How Solidarity and Tenacity Defeated a Billion-Dollar Toxic Chemical Plant

Last month, chemical company Wanhua announced its withdrawal from a bid that would have seen it build a 250-acre plant in Convent, a small community along the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Its defeat can be attributed in large part to community activists, including Rise St. James, a local, faith-based group determined to turn the tide on toxic air, land, and water pollution caused by a chemical industry run amok. There are 22,000 residents of St. James, and 32 chemical plants. The defeat of the $1.2 billion complex means that its annual production of 300 tons of harmful pollutants will not exacerbate a problem in a community already dubbed Cancer Alley.

“When Wanhua was coming in my side door a half a mile from my house, it was time for me to speak up and speak out,” says Myrtle Felton, a member of Rise St. James. “We don’t want any more chemical plants here. We have enough.”

ORGANIZING A COMMUNITY
Rise St. James, one of a handful of activist groups determined to stop the unchecked onslaught of the chemical industry, was organized by Sharon Lavigne, a retired schoolteacher. She founded the organization on October 20, 2018.

“It started in my den. We had 10 members,” she tells Red Delta. “At the next meeting, we had 20 members — that was in my garage. And then we went from there, and we’ve been going ever since.” 

Though Rise St. James is a small group, its members are tenacious. They wrote letters to the editors of local newspapers and appeared on 89.9 WWNO radio. They marched to the state capitol, got to the governor’s office, burned candles, and spoke the names of over 100 people from their community who have died of cancer.

Gov. John Bel Edwards refused to meet with them — no surprise, as he supported the deal that gave Wanhua $4 million and a 10-year moratorium on property taxes.

“So we marched to the mansion,” says Barbara Washington of Rise St. James. “We turned our backs on the governor as he turned his back on us.”
They also took their fight to Washington, D.C., where no Louisiana representatives in Congress had the courage to meet with them.

SUCCESS AND THE NEXT FIGHT

“We know our voices are being heard,” says Lavigne. “All I was told was the plants are coming in, and there’s nothing we can do.”

The group joined with the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic to file suits to stop Wanhua’s construction, arguing that pumping phosgene gas directly into the air over a residential neighborhood might be a bad idea. Phosgene was used as a chemical weapon during the First World War.

It took nine months to kill Wanhua. It was an extraordinary victory for community solidarity over a toxic behemoth.

Rise St. James isn’t finished yet. Today, they have targeted Formosa Petrochemical Corporation, which plans to turn 2,400 acres of St. James into a plastic-producing wasteland, adding formaldehyde and benzene — both carcinogens — to the air. 

To protest the plant, Rise St. James will kick off with a march on Oct. 16 in New Orleans that goes for two weeks, culminating on Oct. 30 with a descent on the State Capitol led by Rev. William Barber, a civil rights activist from North Carolina and one of the leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival.

Black Land Loss: Addressing Equity in Louisiana Agriculture

Decades of racist practices at the USDA have robbed black Louisianans of their farmland, and the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry could help undo this injustice. Ag Commissioner candidate Marguerite Green wants to make sure that they do. 

Agriculture is big business in Louisiana. The state’s forests and fields are one of our main industries, supporting hundreds of communities and thousands of families. 

While farming can be a lucrative business, it has been at the expense of black farmers, whose land has been stolen from them through corrupt institutional practices, discrimination, intimidation, and collusion. As Vann Newkirk documented recently for The Atlantic, Wall Street firms like TIAA are buying up farmland in the Mississippi Delta, pushing black farmers off their families’ lands. In total, black farmers in the US have lost 12 million acres in the last century. This crisis of land loss is acute in Louisiana. 

Angie and June Provost, sugarcane farmers from New Iberia, have been profiled in The Guardian, outlining how racist practices by the USDA and sabotage from neighbors and the local mill forced the family off their land. 

June Provost was raised as a sugarcane farmer and at one point held 4,500 acres in Iberia Parish. But as the Guardian profile outlines, “he endured years of discrimination in the form of coercive contracts, fraud, below-market crop loans, vandalism, and retaliation for speaking out about the mistreatment of black farmers – until he was finally forced out of business in 2015.” The Provosts are working to rebuild their farm as well as tell the story of these discriminatory practices that affect black farmers across the country. 

Marguerite Green, candidate for Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry, agrees. “We need to hear directly from people what the challenges they’re facing are, and we need to make publicly stated plans to address them. I would set a departmental culture of advancing and celebrating black land and black farmers the way we’ve traditionally shown up for white farmers, like field days, research support, and co-sponsored legislation.”

While the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF) has an Office of Minority and Veteran Affairs, it isn’t clear what the function of the office is. Green says that she would improve this office. “Instead of merely linking under-resourced farmers to USDA programs through a poorly constructed website, I would have the LDAF assist in pursuing federal funding to support our black farmers. I would require the office to go out into communities and seek out black farmers,” she says. 

Agricultural land ownership and dispossession can be overlooked by those living in urban areas, but this Saturday’s election offers voters a chance to take steps to support equity in farming in Louisiana. 

Ojos Del Congreso Combats
ICE’s Campaign of Terror

ICE is waging a terror campaign in our community. It has residents afraid to leave their homes, go to church, pick up their kids, or go to work. The campaign is part of a nationwide push to dehumanize and threaten immigrant communities, and a local organization, Congreso del Jornaleros (Congress of Day Laborers), has served a critical role in protecting our vulnerable neighbors.

Congreso was founded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to advocate for workers’ rights and racial justice for the black and immigrant workers who rebuilt the city. Congreso was instrumental in the movement that got Orleans Parish to agree to not coordinate directly with ICE.

Unfortunately, in Jefferson Parish and the city of Kenner in particular, the authorities have worked lockstep with ICE.

"Jeff Parish and Kenner cops have ICE on speed dial,” says Amber S., a DSA member who works closely with Ojos del Congreso (ICEwatch), a group established to aid immigrants in the area. “The cops are terrorists toward the immigrant community here, down to literally stalking people outside their houses,” Amber says.

ICE’s tactics keep community members confined to their homes because ICE agents can’t enter a home without a warrant unless they’re invited in. “Like vampires,” Amber says.

Amber (who emphasizes that they do not speak for the immigrant community or Congreso) said that Ojos is one of the workforces of Congreso. Ojos allies use their privilege as documented people to do the legwork that undocumented people can’t. The need for documented volunteers is greatest in Jefferson Parish, Kenner, and the West Bank, Amber says.

• Ojos allies can help in a variety of ways:
• Monitoring suspected ICE activity
• Phone and text banking for meetings
• Fundraising for Congreso
• Giving Congreso members rides to their meetings or to detention facilities
• Accompanying undocumented people to their ICE check-ins or medical appointments
• Offering translation
• Emergency childcare in the event of a parent getting detained

Voting for Bernie?
Check Your Registration

On April 4, Louisiana will hold a primary election to decide which Democratic candidate to support in a run for president. This will be a closed primary, so it will only be open to registered Democrats.

Many members of the Democratic Socialists of America are not registered Democrats: They may have been drawn to the DSA because they have no faith in existing political parties or because they don’t see any political party that is a good representation of their personal ideology. The Democratic Socialists of America are a political group, but not a party. When our members register to vote, we don’t have a DSA box to check, we have to make our own choice about party affiliation. In this primary for the Democratic nominee for president, we are encouraging our members to register as democrats to take part in this contest. It’s a simple process for voters to change party affiliation to Democrat to cast this vote, and then change to something else afterward if they wish.

Our organization has endorsed a candidate in this race: Bernie Sanders is the politician in this primary who has done the most to further our cause, and who best represents the ideology of the DSA. He is the only candidate promoting democratic socialism, and he has the strongest record of leftist politics in the field. It’s important that we take part in this election to make sure the numbers of leftists are represented instead of hidden, and we become harder to dismiss and push to the side.

Louisiana’s Democratic primary probably won’t be the most crucial battleground in this nationwide contest, but it is a chance to express our opinions and give hope to our allies in the state.  Over the last few years, we’ve seen the effect that Sanders and other leftist candidates have had in energizing new voters and moving the policies of the Democratic Party. Since on a national scale, we are still stuck in essentially a two-party system, fighting for influence in that party is an immediate way to make our voices heard electorally.