(The Center Square) − Louisiana’s industrial giants, ports and local governments are facing an increasingly coordinated barrage of lawsuits from small but determined groups.

From St. James to Cameron Parish, environmental justice organizations have dragged parish commissions, global corporations and state agencies into court.

One group, The Descendants Project, a nonprofit based in St. John the Baptist Parish, has filed at least three lawsuits in recent years over a Formosa Plastics zoning dispute. One targeted the parish government itself, while the other targeted Formosa. A third lawsuit related to the same dispute was filed against the Port of South Louisiana.

The disputed zoning change, passed unanimously in 1990, reclassified land in Wallace from residential to heavy industrial. The Descendants Project says the move was tainted by corruption tied to then-Parish President Lester Millet and aimed at benefiting Formosa Plastics.

The land is home to the graves of former enslaved Blacks. Their names were Simon, Betsy, Rachel, Stanley and Harry.

In July, The Descendants Project and Inclusive Louisiana filed suit against Formosa, saying that Formosa is violating the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by owning and controlling the bodies.

While such lawsuits are sometimes well intentioned, they are “at least in part by a desire simply to burden the defendant or the defendant’s industry in some way,” said Robert Stilson of the Capital Research Center. “This might be through causing delays or increased costs, scoring public relations points, or attempting to achieve through litigation what those activists have been unable to achieve through legislation”

The Descendants Project also sued the Port of South Louisiana, accusing its board of secretly predetermining a vote on Greenfield’s grain elevator deal through email – a violation, they allege, of the state’s open meetings law.

Many of the lawsuits across the state include the same groups.

RISE St. James, Inclusive Louisiana, and the Mount Triumph Baptist Church, represented by the Tulane University Environmental Law Clinic, are pressing their case against St. James Parish and Koch. Koch and parish officials have asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to shut the case down and revive approvals for an expansion at Koch’s methanol plant.

The same three groups, also represented by the Tulane law clinic, have a separate lawsuit against the parish saying it “discriminates against them by directing hazardous industrial facility development towards majority-Black districts and Black churches, where their members and congregants live.”

And just last week, another front opened in Cameron Parish, as reported by The Advocate. The Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Sierra Club, and Environmental Integrity Project filed suit against the state Department of Environmental Quality for granting Venture Global a permit to build its Calcasieu Pass 2 liquefied natural gas facility.

“This company has been a bad neighbor and continually pollutes the air we breathe, while generating billions of dollars in profits,” resident and Sierra Club member John Allaire said in announcing the lawsuit.

The Sierra Club chapter of Louisiana, an environmental lobbying and legal group, has a long list of ongoing litigation against various big businesses.

“It’s disappointing to see nationally-backed activists try to litigate their agenda instead of working with local communities to understand the positive impact U.S. LNG brings to Louisiana and the world,” Venture Global wrote The Center Square in a statement.

The Bucket Brigade has also turned its firepower on New Orleans, suing the city and a development district in 2024 over a tax break deal for Shell Oil. The group says it was rushed through illegally and unfairly shifted tax burdens onto residents.

Taken together, the lawsuits reflect the strategy of a small but interconnected network of nonprofit groups that have reshaped environmental battles in south Louisiana.

The Descendants Project and Inclusive Louisiana have focused on challenging heavy industry expansion in St. John and St. James parishes, where descendants of enslaved people live in neighborhoods overshadowed by industrial development.

The Bucket Brigade has become one of the most visible opponents of industry in “Cancer Alley,” winning national recognition for forcing the cancellation of projects like the billion-dollar Wanhua chemical plant.

The Bucket Brigade, founded more than 20 years ago, has broadened its reach from oil refineries to liquefied natural gas export terminals, running campaigns that identify and train local residents to speak before federal regulators, track accidents, and rally community resistance.

In its filings, the group says it is building an “early warning network” across parishes most targeted for industrial growth, particularly majority-Black communities in St. James and St. John.

“Lawsuits against our anchor industries send the opposite message and harm the very communities that rely on these job creators,” Will Green Will Green, LABI President & CEO, told The Center Square. “These cases don’t solve problems; they drive away jobs and investment while enriching lawyers.”

Some of these nonprofits are being bankrolled by an out-of-state foundation with an ironic stake in Big Oil. The Elizabeth B. and Arthur E. Roswell Foundation Inc., which as of 2023 held more than 6,800 shares of BP stock, has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Louisiana’s grassroots groups.

Tax records show the Roswell Foundation gave $33,000 to the Descendants Project, $76,000 to the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and tens of thousands more to groups like Jubilee Justice in Alexandria, Rural Roots Louisiana, and Voice of the Experienced.

The foundation committed even larger future payments, including $90,000 to the Descendants Project, $120,000 to the Bucket Brigade, and $120,000 to Rural Roots Louisiana.

Cancer rates in Louisiana are among the highest in the nation and are often attributed to irresponsible business practices in the petrochemical industry, which has a massive presence in Louisiana.

These organizations were “founded by and serving the descendant community of enslaved people who forcibly worked and died on plantations in the parishes along the Mississippi River in Louisiana under the cruel and inhumane system of slavery in the U.S. South,” one lawsuit states.

“Plaintiffs bring this action to protect, care for, and preserve the final resting places of the people who were enslaved and died on the Buena Vista Plantation in St. James Parish, Louisiana,” the suit continues.

“The right path forward is smart, responsible policy that allows our industries to grow while being good stewards of our environment—not costly lawsuits that weaken competitiveness and threaten Louisiana livelihoods,” Green continued.