A group of Black residents wanted to visit the site, which is owned by plastics company Formosa

Salon
Date: June 20, 2020
By: Rachel Ramirez

This post originally appeared on Grist. Grist is a nonprofit news agency working toward a planet that doesn't burn and a future that doesn't suck. Sign up to receive Grist's top stories in your inbox.

Agroup of Black residents from St. James Parish, Louisiana, got the green light on Thursday to hold an hour-long Juneteenth prayer service on a burial plot containing the remains of formerly enslaved people. The ceremony, planned for Friday, has been a point of contention — not due to fears over coronavirus, which has hit the community particularly hard, but because the site technically belongs to Taiwanese plastics manufacturer Formosa.

This decision is the latest incident in a long series of legal battles between the company and the community. When they found out about the remains last year, RISE St. James — a grassroots environmental justice group that has been trying to stop the plastics company from setting up shop since 2018 — had members pay visits to the site, which is part of a former sugarcane plantation, to pray, sing and place flowers. But that all changed in January when the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality approved permits for the company to construct a $9.4 billion petrochemical complex on the location.

Sharon Lavigne, president of RISE St. James, told Grist that the last time she visited the location, authorities told her that Formosa didn't grant access permission to the site and that if she ever returned, she would be arrested.    [FULL  STORY]