Since 2015, Sharon Lavigne has been seeking environmental justice—for herself and her community of St. James, Louisiana. Lavigne learned then that two petrochemical companies, Louisiana Methanol and Yuhuang Chemical, a subsidiary of Chinese chemical giant Shangdong Yuhuang Chemical Co., received permits to build chemical plants shortly after the local government surreptitiously changed the land use rules in 2014 with little to no public notice. 

Now Lavigne is taking on one of the world’s biggest petrochemical corporations: Formosa. She’s trying to stop the Taiwanese-based company from building a $9.4 billion plastic manufacturing complex about a mile and a half from her front door. 

“If I stay in my home, and that plant is built, it will kill all of us,” she told me. But she has no intention of moving. She is determined to stop the project, whatever sacrifices she has to make. “I’m going to fight Formosa until I don’t have a single breath left in me.”

Lavigne and members of the group she founded, Rise St. James, have repeatedly asked their parish council to rescind the land use permit the parish’s planning commission granted to Formosa on October 30, 2018. At a meeting on January 15, 2020, lawyers representing Rise offered grounds for the council to rescind the permit, arguing that Formosa misled the council about the impact of the plant's future emissions.

“The council should reopen and rescind its approval because Formosa appears to have misled the parish that it altered its site design to minimize the risk of harm to the elementary school and church that are about a mile away,” Corinne Van Dalen, staff attorney with Earthjustice, told the council. 

Rise St. James and other environmental groups also sued the US Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year in a challenge against the wetlands permits it issued to Formosa over the impact on the environment and historic sites.

Lavigne is a recently retired special education teacher turned full-time activist. She draws her strength and inspiration from her belief that God is on her side. She is doing all she can to spread the word about the environmental injustice facing her community and enlisting anyone she can to join her in the fight for clean air.

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Sharon Lavigne at a St. James Parish on January 21, 2020, where Rise St. James asked the council to rescind its permit. A Lawyer from Earthjustice and the Center for Constitutional Rights and a representative from Tulane's Environmental Law clinic addressed the council, offering them legal reasons why they should rescind the land-use permit previously granted to Formosa, including a report showing the site has human remains on it that likely belonged to slaves.

NuStar Energy oil tanks and train terminal in St. James, Louisiana, next to the community on Burton Lane.

Lavigne with members of the Coalition Against Death Alley (CADA) on the steps of the state capitol on June 3, 2019, at the end of a five-day protest.

Lavigne speaking at a July 9, 2019, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality public hearing on whether to approve the 15 air permits for Formosa. The permits were granted in January 2020.

Lavinge holding nurdles (small plastic pellets used to make plastic goods) mixed with natural matter. The nurdles were collected by Diane Wilson and others near a Formosa plant in Texas that discharged them into waterways. 

March on Burton Lane during a Rise for Cancer Alley event, September 8, 2018.

Sharon Lavinge and Barbara Washington outside the state capitol after attending the Congressional Convening on Environmental Justice on June 26, 2019.

Sharon Lavigne and Milton Cayette Jr, her brother, at his home in St. James.

Nelson Mandela blanket on a chair in Lavigne’s living room. 

Lavigne, Robert Taylor, and Rev. Barbar in front of the Denka/DuPont plant.

Lavigne at her daughter's home in Convent, Louisiana, 2019.