On Friday, June 12, Louisiana’s Democratic governorย John Bel Edwards is expected to sign off on a piece of legislation, House Bill 197, that would make it a more serious crime to trespass on Louisiana’s so-called โcritical infrastructure,โ including the state’s system of flood-control levees,ย fossil fuel pipelines, andย sprawling network of petrochemical plants andย refineries.
But if you ask Sharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James, a Louisiana community group, what House Bill 197 means to her, the answer that comes back isnโt about floodgates or water pumps or pipelines. Itโs about the legacy of slavery in the United States โ and how that legacy echoes in criminalization effortsย today.
โIt means that I cannot go and visit the gravesites,โ Lavigne told DeSmog on Wednesday, June 10, referring to recently discovered slave cemeteries on former plantations now owned by petrochemical giant Formosa. The Taiwanese companyย plans to build a massive plastics manufacturing site in St. James Parish where Lavigne lives. โI have to go on the property to go to the gravesite. That affects me because my ancestors are in thatย grave.โ
House Bill 197, which was approved by the stateโs legislature and is slated for the governor to signย or vetoย by Friday, would transform some types of trespassing โ generally a low-level violation that leads to a small fine โ into a felony carrying a minimum sentence of between three and 15 years. And because that sentence would be a mandatory minimum, a judge would have no legal discretion to lower the penalty for anyone convicted under that law, even in the face of compelling extenuating circumstances.
UPDATE, June 12, 2020: On Friday, June 12, Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed House Bill 197. โVictory is Ours!,โ the Coalition Against Death Alley wrote on Twitter after the veto wasย announced.
For years, mandatory minimum sentencing, particularly in the context of the โwar on drugs,โ has been faulted for contributing to the racial disparities in U.S. policing and prisons. โMandatory sentencing laws disproportionately affect people of color and, because of their severity, destroy families,โ a Families Against Mandatory Minimums primer explains. A 2013 Yale Law Journal study found that prosecutors were twice as likely to charge Black defendants under statutes carrying mandatory minimum penalties as white defendants who committed similarย crimes.
The battle over House Bill 197 and more broadly, the Formosa plasticย plantโs construction, touches not only on the legacy of enslavement in the United States, but also on environmental racism, the fossil fuel industry, and how impacted communities are policed and criminalized today. For foreign investors watching events play out, the battle also offers insight into risks associated with the petrochemical projects in the U.S., particularly given the petrochemical industryโs history of pollution both on the Gulf Coast andย worldwide.
โThe facility would mean the destruction of 5th District communities, including Freetown, founded by enslaved people who fought for and won their emancipation,โ environmental groups Earthworks, RISE St. James, and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade wrote in a statement. โWith annual proposed greenhouse gas emissions of 13 million tons, Formosa Plastics would be the largest new source of greenhouse gases in theย nation.โ
Sharon Lavigne speaking at a June 10 press conference in front of the State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.ย She asked the Governor to veto HB 197. Credit: Julie Dermanskyย ยฉ2020
‘Deathย Alley’
Sharon Lavigne was born and raised in a part of Louisiana known for decades as Cancer Alley โ or, as some activists have more recently dubbed it, Death Alley. St. James Parish, already part of Cancer Alley, could see its toxic air pollution more than double if the Formosa plant is built. Four out of five residents living within a one-mile radius of Formosa’s site are African American. Nearby St. John the Baptist Parish, also in Cancer Alley and where 58 percentย of residents are African American, had the highest per-capita COVID-19 death rate in the U.S. for a periodย in April, with expertsย pointing toย petrochemical pollution that left many in the region with weakened health going into theย pandemic.
Lavigne’s house is just a few miles from a site where Formosa Plastics is planningย one of the largest new petrochemical projects in the U.S., involving 10 chemical plants and 14 separate major facilities, where raw materials for plastics, ethylene and propylene, would be made. Builders predict that the project could create thousands of construction jobs and an additional 1,200ย permanent jobs if the project isย completed.
The roughly 2,500ย acres of land bought up by Formosa for its $9.4 billion petrochemical project โ which the company dubbed the โSunshine Projectโ presumably after the nearby Sunshine Bridge โ included multiple former plantation sites, as is common for petrochemical projects in theย region.
โThe vast majority of the industrial facilities in โCancer Alleyโ are on the grounds of former plantations,โ researcher Justin Krayย toldย The Interceptโs Sharon Lerner in December 2019. โThe areas where large petrochemical companies want to locate are large, undivided tracts of land. And these are the undividedย tracts.โ
A water tower in Welcome, Louisiana, near theย site of Formosa’s planned plastics andย petrochemical complex. Credit:ย Julieย Dermanskyย ยฉ2020
During the 1800s, hundreds of Black people had been enslaved on those plantations, most of which grew sugar,ย records show, and an unknown number of people died while enslaved on that land. In July 2018, an archaeologist with Coastal Environments, Inc.ย reached out to Formosa, notifying the company that maps, dating back to 1877 and 1878, had newly become available and suggested that the land where Formosa planned to build should be re-surveyed for slaveย cemeteries.
On December 23, 2019, attorneys for RISE St. James sought to revoke local land permits for Formosa revoked, citing new evidence that gravesites of enslaved people had been found on the site and alleging that Formosa had failed to notify local officials about the gravesites while the permits had beenย pending.
The Interceptย reportedย that Formosaโs law firm had been aware of one of the graves and suggested fencing it off to prevent disturbance, adding that this โwould mean that portions of the planned Utilities Plant may have to be relocated, which makes this a very difficult optionโ forย Formosa.
A Marchย reportย by Coastal Environments found that Formosaโs surveys had not only missed one of the two graveyards, but also five more potential slave cemeteries on theย property.
Formosa, Coastal Environments reported, had repeatedly searched in the wrong places for graveyards where enslaved people had been buried. โFormosaโs own documents show they repeatedly failed to search the most likely location for graves associated with the Acadia Plantation Cemetery,โ attorneys for RISE St. Jamesย wroteย inย March.
โThe slave plantations [in St. James Parish] were some of the worst plantations in the world,โ Rev. William Barber II of the Poor People’s Campaign,ย toldย NOLA.com last year after the slave graveyards on Formosaโs site were first discovered. And he expressed concern about plans to use more of the parish for petrochemicalย manufacturing.
Lavigne with Rev. William Barber IIย in St. James Parish on January 12, 2019. Credit: Julieย Dermanskyย ยฉ2019
โThe land that once destroyed people’s lives, psychologically and physically,โ Rev. Barber added, โis now being used to destroy people’s lives through toxins andย pollution.โ
Formosa did not immediately respond to a request forย comment.
‘Itโsย Intimidation’
Formosa broke ground on the petrochemical projectย in late March, surprising project opponents by moving forward with construction during the COVID-19 pandemic and before legal disputes over the graveyards wereย settled.
Meanwhile, in the stateโs capitol, lawmakers are on the cusp of turningย House Bill 197 into law.ย Describedย by its sponsor as an effort to address trespassing on levees during storms, the bill โ which moved through the stateโs legislature in just nine days โ has beenย criticizedย as hastily approved โ and could carry extraordinary consequences for civilย rights.
Lavigne and her legal counsel fear the billย would make it extremely dangerous to go visit the graves of people who were enslaved in St. James Parish, where Lavigne traces her roots back multipleย generations.
RISE St. James has previously asserted that itsย legal right to visit the graveyard is clear, regardless of HB197. โLouisiana law is clear that when cemeteries or burial grounds are discovered on private property, the landowner may not prevent access to those sites by descendants or friends,โ Pamela C. Spees, an attorney with theย Center for Constitutional Rights,ย wroteย to Formosaโs attorneys at the law firmย Jones Walker, requesting that Lavigne and RISE St. James be allowed to visit the cemetery onย Juneteenth, the June 19ย holiday memorializing the end ofย slavery in the U.S.
โThese are challenging and painful times as the country reels from the effects of our collective failure to truly reckon with the traumatic history of slavery and its aftermath and modern vestiges in the form of systemic oppression, violence, and inequalities faced by Black people,โ Spees wrote in a June 5 follow-up letter, noting that the company had yet to respond to RISE St. James’ request for a Juneteenthย visit.
Pamela Spees at a RISE St. James revival event in Convent, Louisiana, on March 21, 2019. Credit: Julieย Dermanskyย ยฉ2019
At yesterdayโs event, civil liberties advocates called on the governor to reject House Bill 197. โPutting peaceful demonstrators at risk of extreme punishment at the very time that this country is rising up against police brutality and state terror against Black communities is a crime, sir,โ Alanah Odoms Herbert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said. The ACLU is circulating aย petitionย against theย bill.
โThis is a suppression law against the First Amendment,โ Lt. Gen.ย Russel Honorรฉ, founder of Louisiana’s Green Army, a grassroots anti-pollution coalition, told DeSmog. โIt isย intimidation.โ
Opponents of Formosaโs plastics complex also arrived at the industrial giant’s shareholder meeting yesterday in Taiwan, raising their concerns both inside the meeting and in a rallyย outside.
โOf course we agree that Sunshine Project shouldnโt be built in St. James, but we also think the Sunshine Project just shouldnโt be built at all, no matter where it is,โย saidย Khoo HuiTheng, an environmental organizer in Taiwan who protested outside the meeting. โOur ocean is already full of plastic. Marine animals are dying from plastic bags in their stomachs. People everywhere are trying really hard to get rid of this plastic addiction and it just doesnโt make any sense to build a new massive plastic facility anywhere on the Earth and I believe that no one would want this facility built in theirย community.โ
If House Bill 197 does become law, Formosaโs opponents predict legal fights are ahead. โWeโll challenge the bill, just like we challenged the 2018 bill,โ Lavigne told DeSmog, referring to an earlierย critical infrastructure bill in Louisiana that’s been used to arrest oil pipeline protestersย and is undergoing legal challenge.
She also called on the crowd gathered to protest in Louisiana yesterday to remainย undaunted.
โMe andย my members of my community come from a long line that have bravely stood up for ourselves to ensure our survival,โ she told the group. โWe are not afraid to stand up for a bright future where we have clean air, water, and soil for our children. Our ancestors would expect nothingย less.โ
Main image: Sharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James, along with other members of RISEย holding their fists up after speaking at a June 10 press conference in front of the State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Credit:ย Julieย Dermanskyย ยฉ2020
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