New Orleans Approves Natural Gas Power Plant Despite Environmental Racism and Climate Concerns

Julie-Dermansky-022
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Despite hearing over four hours of publicย comments mostly in opposition, New Orleans City Council recently approvedย construction ofย a $210 million natural gas power plant in a predominantly minority neighborhood. Entergy is proposing to build this massive investment in fossil fuel infrastructure in a city already plagued by the effects of climateย change.ย 

Choosing a gas plant over renewable energy options flies in the face of the cityโ€™s own climate change plan and the mayorโ€™s support for the Paris Climate Accord, said several of the plantโ€™s opponents at the heated meeting when City Council ultimately voted to approve theย plant.

โ€œIt is not enough to plan for how we will adapt to climate change. We must end our contribution to it,โ€ wrote Mayor Mitch Landrieu in the introduction to the cityโ€™s climate action plan. Released in 2017, the plan calls for halving the cityโ€™s greenhouse gas pollution byย 2030.

Members of a coalition opposing the plant, formed in 2016 after Entergy first announced its plans, expressed outrage that the council was unwilling to at least postpone its vote after hearing over four hours of publicย comments, many againstย it.

This coalition includes residents from New Orleans East, where the plant is slated for construction, community activists, and environmental justiceย groups.

Vietnamese community members from New Orleans East hold signs and wait to enter New Orleans City Council meeting
Members of the New Orleans East Vietnamese communityย waiting to get into the New Orleans City Council meeting on Marchย 8.

New Orleans regulates its own utilities, giving the City Council direct oversight of Entergy, the company that provides power toย the city. The councilโ€™s Utility Commission voted to approve the project on February 21, weeks ahead of a Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) hearing on March 6 whichย considered Entergyโ€™s air permit application and the full City Council vote on March 8.

Before the public weighed in at the council meeting, the City Councilโ€™s energy consultants from Dentons US LLP, a Washington, D.C.-based utility law firm, concluded that the project was in the cityโ€™sย bestย interest. The consultants determined that the proposed 128-megawatt plant and its seven natural gas-fired engines would ensure the city has enough power at peak energy times and avoid outages that have afflicted theย city.ย 

The plant will be built in New Orleans East, home to predominantlyย African-American and Vietnameseย communities, an area that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has designated as a floodย zone.

Among those speaking before the council vote were a few who favored the project, citing jobs and energy security as their reasons for supportingย it.

As The Advocate reported: โ€œEntergy officials, meanwhile, listened on the sidelines, rather than actively defending their proposal as they have done forย months.โ€

Rev. Willy Gabriel speaks in support of Entergy's gas plant in New Orleans East
Rev. Willy Gabriel, pastor of West Baptist Church, speaking in support of Entergyโ€™s gas power plant surrounded by others who support theย plant.

Otherย concerns raised about the plant centered on environmental racism for siting yet another industrial project in a community of color and its potentially harmful effects on the environment and publicย health.

Happy Johnson, author and humanitarian, rebuked the councilโ€™s Utility Commission for pushing for a vote before the LDEQโ€™s hearing. โ€œA vote in favor of a gas plant proposal before an air quality hearing is like getting on a boat with holes in it [or] flying a plane without a pilot,โ€ Johnson said. โ€œIt does not give people inย the community faith at all. It is an irresponsible governmentย practice.โ€

New Orleans Councilmember-at-Large Jason Rogers Williams
Councilmember-at-Large Jason Rogers Williams, who at times was confrontational with speakers during the New Orleans City Council meeting on Marchย 8.

By the time the council voted 6-1 in favor of the project, only its opponents appeared to remain in theย room.

Afterward, council members offered explanations for refusing to delay the vote and for their support of the project, trying to justify their actions to theย crowd.

Councilmember Susan Guidry was the lone โ€œnoโ€ vote. She said she voted against the plant because not only will it contribute to climate change, she doesnโ€™t believe it will solve New Orleansโ€™ energy outage issues. โ€œThe cost of the plant will be on your bills for the next 30 years,โ€ Guidry said. โ€œThe plantโ€™s technology would likely be obsolete before you finishย paying for it.โ€

While Guidry agreed with the consultantsโ€™ finding, which said โ€œEntergy has a critical and urgent reliability issue that needs to be addressed,โ€ she doesn’t believe allowing the company to build a new gas plant will address that issue. Instead she stressed the need to fix the deteriorating transmission and distribution system that has caused thousands of powerย outages.ย 

Forest Bradley-Wright with the Alliance for Affordable Energy and several other speakers at the meeting concurred. As he explained in an editorial in The Advocate: โ€œIssues with our transmission and distribution problems, not lack of power, caused 100 percent of the outages we experienced. Entergyโ€™s proposed plant would not have prevented any of them.โ€

While the rest of the council had misgivings about the plant and expressed disappointment that Entergyย failed to propose more than one option, as instructed, the six who voted for it accepted the consultantsโ€™ conclusion that the plant would be in the cityโ€™s bestย interest.

Mayor-elect and current councilmember LaToya Cantrell said she feels that the city needed to do something now, and though she didnโ€™t like that Entergy did not propose other solutions, the council needed to take it, claiming that a โ€œyesโ€ vote was their only responsibleย option.ย 

Fracking, the Elephant in theย Room

Josh Fox, Oscar-nominated filmmaker of Gasland, weighed in at the meeting. He warned the council about the impacts the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) industry has already had on the climate and environment. Supporting new natural gas infrastructure projects over renewable energy runs counter to the Democraticย platform, he told them. Most natural gas produced in the U.S. today is extracted viaย fracking.

Though the Obama administration claimed that natural gas was a โ€œbridge fuelโ€ to cleaner energy sources, scientists since have linked rising natural gas production in North America to the increase in global methane emissions, a potent greenhouseย gas.ย 

In March 2017, a study by researchers at Purdue University and the Environmental Defense Fundย found that natural gas power plants put out between 20 and 120 times more methane pollution than previously believed, due in part to accidental leaks and deliberate โ€œventing.โ€ Andย as far back as 2011, researchers from Cornell University warned that switching from coal to gas could be a grave mistake for theย climate.

Environmentalย Racism

Residents of New Orleans East, a predominantly African-American and Vietnamese neighborhood, are no strangers to what they say is clear environmentalย racism.

During Hurricane Katrina, their community was one of the hardest hit in the city, and among the last toย recover.

Opponents of Entergy's proposed gas plant in New Orleans hold signs calling out environmental racism
Opponents of Entergyโ€™s natural gas plant at the New Orleans City Councilย meeting.

Many Vietnamese residents, whose distrust of the cityโ€™s interpreter prompted the community to choose its own, brought up the councilโ€™s decision after Hurricane Katrina to place a hurricane debris landfill near the Village de lโ€™Est community. They say that project brought with it toxic fumes and health risks and that a new toxic project was notย welcome.ย 

Elders in the community worry about impacts the plant would have on their childrenโ€™s health. Cam Tran lifted Christina Tran, age 5, up to the podium so she could have her say. โ€œPlease protect us from harm,โ€ the childย said.

Christina Tran, age 5, addresses the New Orleans City Council, held up by Cam Tran
Christina Tran addresses the New Orleans City Council before the vote on Entergyโ€™s gasย plant.

Larry J. Morgan, an 85-year-old African-American retiree, told the council that if they allow the plant to be built they would be responsible for the deaths of unborn babies, alluding to studies raising questions about the effects of natural gas development on pregnant women and infants.

Larry J. Morgan being led away from the podium
Larry J. Morgan called the New Orleans City Council โ€œmurderersโ€ย after they voted to approve Entergyโ€™s natural gas powerย plant.

And Pearl Cantrell, a white New Orleans resident with the 600-member Kenilworth Civic Association, confronted race head on: โ€œPlease, do not put what you donโ€™t want anywhere else in New Orleansย East.โ€

Battle Against the Gas Plant toย Continue

In the week preceding the council meeting, the coalition against the plant held numerous events aimed at stopping the projectโ€™s approval. They staged a rally at New Orleans City Hall on March 3 before boarding buses for Killona, Louisiana, inย the heart of Cancer Alley. There, they held a protest march that traveled pastย Entergyโ€™s Waterford 3 Nuclear Power Plant and ended at the Holy Rosary Cemetery in Hahnville, next to a Dow Chemicalย plant.

Pat Bryant leads a protest march against Entergy's natural gas plant through Cancer Alley
Pat Bryant (left) leading a march on River Road in the middle of Louisianaโ€™s Cancer Alley against Entergyโ€™s proposed gas plant and environmental racism.ย Behind the marchers is Entergyโ€™s Waterford 3 Nuclear Powerย Plant.

Protesters march against Entergy's proposed gas power plant through Cancer Alley
Protest march in Louisianaโ€™s Cancer Alley against Entergyโ€™s proposed gasย plant.

Bryant, one of the marchโ€™s leaders, told me how Cancer Alley got its name. Roughly thirty years ago when leading a march on the same route, he helped come up with the unofficial name for theย 85-mile industrial corridor stretching from Baton Rouge to Newย Orleans that is home to a large portion of the nationโ€™s petrochemicalย production.

Since that time, state regulators, including the current head of LDEQ,ย Chuck Carr Brown, point to the stateโ€™s cancer registryย to try to debunk the claim that Louisiana has a โ€œCancerย Alley.โ€ย The Louisiana Tumor Registry โ€œdoesnโ€™t show any elevated levels of cancer at all in any group of people,โ€ย Brown said at a parish council meeting in St. John the Baptist, across the Mississippi River from where the groupย marched.ย 

But many assert thatย the tumor registryโ€™s data donโ€™t give an accurate picture because it uses larger population groupings, which include many people who are not living in close proximity to the corridorโ€™sย industrial plants, diluting cancer reports from those whoย do.ย 

Sylvia McKenzie holds a 'no gas plant' sign on a Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality air permit hearing
Sylvia McKenzie at the state Department of Environmental Quality air quality permit hearing for Entergyโ€™s gas plant in New Orleans East on Marchย 6.

A packed house at LDEQ's air quality permit hearing on Entergy's gas plant on March 6
Packed house at LDEQโ€™s air quality permit hearing for Entergyโ€™s gas plant in New Orleans East on Marchย 6.

In a final push against the plant, many from the coalition arrived hours early to assure entry to the March 8 council meeting. By the time the council approved the plant, coalition members felt utterly let down, with some leaving the emotional meeting wipingย awayย tears.ย 

A gathering of those opposed to the Entergy gas plant hold hands outside City Hall after the council vote
Gathering outside New Orleans City Hall after City Council voted to approve Entergy’s gasย plant.

Afterward, Johnson* gatheredย everyone in a circle in front of City Hall, where the group prayed together and vowed to regroup and fightย on.ย 

The stakes are high. Many believe their lives, as well as the cityโ€™sย future,ย hang in theย balance.ย 

The coalition against Entergy's gas plant put their hands in the center of a circle
The coalition against the gas plant shows the colors of their hands, celebrating their racial diversity after the New Orleans City Council meeting Marchย 8.

*Update 3/14/18: This story originally incorrectly identified Bryant as leading the gathering. We regret theย error.

Main image: Opponents of Entergyโ€™s proposed natural gas power plant pack the March 8 New Orleans City Council meeting. Credit: All photos ยฉ Julieย Dermansky

Julie-Dermansky-022
Julie Dermansky is a multimedia reporter and artist based in New Orleans. She is an affiliate scholar at Rutgers Universityโ€™s Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights. Visit her website at www.jsdart.com.

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