A federal judge dismissed without prejudice a lawsuit challenging Kaohsiung City, Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group's subsidiary FG LA LLC's wetlands permit for its complex in St. James Parish, La., after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended the permit.
FG is continuing its work to move the project forward.
"In responding to the litigation," the Corps identified "issues" with a portion of its permit analysis "related to the Corps' alternatives analysis under the Clean Water Act," it said in its findings for the suspension.
The Army Corps is now reevaluating FG's permit while "certain activities related to the project in the parish" will continue "despite the temporary suspension and reevaluation," Janile Parks, director of community and government relations for FG, told Plastics News.
"Those activities, including FG's work on local water line relocation and improvements underway in St. James Parish, have resumed and are going well," Parks said. "Improvements near the project site and public water system lines … will reduce risks to the public, the land and the environment and will allow FG to stabilize the site, pending Corps reevaluation … a process which the Corps has indicated will focus on the prior alternatives analysis.
"FG continues to cooperate with the Corps throughout this process and sincerely hopes it's permit reevaluation will be handled in a thorough and expeditious manner so the permit analysis will be even stronger once the reevaluation is complete," Parks added.