The general location, top right, of a proposed St. Charles Parish ammonia plant near the International-Matex Tank Terminals in St. Rose on Thursday, August 29, 2024. It is located next to the Davis Heights neighborhood, bottom. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Anorna Johnson, at lectern, speaks Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, to a Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality moderator and court reporter about the air permit for the St. Charles Clean Fuels blue ammonia plant proposed for St. Rose before a large crowd in the Harry Hurst Middle School Gym. Johnson was concerned accidental leaks; company officials say they will run a safe plant.
A crowd of an estimated 250 supporters and opponents of the St. Charles Clean Fuels plant proposed for St. Rose waits minutes before public hearing on the air permit for the plant. An earlier hearing was postponed for safety reasons after a smaller meeting space in a St. Charles Parish Library was overflowing with people. The hearing lasted more than three hours as 53 people spoke.
John Baguley, at lectern, executive vice president of Sustainable Fuels Group, a Houston, Texas, speaks Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, to officials with the state Department of Environmental Quality about the proposed St. Charles Clean Fuels “blue” ammonia plant as a large crowd listens behind him. An estimated 250 people showed up for the air permit hearing, including some who filled bleachers, not pictured, on the opposite side of Harry Hurst Middle School Gym in Destrehan. The hearing had been rescheduled from one in late September that had to be postponed due to the number of people who showed up for the hearing in a smaller library meeting room. Sustainable Fuels Group is one of the partners in the plant.
The general location, top right, of a proposed St. Charles Parish ammonia plant near the International-Matex Tank Terminals in St. Rose on Thursday, August 29, 2024. It is located next to the Davis Heights neighborhood, bottom. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Anorna Johnson, at lectern, speaks Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, to a Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality moderator and court reporter about the air permit for the St. Charles Clean Fuels blue ammonia plant proposed for St. Rose before a large crowd in the Harry Hurst Middle School Gym. Johnson was concerned accidental leaks; company officials say they will run a safe plant.
A second attempt at a hearing for a controversial $4.5 billion ammonia plant with carbon capture capability proposed for St. Rose drew large crowds and occasional catcalls, illustrating the dilemma Louisiana faces as it moves ahead with a new wave of industrial development.
More than two months ago, state regulators and a local fire chief called a quick end to a critical air permit hearing for the plant because of overcrowding inside a St. Charles Parish library.
Local advocates warned in advance of the big crowd expected for the hearing on St. Charles Clean Fuels, but state Department of Environmental Quality officials ignored the advice, only to be forced to start over when faced with overflow numbers in the 60-person meeting room.
On Tuesday night, the follow-up hearing occurred, and the big crowds returned again as more than 250 people filled one side of the wall-length bleachers inside the Harry Hurst Middle School Gym in Destrehan and also spilled over into the other side.
For more than three hours, 53 speakers offered their thoughts as the crowd cheered the project’s fiercest critics and periodically interrupted and booed those supporting it, with occasional catcalls such as “liar” and “sell-out.”
Though the facility needs several other approvals, the air permit is key.
The facility would create hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue despite lucrative tax breaks, offer more than 200 high-paying blue collar jobs and safely coexist with its neighbors, proponents said.
A crowd of an estimated 250 supporters and opponents of the St. Charles Clean Fuels plant proposed for St. Rose waits minutes before public hearing on the air permit for the plant. An earlier hearing was postponed for safety reasons after a smaller meeting space in a St. Charles Parish Library was overflowing with people. The hearing lasted more than three hours as 53 people spoke.
John Baguley, executive vice president of Sustainable Fuels Group, a Houston company that is one of the partners in the ammonia plant, said said the project would meet “the highest standards of safety and environment” while contributing “to the long-term growth and prosperity of St. Charles Parish.”
With towers over 100-feet tall, opponents countered, the plan would also place more harmful emissions and potentially explosive chemicals next to a predominantly Black community that contains the historic Freetown Elkinsville, which is already along the fence line of a chemical tank farm that has been the source of air pollution concerns for years. They also doubted it would deliver the promised jobs for St. Rose residents.
Development of much of the plant’s 230-acre site behind that tank farm, International-Matex Tank Terminals, would require filling the back swamps that are relied on for drainage, opponents noted.
Anorna Johnson, a St. Rose resident who is part of the Elkinsville Historical Restoration Association, said the community’s ancestors provided them a safe place for their families, churches and cemeteries. This plant would be a mile from a local school and near a cemetery, she said.
“This clean blue ammonia plant will take all of our resources. Everything will be gone. One leak from this company, this plant will destroy our livelihood,” she said in the gym at the foot of the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge.
Opponents’ primary concerns were big leaks of carbon dioxide from a related carbon sequestration system and ammonia from the plant. In large enough concentrations, both can displace oxygen temporarily. Found in nature and the human body, ammonia is a toxic chemical that can irritate the respiratory system in high enough concentrations but is not a carcinogen, the EPA says.
Opponents also charged that St. Charles Clean Fuels was underestimating its emissions to avoid more rigorous permitting and questioned the efficacy and safety of plans to use underground carbon capture and storage to cut the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions. To the night’s loudest applause, one man charged it was simply a scheme to collect federal tax credits.
Some residents and advocates also had thoughts for DEQ, which in statement about the postponed hearing in late September, accused residents of orchestrating an attempt to block economic progress by showing up for the public input hearing two months ago in big numbers. Several residents said they were unhappy with the way a state agency that is charged with protecting them and the environment characterized them.
An attorney with the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic called on DEQ to recuse itself from any decision on the air permit because of the alleged bias shown in the controversial response. The group has already filed a motion with the agency to that effect on behalf of residents the clinic is representing.
Earl Rhodes, 50, a St. Rose resident who has spent his career in industry and built his home near the proposed site years ago, told DEQ officials that the lawyers and others who spoke Tuesday night backed up the feeling that most residents had. He said they were “highly disappointed” with the agency for its comments claiming residents were trying to block economic development.
“It’s not. It’s concerned citizens (that) don’t want this impacting them. Period,” Rhodes said.
St. Charles Clean Fuels is part of a wave of cleaner ammonia facilities coming to Louisiana’s Mississippi River region. They are taking advantage of its access to low-cost natural gas and using federal tax credits to cut their greenhouse gas emissions from a traditionally carbon-heavy process to ship ammonia to international markets with demand for low-carbon chemicals.
The company’s other partner is Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, a Denmark-based clean energy investment company, regulatory papers say.
John Baguley, at lectern, executive vice president of Sustainable Fuels Group, a Houston, Texas, speaks Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, to officials with the state Department of Environmental Quality about the proposed St. Charles Clean Fuels “blue” ammonia plant as a large crowd listens behind him. An estimated 250 people showed up for the air permit hearing, including some who filled bleachers, not pictured, on the opposite side of Harry Hurst Middle School Gym in Destrehan. The hearing had been rescheduled from one in late September that had to be postponed due to the number of people who showed up for the hearing in a smaller library meeting room. Sustainable Fuels Group is one of the partners in the plant.
Ammonia has traditionally been made in Louisiana for agricultural fertilizer, but it’s also what an executive for a competing ammonia plant proposed upriver in Ascension Parish recently described before a state legislative task force as a “suitcase” chemical.
With three or four hydrogen atoms bound to a nitrogen atom, liquid ammonia can transport those hydrogen molecules more safely and cheaply than other means, according to that executive and other experts. Already a key for many industrial processes, hydrogen is seen as one effective way to decarbonize fossil fuel-burning industries long term.
More than an hour into the hearing and after some proponents had been interrupted by the crowd, a series of people who supported the project waived their speaking times and simply stood up, often from the gym bleachers, to say they were behind St. Charles Clean Fuels.
Even then, some drew boos if they identified themselves as being from outside St. Charles Parish, such as from Baton Rouge and Denham Springs.
But two Baton Rouge-area men did take the lectern, brothers Brennan and Baco Romero of Plaquemine, and argued that the plant furthers the kind of jobs the region has counted on for years.
“I’d say this parish reminds me a lot of the parish I grew up with, and we rely on the same things. You know a lot of new facilities came to Plaquemine and a lot of people were against them, but it is how we make our livelihood,” said Brennan Romero, who works for Performance Contractors, which is working on the project.
A man from the audience shouted, “sellout,” as Romero finished. Others applauded for him.
St. Charles Clean Fuels is expected to generate up to 1,056 construction jobs during the peak of the four-year buildout, in addition to permanent and spinoff jobs.
The facility would lead to $185 million in local and state tax revenue during construction and nearly $46 million in combined tax revenue in the first year of its operation in 2028, according to the company’s estimates.
David J. Mitchell can be reached at dmitchell@theadvocate.com.
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