On the Frontlines in a ‘Cancer Alley,’ Black Women Inspired by Faith Are Powering the Environmental Justice Movement
James Bruggers | February 20, 2023 | Inside Climate news
The brown brick Roman Catholic church that sits here near the Mississippi River, next to dozens of large oil storage tanks, rose in 1930 amid the sugar cane fields of a former plantation. Twenty-two years later, Sharon Lavigne was born and baptized within its pale blue plaster walls pierced by the light from bright stained glass windows.
Now 70, Lavigne steps into St. James Church on a late January morning, dipping her fingers into a vessel of holy water. She makes the sign of the cross, takes a seat in a pew and pauses for a silent prayer.
It’s in this church, in the industrial corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known as Cancer Alley, that Lavigne found the strength and inspiration to take on multiple chemical plants, including a Taiwanese-based global plastics manufacturing company.
“It was a calling from God,” said Lavigne, a retired special education teacher and grandmother of 12, of her decision to leave her comfort zone and fight the plants and the pollution they would emit into the air or water. “This wasn’t something I planned to do, or something that I wanted to do.”
With a network of allies near and far, Lavigne also stood up to the petrochemical industry in Louisiana and to local, state and federal officials. Most of her efforts are channeled through a faith-based environmental justice group she founded five years ago, Rise St. James, and the coalition is now on a winning streak.
Formosa Plastics has been stopped in its tracks—blocked, at least for now, from building a massive $9.4 billion manufacturing complex on 2,400 acres in Welcome, Louisiana, less than two miles from Lavigne’s home. Last September, a state judge sided with Rise St. James and other environmental groups and rejected the rationale for some 15 air permits that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality had issued for the complex, which would have been allowed to emit more than 800 tons per year of toxic pollution into a predominantly Black, low-income community.
The Formosa Plastics complex would also have sent as much as 13.6 million tons per year of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, roughly equivalent to the emissions of 3.5 coal-fired power plants. In 2021, the Biden administration halted the project by deciding, after another lawsuit brought by Rise St. James and other environmental groups, that the project needed a full environmental review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The company has appealed the state court ruling and has said it plans to continue pushing for the plastics manufacturing complex, a project that has also been backed by Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat.
Beyond the Formosa victories, Lavigne and Rise St. James took part in community opposition to the China-based Wanhua Chemical Group’s plans to locate a $1.25 billion plant for making plastics feedstock in St. James Parish. The company withdrew its project in 2019. The group was also part of a coalition that defeated a plan by South Louisiana Methanol to build a petrochemical complex in the community last year.
“God chose me,” said Lavigne, settled into a high-back leather chair in a corner of the church, where she regularly sings with the choir. “God chose me. I used to question God, and I’d say, ‘Why did you choose me?’”
Since that divine calling around four years ago, Lavigne has led marches, organized rallies, been a plaintiff in lawsuits, pressed local officials, worked with other local, state and national environmental groups including Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity, challenged local elected leaders, and met with the administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. A happy warrior quick to offer a smile and words of certainty about the coalition’s ability to block Formosa, Lavigne also helped reveal the presence of slave graves on the site of the planned manufacturing complex. In 2020, her group organized a service in which Bishop Michael Duca of the Baton Rouge Diocese blessed the fenced area where the slaves are buried.
Over time, Lavigne says, she has stopped asking the “Why me?” question about doing what she sees as God’s work. “Now I tell him, ‘Thank you for choosing me.’”
While Lavigne gives much credit to the attorneys and others who have been part of the alliance fighting the chemical plants, including the grassroots group known as the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, there is no doubt in her mind about why the cause has gained an upper hand. “We put God first,” she said. “We start off our meetings with a prayer. We end our meetings with prayer. When I go somewhere, I tell him to come with me.”
