BATON ROUGE, La. — Two Louisiana environmental activists face felony charges for leaving a box of plastic pellets at a lobbyist's home in December.
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate reports that Anne Rolfes and Kate McIntosh of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade turned themselves into the Baton Rouge Police Department Thursday.
The plastic pellets, also called nurdles, were found in Texas bays near a plastic manufacturing facility owned by Formosa Plastics. Last year, a judge ruled in a lawsuit that alleged Formosa violated the Clean Water Act by discharging plastic pellets into bays near its plant in Point Comfort, Texas. The company agreed to pay $50 million in a settlement, according to the newspaper.
The box delivered to the lobbyist, who NOLA.com identified as Tyler Gray, had a note attached that said the pellets should not be removed from their packaging, left around children or pets and should be recycled responsibly.
"These are just some of the billions of nurdles that Formosa Plastics dumped into the coastal waters of the state of Texas," according to a copy of the note provided to the newspaper by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.
Rolfes was arrested on a charge of terrorizing, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. McIntosh faces a charge of principal to terrorizing. A lawyer representing the women said the charges have "zero legal merit."
Asked why police waited more than six months to make arrests, a police spokesman said detectives wanted to "respect the investigative process" and said that the coronavirus pandemic had slowed things.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana joined other groups in commending the charges against Rolfes and McIntosh. In a statement released, Friday organization leaders said the charges were in violation of the First Amendment.
“These trumped up charges are a brazen threat to the First Amendment rights of activists who have been peacefully and courageously speaking out against the environmental racism and injustice being perpetrated by the petrochemical industry in Cancer Alley,” said Alanah Odoms Hebert, ACLU of Louisiana executive director.
“It is reprehensible that the Baton Rouge Police Department would be complicit in what is clearly an attempt by a private corporation to retaliate against environmental activists who are fighting to protect their community from dangerous chemical pollutants," she said.
Odoms called for the charges to be dropped immediately, and said any officials who carried them out should be "held accountable."
"Formosa Plastics and their lobbyists may not like what these activists have to say, but they have no right to use the legal system to silence or punish them,” Hebert said.
Formosa spokesperson Janile Parks said that the company wasn't aware of the arrests or charges filed against Rolfes and McIntosh and only heard second hand about the incident.
"FG had nothing to do with these arrests," Parks said. "As we have stated before, this is a time for the community to stand unified in spirit. Throughout the development of our planned industrial complex in St. James Parish, FG has invested in the community and found success through cooperation. But there are some who do not see FG or The Sunshine Project in the same positive light and are doing everything they can to stop progress in St. James Parish, including spreading fear and confusion about our project. This appears to be yet another tactic in that effort.”
Rolfes and McIntosh were released from jail Thursday after posting $5,000 bond.
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