"A judge has thrown out the air permit for a massive new plastics complex in St. James Parish, telling regulators to start from the beginning.
It's a major blow to the proposed $9.4 billion Formosa Plastics complex. Gov. John Bel Edwards and local leaders have praised the project, saying it could create 1,200 jobs and generate millions in tax revenue.
But local environmentalists and community groups have sued to stop the complex, saying it would pump huge amounts of dangerous pollution into majority-Black, low-income communities.
In a scathing, 34-page ruling Wednesday, 19th Judicial District Judge Trudy White sided with the plaintiffs. She said the state Department of Environmental Quality wrongly approved the permit without doing a full environmental justice analysis to see if the plant would disproportionately affect minority communities."
