{"id":403221,"date":"2021-11-24T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=553425"},"modified":"2021-11-24T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T11:30:00","slug":"energy-company-cancels-2-5-billion-oil-export-terminal-in-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/24\/energy-company-cancels-2-5-billion-oil-export-terminal-in-louisiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy company cancels $2.5 billion oil export terminal in Louisiana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The energy infrastructure company Tallgrass Energy Partners announced Friday<\/a> it is canceling a $2.5 billion oil export terminal and pipeline project in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, citing climate, economic, and cultural concerns. The proposal had faced years of fierce opposition<\/a> from residents and environmental groups, who argued the facility would be built atop a historic burial site of enslaved people, further exacerbate climate change, and impact nearby ecological restoration efforts, partially blocking the flow of important sediments in theMississippi River Delta. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kansas-based company said in a press release<\/a> that it is \u201cwithdrawing the current air permit application\u201d for the site, and is considering alternative commercial development options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed export terminal would have sat on the west bank of the Mississippi River near the town of Ironton, with the capacity to hold up to 20 million barrels of oil. But the 200-acre site encompassed part of the former St. Rosalie Plantation, which used slave labor to grow sugarcane from 1828 to 1859, according to news site Bayou Brief<\/a>. Most of Ironton\u2019s residents are descendants of the enslaved Black people forced to work on the plantation. Over the last two years, archaeologists hired by the company have found 13,000 artifacts from the plantation, including pieces of human bones and fragments of inscribed tombstones, according to NOLA.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy ancestors are buried at St. Rosalie,\u201d Reverend Haywood Johnson, Jr, pastor at Ironton\u2019s Saint Paul Missionary Baptist church. said in a press release<\/a> earlier this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to the concerns, Tallgrass Energy decided to shrink the footprint of the facility, known as Plaquemines Liquids Terminal. This led to a reappraisal of the project, which ultimately led to the company\u2019s decision to cancel it entirely.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plaquemines Port executive director Sandy Sanders told NOLA.com<\/a> that market changes likely helped to finalize Tallgrass Energy\u2019s announcement. Just two weeks ago, Phillips 66 decided to shut<\/a> its 2,400-acre oil refinery in the parish and convert it to a fuel terminal. The company said that the damages from Hurricane Ida in August — which submerged the facility under 5 feet of water — would be too expensive to repair in the current energy market, according to the Associated Press<\/a>.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project also would have sat next to the Mid Barataria Sediment Diversion project, an essential area where the state is working to restore and save Louisiana\u2019s remaining southeastern wetlands, part of the state\u2019s ambitious $1.4 billion coastal restoration plan. The diversion would re-route freshwater, sediment, and nutrients into the Barataria Basin to help restore its ecosystems. The oil terminal could have reduced the amount of sediments entering the channel, slowing down the ecological recovery, activists warned<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, Tallgrass Energy estimated in its air permit application<\/a> that the oil terminal would release 500,000 tons of greenhouse gases every year, as well as emit other harmful gases like benzene. If the project had been approved, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, or LDEQ, would have ignored \u201cthe harm from air pollution to the nearby communities of Ironton, Phoenix, Myrtle Grove, and Wood Park,\u201d Mike Brown, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, said in a press release <\/a>earlier this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we strive to find a balance between the need to decarbonize and the need for safe, reliable, and affordable energy, nearly every infrastructure decision we make is guided by our decarbonization objectives,\u201d Tallgrass spokesperson Phyllis Hammond told NOLA.com.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Grist<\/a> with the headline Energy company cancels $2.5 billion oil export terminal in Louisiana<\/a> on Nov 24, 2021.<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Grist<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The project faced stiff opposition from residents, who argued it would have destroyed a historic slave burial site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,267,13813],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403825,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403221\/revisions\/403825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}