It's another stunning defeat for chemical giant Wanhua. The Westwego City Council listened to residents rail against the proposed $500-million chemical storage and distillation facility planned for the Kinder Morgan site on the Mississippi River in the community.
The vote came following a presentation from Wanhua's U.S. CEO Eduardo Do Val. Do Val reportedly couldn't provide adequate questions about the plant's operations, safety features, or about the chemical the plant would distill into a number of chemical components for product manufacturing.
City Councilmember Glenn Green told the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate, "When we questions he couldn't answer, or didn't want to answer, that got my attention. I wasn't comfortable after that."
An audience member commented, "He came here unprepared on purpose."
Despite the prospect of 75 full time jobs and 500 jobs building the plant, residents were skeptical of the plants processing of chemicals like benzene and cyanide. To sweeten the project, Wanhua offered local schools a science and technology curriculum.
Wanhua has been trying to find a location in the U.S. for a plant to process the chemical MDI into the components that go into paint, shoes, insulation, and furniture padding and cars.
In the end it was the Councilmember Green who called for the vote on the project, which went down in defeat on a 5-nothing vote.
For Wanhua this is the third time a proposed plant along the Mississippi has gone down in defeat. Proposals to build in St. Gabriel and St. James Parishes were both turned back.