St. James Parish officials failed to follow their own land use rules in 2023 when they backed a $185 million expansion at the Koch Methanol complex that would boost production, but also lead to increased air and water pollution, a state appellate panel has found.
The divided ruling issued Wednesday throws into question the legal basis for the Mississippi River plant's expansion, which has been partially built and operating for about a year, but company officials said it is not yet finished.
Coming about a month after a federal appellate panel breathed new life into another lawsuit seeking a moratorium on all new industrial development in St. James, the new state court decision gives another victory to activists fighting the expansion of industry in largely poor and Black communities along the river.
"I would like to thank God first and thank the judges for listening to us,” Harry Joseph, pastor of Mount Triumph Baptist Church in western St. James, said in a statement. "The parish needs to give the people what they deserve — clear air and water."
The church and its members are among the plaintiffs in the suit against the parish.
A day before the ruling on Koch, in neighboring St. John the Baptist Parish, Denka Performance Elastomer announced it was suspending operations and considering a sale.
The announcement came amid difficult market conditions and after years of federal regulatory scrutiny over its emissions of chloroprene, classified as likely cancer-causing. The Denka plant had also gained national attention as an emblem of Louisiana's environmental justice questions.
'Employer in our community'
For Koch, the divided five-member panel of the Louisiana 5th Circuit Court of Appeal found St. James officials failed to apply the highest level of scrutiny in their planning ordinance, known as "Tier 3," to the expansion project.
The 3-2 ruling found the breakdown led to "arbitrary and capricious" decisions to allow a 1,000-foot section of a new ethane pipeline connection for the plant through wetlands and to inadequate analysis of the overall project's benefits and costs.
"The parish failed to follow its own ordinance, which mandated that the proposed project’s application be evaluated per the standard of Tier 3 review," Judge Marc E. Johnson wrote in the 16-page ruling.
The Koch expansion is expected to raise methanol production by 25%, but will also increase annual air emissions by 50% or more in an area that federal data show already leads the state and nation for the burden residents bear from toxic air emissions and lifetime cancer risk from air pollution.
The expansion will also retain 114 jobs while adding two permanent jobs and 400 temporary construction jobs, Koch has said, contributing $4 million to parish coffers over the next 10 years.
The ruling from the Gretna-based appeals court overturned a lower court ruling from last year that had upheld the parish's decisions. The appeals court ordered that the case be sent back to 23rd Judicial District Judge Cody M. Martin for further proceedings.
Judges Susan M. Chehardy and Fredericka Homberg Wicker joined Johnson in the majority. Dissenting were Judges Stephen J. Windhorst and John J. Molaison.
Josh Wiggins, plant manager, said Koch was disappointed and is assessing "potential courses of action, including further appeal." Koch intervened in the case.
"We appreciate the council’s efforts thus far to defend what we believe was a proper land use permit application and approval process," he said. "We will continue working with the parish and others in the community, as we have done for several years now, to continue to support St. James residents through investing in local education, supporting local initiatives, and being a preferred employer in our community."
Parish President Pete Dufresne was to the point in his comments: "I’m still puzzled by the whole case — it was rightfully dismissed originally, and this should have been a non-issue."
'Our lives matter'
Much of the legal fight centered around review of the ethane pipeline section through wetlands. That pipeline ties into a preexisting ethane line before passing through a canal, through a small patch of woods and under La. 3127 onto Koch's property, a photograph shows.
The connection was finished in February 2024 and the overall ethane system that the line feeds was operating by that June, company officials said. Construction of another piece of the project, a backup oxygen supply facility, hasn't started, however, company officials said.
In court, parish officials argued that, despite language appearing to bar development in wetlands, the pipeline extension was allowed because it was linking with a preexisting line. They also argued the language barring development in wetlands was subject to an exemption that fit the pipeline.
The old St. James High School and its beloved live oaks are seen from River Road in December 2022 courtesy of a Google image. The former majority owner of a methanol complex built behind the school a few years ago bought it in 2015 to make way for the plant, now Koch Methanol. The school’s oaks were a touchstone for generations of Wildcats.
But the appellate court sided with the plaintiffs, disagreeing that the exemption's "unique situations" language could apply to the pipeline.
That prohibition meant the Planning Commission and Parish Council should have applied the highest level of scrutiny to consider allowing the line instead of the medium level, the appeals court found.
In the dissent written by Judge Molaison, he found the wetlands exemption squarely fit the pipeline proposal.
"Here, tapping into the existing ethane pipeline falls within the very definition of a unique situation, as the only logical way to physically approach the pipeline is through the wetland," the judge wrote.
In a statement Thursday, one longtime activist, Sharon Lavigne, who has fought parish decisions on new industry for years, asserted the ruling sets a new precedent for the parish to follow its rules "rigorously."
Lavigne, who with her group, Rise St. James, is another plaintiff in the case, has previously cited the approval in the mid-2010s of the original Koch facility, then owned by Yuhuang, as a catalyst for the parish's reinvigorated environmental movement over the past decade.
To make way for the plant at the time, then parish leaders decided to sell St. James High School to the company and build a new one in Vacherie. Lavigne taught at the high school.
"Today’s ruling tells every grandmother, every grand-baby, and every neighbor along the river that our lives matter more than a corporation’s bottom line," Lavigne said.
Other plaintiffs are Beverly Alexander and Inclusive Louisiana. The Tulane Environmental Law Clinic and the Center for Constitutional Rights represented the plaintiffs.
Editor's Note: This story was updated 11:24 a.m. Friday, May 16, 2025, to include a comment from the St. James Parish president.