St. James Parish, in South Louisiana, is a historically black and now elderly community. Many of the residents trace their lineage back to enslaved families who worked the plantations along the banks of the Mississippi River. Today, 15.6% of residents live below the poverty line.

The communities of St. James are extremely overburdened by industrial pollution. The 258-square mile parish hosts 11 large industrial facilities, including refineries, a fertilizer plant, and steel, asphalt, and chemical companies. The toxic chemicals that are emitted into the surrounding air, water and soil include cancer causing dioxins, asbestos, chlorine, lead, mercury, acids, benzene, toluene, methanol, ethylene, and hydrogen sulfide, according to the EPA’s TRI database report.

Now, St. James are fighting to keep out yet another industrial facility: 2,500-acre project of Formosa Plastics, a Taiwan-based conglomerate. The massive petrochemical complex, named the Sunshine Project, is to be located just one mile from elementary school, and on top of a historic site of the unmarked graves of enslaved people. The proposed plant threatens to double toxic pollutants in the Parish.

On August 18, 2021 the US Army Corps of Engineers announced it would require a full Environmental Impact Statement for the Sunshine Project. The decision is a major victory for opponents of the plant, who sued to block the project in January 2020 and convinced the Army Corps to suspend its permit.

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will require that Formosa assess the impact of its proposed project, including the current environmental situation as well as air, water, historical and economic impacts. The EIS should also trigger a new comment period for community members. However, an EIS can take anywhere from 51 days to 3 years to conduct.

Thus, this project aims to regularly collect particulate matter and other air quality monitoring data in order to evidence the existing levels of pollution borne by the St. James Parish community. The information gathered will to be used to educate the community, and support the growing body of evidence as to why further pollution sources such as the Formosa Plastics would be catastrophic for the parish.