"Formosa Plastics asked U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its ownership of the Buena Vista burial site in St. James Parish."
"A U.S. District Court judge will decide whether a federal lawsuit seeking to broaden access and protection for an antebellum cemetery in St. James Parish amid plans to construct a $9.4 billion plastics facility nearby will move forward.
Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics has owned the property since 2018, intending to construct what would be the largest plastics complex in the world. That development has faced significant permitting delays as a result of local concerns about the environmental and health risks associated with the development. As proposed, the complex could add an additional 800 tons per year of toxic air pollution, along with 13.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gases annually.
The project would be located in the heart of Louisiana’s chemical corridor, known colloquially as Cancer Alley, home to more than 300 industrial facilities. In 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency found that residents faced the highest elevated risk of cancer from toxic air pollution in the country.
Two community advocacy groups, Inclusive Louisiana and The Descendants Project, sued FG LA, Formosa’s subsidiary, last July in an attempt to remove the company’s control of the cemetery and place its maintenance into the hands of communities descended from the enslaved. They also want Judge Carl Barbier of the U.S. Eastern District Court of Louisiana to allow further investigation of the property for other unmarked burial sites. The burial site, called Buena Vista, sits on the former Winchester/Buena Vista plantation."
