Eco-lawsuit vs. St. James Parish is an absurd nuisance
LA Supreme Court should rule in favor of parish
(Jan. 18) Court cases involving few immediate, practical effects can nonetheless have far more important downstream ramifications. Witness what essentially is a nuisance lawsuit, putatively about environmental concerns, in St. James Parish. The case, however, has major statewide implications.
To preserve local autonomy and protect economic development projects from endless rounds of job-killing reviews, the Louisiana Supreme Court should rule in favor of the parish and of the Koch Methanol company, against a challenge from environmental activists aided by the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic.
At issue before the high court Jan. 22 is a technical procedural dispute. No matter which side wins the procedural dispute, the methanol plant will continue operating exactly as it is now, without a single change in environmental effects. Yet, if Koch and St. James Parish lose their procedural argument, a statewide precedent could be set that hobbles local commerce.
It sounds confusing. Let’s simplify:
Koch has a long-existing plant in St. James, operating well within environmental laws. Koch wanted to expand its capacity. To do so, it needed more ethane gas. An ethane pipeline already existed near the plant, in an area officially designated as wetlands. To access the existing pipeline would require merely 1,000 feet — less than a fifth or a mile, about three-fourths of the backstretch at the New Orleans Fairgrounds — of new, 8-inch pipe.
Only 400 feet — the distance from home plate to center field in most ballparks — actually would cross wetlands.
Nobody (apparently) contends the expanded operations would violate legal standards for emissions set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency or the state Department of Environmental Quality. Still, the activists nonetheless fear that additional emissions will add to the environmental problems that have led to the parish being part of so-called “Cancer Alley.”
Unless a project runs afoul of environmental legal standards, though, its approval is a local zoning issue, subject to review by the parish’s planning commission and then approval by the elected parish council. At the planning commission meeting, not a single person objected to the rather routine expansion…. [The full column is here.]
