The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury voted 13-0 Thursday to approve
rezoning land on which Sasol plans to build its multibillion-dollar
ethane cracker and gas-to-liquids complex.
Police Juror Les Farnum, district 15, abstained from voting.
The police jury’s approval will change the area’s zoning
designation from residential, agricultural and light industrial to
heavy industrial, a total of 1,470 acres. When completed, Sasol’s
estimated $21 billion expansion would more than quadruple the size
of its existing facility.
The panel’s vote came after more than 40 minutes of discussion in
which Mossville residents and other concerned citizens voiced
opposition to Sasol’s proposal to rezone the area for heavy industrial
use.
Monique Harden, an attorney representing Mossville Environmental
Action Now, reiterated MEAN’s objections to Sasol’s proposal to rezone
three areas west of the Kansas City Southern rail line from
agricultural to heavy industrial, as well as its proposal to relocate
the Matheson Tri Gas Industrial facility to a site north of the
pipeline right of way and to the south of Murrell Road.
Harden said other landowners in Calcasieu Parish have also
requested zoning changes on land that was designated as
residential. In each of those instances, she added, the parish’s
zoning board recommended stipulations such as buffer zones, dust
control and measures that would minimize disruptions from vehicular
traffic, vibrations and noise.
“All of those things are not conducive to residential living,”
Harden said. “So the (zoning) staff wisely put those conditions in the
rezoning requested by other landowners in Calcasieu Parish. The same
is not the case for the Sasol rezoning request for these three sites
that are adjacent to residential areas.”
Harden said the police jury should recommend the same stipulations
for the Sasol project.
“Sasol should not be given special treatment here,” she said. “Not
including those kinds of conditions would have the effect of causing
the people who choose to remain in the community to feel as through
they are being squeezed out or pressured out by this government. And
you don’t want that kind of message going forward. It creates huge
problems with regards to the civil rights and human rights of those
residents.”
With the police jury’s approval, Harden said she will be exploring
other legal options on behalf of Mossville residents.
Former State Sen. James Cox said Sasol’s release of ethylene
dichloride will require the police jury’s continued attention once the
company’s expansion is complete.
“We all know this development is going to happen,” Cox said. As far
as everything being peachy and hunky-dory, that’s not going to happen.
The reality is that these spill pollutants, especially ethylene
dichloride, which is one of the byproducts of this process that this
facility is going to be using, you can drop a drop of it on a glass
table, and it’s like mercury; it will find its way to its lowest
point, through the table, through the concrete, through a clay barrier
and down inevitably into the aquifer. It’s going to happen.”
Local activist Charlie Atherton requested that the panel require
Sasol to add to its zoning agreement a safety buffer “blast zone”
between the company’s plant and the residences to protect the
community in the event of a plant explosion or fire. His request was
denied.
After the meeting Atherton told the American Press that industry
currently follows an OSHA guidance that prohibits them from locating
their workers within a certain distance of the operating unit.
“Generally, that blast zone goes outside of their property and
takes in neighborhoods,” he added. “Those people don’t even know
they’re in a blast zone. I just wanted the police jury to ask Sasol to
protect the people from getting killed.
“I’m concerned that the people living on the north side of Houston
River Road may be in the blast zone from the new units.”
Russell Johnson, Sasol’s director of public affairs, said blast
zone issues are regulated by the state Department of Environmental
Quality and that the company is compliant with all of its regulations.
“Whatever the rules are, we’re committed to following them,” he said.
Sasol’s application calls for the severing of Evergreen Road east
of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, which will eliminate the only
north-south connection between Houston River Road and Old Spanish
Trail east of La. 27.
Sasol and the parish will each invest up to $10 million to extend
Coach Williams Drive with a north-south road adjacent to the company’s
westernmost boundary. The new road will replace Evergreen Road.
On Tuesday night, however, the parish’s zoning and planning board
recommended that Sasol keep Evergreen Road open until the Coach
Williams Drive extension is finished. Parish zoning officials
estimated that the road’s extension could take up to three years to
complete.
Sasol has also agreed to invest $1 million to improve Mossville’s
drinking water for residents who opted out of the property purchase
program, which will include a Sasol offer to pay off the Mossville
waterworks district’s $335,000 debt.
The company also plans to provide $500,000 in matching state funds,
which will give the parish the ability to replace Mossville’s aging
water lines.
Once the water district’s debt is paid and its water lines are
upgraded, Westlake will take over the water service to the community.
The Mossville water district, in turn, would be dissolved.
Mike Hayes, Sasol’s public affairs manager for U.S. megaprojects,
told the American Press on Tuesday that the company will also pay
Westlake’s out-of-pocket capital expenses in upgrading Mossville’s
water lines and connecting the community to them.
Sasol’s proposed $7 billion ethane cracker will produce ethylene,
which, in turn, will be used to make products such as synthetic
fibers, detergents, paints and fragrances. The facility is expected to
produce about 1.5 million tons of ethylene a year.
The company’s GTL complex is expected to produce more than 96,000
barrels of diesel fuels and chemicals each day. The complex will also
house Sasol’s second linear alkyl benzene unit, which will increase
the company’s production of detergent alkylates. The project will cost
$11 billion-$14 billion.
In other news, the police jury unanimously approved a resolution
requesting that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission expedite the
completion of Magnolia LNG’s environmental impact statement and final
engineering review.
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