Courtney Naquin, courtney.naquin@sierraclub.org
Lake Charles, LA — Yesterday, frontline leaders and shrimpers from across the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast joined a flotilla of pontoon and shrimp boats on Prien Lake in Lake Charles, to call for an end to the reckless LNG expansion that is polluting their neighborhoods and waters. The groups gathered on the Calcasieu River in front of the Golden Nugget as the biggest fracked gas corporations in the world entered the casino for the Americas LNG and Gas Summit and Exhibition.
Watch a recording of the livestream of the teach-in here. See photos here. Credit for photos must be made to either Carlos Silva for Louisiana Bucket Brigade or Alexander Hamilton for Sierra Club.
There were in total 17 boats captained by Gulf shrimpers, oyster men and local environmental advocates. The demonstration was held between Prien Lake Park in Lake Charles and the Golden Nugget Casino, where the summit is being held and will continue until November 4.
After the demonstration, community leaders held a teach-in in Prien Lake Park, where members from across the Texas and Louisiana Gulf shared their stories and spoke about how polluting industry has impacted their lives and why LNG exports pose a threat to their communities and environment. Community leaders and allies closed out the event by celebrating their work and mutual solidarity with zydeco music and creole food.
Teach-in speakers included Christa Mancias of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of South Texas; residents from Mossville, a freedman’s town neighboring Lake Charles that was poisoned and bought out by the chemical giant Sasol; Travis Dardar, a shrimper and fisherman in Cameron and a native of Isle de Jean Charles, an Indigenous community’s whose land has shrunk from 35 miles to 1 mile due to industry activity and climate change; representatives from St. James Parish, a historically Black community located in “Cancer Alley”; and many more. Watch the full teach-in video to listen to all speakers.
Seven of the ten operating LNG export facilities in the United States are in the Gulf Coast. There are twenty-four more new facilities or expansions proposed for the Texas and Louisiana Gulf - and four others under construction.
Gulf Coast cities in Texas and Louisiana are some of the most polluted and industrialized areas in the country. They are also the most impacted by rapid land loss and increasingly frequent and intense hurricanes. Climate change and pollution is disproportionately impacting Black and Indigenous communities, people of color and low-income people in the Gulf South.
“Enough is enough. For too long extractive industries have come into our communities and taken our land, our water, our resources, our homes, our families and our friends. They haven’t done anything but taken from us and it’s time that we take back,” said Roishetta Ozane, founder of the Vessel Project and the Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas Organizing Director with Healthy Gulf. “Take back our power, our resources, and our community. The fight starts with us. We are not your sacrifice. We demand environmental justice, climate Justice, and social Justice now."
“The impact of the changes the increase in air pollution have brought to the low-income communities in our area are incalculable. The loss of marshlands have meant that the hurricanes we have now bring more substantial damages to our homes. The unhoused, living outdoor or in buildings with no power and working outdoors, in many cases, suffer from the extremes in heat and cold that accompany climate change, which is exacerbated by the methane released from LNG producing facilities," said Cindy Robertson, a Southwest Louisiana Resident and founder of the micah 6:8 mission, issued the following statement. “The rate of heart disease in our low-income and often elderly population is affected by particulate matter spewing from our petrochemical complexes in southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas. The workers in these plants suffer also. We must protect our neighbors, communities and God's Creation.”
“The LNG export industry is taking money out of US consumers’ pockets while enriching themselves and their shareholders. In return we receive higher domestic prices for our energy, goods and services as our communities and the local environments receive an increased dose of cancer causing chemicals in addition to burnt and unburnt hydrocarbons,” said John Allaire, a conservationist and retired environmental engineer in Southwest Louisiana, whose property is currently impacted by Venture Global LNG and further threatened by the proposed Commonwealth LNG export terminal. “We are told that the loss of our coastal wetlands and habitats’ and increased domestic pollution is an equal trade off to improve the international environment and provide ‘green energy.’ Not everybody remembers when the tobacco industry paid movie stars, sports figures, celebrities and physicians to espouse the benefits of their products. The tobacco industry’s efforts are well-documented as part of world history. I for one find the parallels similarly striking.”
“I’m really grateful to Roishetta and The Vessel Project for being able to visualize and create such incredible community-forward events consistently in Southwest Louisiana and for her identifying the importance of working together with us in Southeast Texas - across the Louisiana-Texas border - to accomplish similar goals,” said Ariana Akbari, an environmental educator and Big Thicket Conservationist from the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. "We share so much culturally, economically, and in terms of landscapes (and the often petrochemical-based issues that impact all of these features) that it feels very strengthening to be able to know that we’re not alone and with each other we can make a greater impact on our communities for the better.
“Yesterday, we came from frontlines affected by a greedy and hateful extractive industry. We stood together in one voice to say: enough is enough! We are angry and fed up with the total disrespect for the destruction of our sacred sites, of Mother Earth, communities of color, and those you continue to fish out of the waters,“ said Christa Mancias, tribal secretary and member of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of South Texas. “We don’t want anymore LNG here and not anywhere else. This extractive industry must understand where this may seem like a few, there are many more who are coming together to stand up to fight. We are not sacrifice zones anymore.”
“Executives at the Americas LNG Summit said that southwest Louisiana is ‘the heart of LNG country.’ We already have three of the entire nation’s LNG export terminals in just Cameron Parish. No other country in the nation has this many now; why in the world would we want to build more?” said Naomi Yoder, staff scientist with Healthy Gulf. “So a few people in Houston can make money hand over fist at the expense of our communities, our seafood, our wild marshes, our sportsman’s paradise? We need real jobs that benefit people’s health and the local and global ecosystem instead of plundering them. Enough is enough.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.