertisement
EPA Administrator Michael Regan stands near the Marathon Petroleum Refinery as he tours neighborhoods that abut the refinery, in Reserve, La., on Nov. 16, 2021. A lawsuit filed by residents of a Louisiana parish located in the heart of a cluster of polluting petrochemical factories raises allegations of civil rights, environmental justice and religious liberty violations. Gerald Herbert/Associated Press file
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 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.
Advertisement
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.
Advertisement
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.”
A genetic analysis suggests the bird flu virus mutated inside a Louisiana patient who contracted the nation’s first severe case of the illness, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week.
Scientists believe the mutations may allow the virus to better bind to receptors in the upper airways of humans — something they say is concerning but not a cause for alarm.
Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease researcher, likened this binding interaction to a lock and key. To enter a cell, the virus needs to have a key that turns the lock, and this finding means the virus may be changing to have a key that might work.
“Is this an indication that we may be closer to seeing a readily transmitted virus between people? No,” Osterholm said. “Right now, this is a key that sits in the lock, but it doesn’t open the door.”
Advertisement
The virus has been causing sporadic, mostly mild illnesses in people in the U.S., and nearly all of those infected worked on dairy or poultry farms.
The Louisiana patient was hospitalized in critical condition with severe respiratory symptoms from bird flu after coming in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. The person, who has not been identified, is older than 65 and has underlying medical problems, officials said earlier this month.
The CDC stressed there has been no known transmission of the virus from the Louisiana patient to anyone else. The agency said its findings about the mutations were “concerning,” but the risk to the general public from the outbreak “has not changed and remains low.”
Still, Osterholm said, scientists should continue to follow what’s happening with mutations carefully.
“There will be additional influenza pandemics and they could be much worse than we saw with COVID,” he said. “We know that the pandemic clock is ticking. We just don’t know what time it is.”
Advertisement
______
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – New census numbers show international immigration was a major driving factor of population growth across the United States, contributing to Louisiana’s first population increase in years.
Nationally, immigration accounted for 84% of the nation’s population growth between last July and this July.
In Louisiana, the population grew by just under 10,000. The numbers reveal that about 23,000 more people moved into Louisiana from other countries than people from Louisiana to other countries.
Louisiana lost a net of 17,000 people to other American states.
Advertisement
On the day after Christmas, immigration activists gathered at the steps of City Hall to send a message to Louisiana leaders.
Rachel Taber with Unión Migrante served as an interpreter for Alfredo Salacar of Mexico.
“For all of the anti-immigrant politicians that are supposedly Christian, we want to remind them that Jesus himself was an immigrant,” Salacar said.
Immigration activists said Jesus didn’t come from the White House, a palace or a mansion along St. Charles Avenue; he was born in a stable as his migrant parents who were forced to flee wandered a foreign country.
Taber said many undocumented families who’ve settled in New Orleans had to flee political tyranny, violence and poverty.
Advertisement
“Louisiana is an incredible place everyone wants to visit because of our rich gumbo of people who made a life here: Cajuns, Sicilians, Germans, Irish, Spanish Islenos, Jewish people, resilient Africans and Indigenous people who kept their culture alive despite so much injustice. This recent wave from Central and Latin America is just the newest flavor to add to the family recipe,” Taber said.
Unión Migrante is fighting against racial profiling and the separation of families.
“That’s not a good use of our resources. We want to see families remaining together,” Taber said.
During Thursday (Dec. 26) night’s Christmas Posada and vigil, the local immigration activist group called on Louisiana leaders to take a more pro-immigration stance. At the Hispanic cultural celebration, they also demanded the federal oversight of the New Orleans Police Department continue.
“We’re not criminals. We are an asset,” said Yareli Andino. “If just one opportunity would be given, I think a lot of things could change.”
Advertisement
This holiday season, they are asking people to open their hearts and homes.
“We contribute, we work, we’re here. We rebuild this community after every hurricane comes and destroys it. We work in your hotels. We work in your homes. I personally work in construction, and I’ve been in the homes of many of these same elected officials,” said Salacar. “We know that threats are coming our way… We have a human right to migrate and it’s disgusting to see politicians not only making money off of immigrants but turning us into a political pawn for their own ambition.”
Taber said, “Taylor Swift weekend, the Super Bowl, and Mardi Gras would not be possible” without immigrants.
Members of Unión Migrante said Jesus’ life is an example of empathy, compassion, peace and humility, displaying a deep love towards our neighbors and those most vulnerable.
In a statement, Sgt. Kate Stegall said, “The Louisiana State Police regularly partners with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to enforce laws throughout Louisiana. Additionally, LSP Troopers are assigned to federal task forces, where they focus on enforcing federal laws. In these collaborative efforts, Troopers uphold a high standard of professionalism and ensure respectful and effective interactions.”
Advertisement
In a ride-along earlier this month, ICE told Fox 8 these alleged raids and indiscriminate sweeps couldn’t be further from the truth.
ICE representatives said the federal agency is prioritizing criminals and those who pose a threat to national security.
See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click Here to report it. Please include the headline.
While Baton Rouge was the only MSA in the state that saw a decrease in jobs from October to November, the MSA still saw significant gains year over year.
Baton Rouge lost 200 jobs from October to November, according to data released late last week by the Louisiana Workforce Commission. Other metros in the state added between 200 and 300 jobs for the same time period, except for Lafayette and New Orleans, which added 800 and 2,100 jobs, respectively. Baton Rouge added 1,900 jobs from November 2023, the second highest in the state, trailing only New Orleans, which added 8,900 jobs.
Statewide, sectors that showed the largest gains for seasonally adjusted jobs over the year included private education and health services (10,000), construction (7,800) and government (6,500).
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24924653/236780_Google_AntiTrust_Trial_Custom_Art_CVirginia__0003_1.png "Google’s counteroffer to the government trying to break it up is unbundling Android apps")
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25672934/Metaphor_Key_Art_Horizontal.png "There’s a reason Metaphor: ReFantanzio’s battle music sounds as cool as it does")
