In the predominant African-American working class community of Wallace, one man says they need the proposed $400-million grain elevator project.
This is despite many of his neighbors lined up against the sprawling project saying it will disrupt and destroy historically significant African-American sites.
“Bill” Bienville Jackson says the small community should be rallying around the project.
“We need this. Not for me, but for the younger kids,” Jackson told the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate. “To bring jobs, industry, stores… It’s not growing over here.”
Residents of the community are divided by the project.
Located along the west bank of the river, the giant grain elevator complex would be a boon to the community where pickings are sparse.
Others opposed the elevators. They say the region would be choked in grain dust which would have negative effects on the health of the region.
More importantly they say the construction would disturb a graveyard where slaves are buried and their descendants live in the area.
A lawsuit from last year is still moving slowly through the courts to stop the project.
Jo Banner is a founder of the group behind the lawsuit, the Descendants Project.
“These decisions are huge… [The suit is] about protecting our history, our burial grounds and the culture of the area,” Banner says.
The defendant in the suit is Greenfield Holdings.
They’re on defense over the project, saying the modern facility will have a positive effect on Wallace.
Bringing jobs to the region and protecting lives through modern dust traps to ensure lives are not in danger from grain dust.
The elevator would bring a hundred new permanent jobs to the area. Building the elevator complex will generate 161 jobs and overall 270 new jobs will be created indirectly.
Greenfield is also aiming to launch in-house training programs at River Parishes Community College to help train the workforce.
“In every conversation we have with our neighbors, we’ve heard people’s hopes for a revitalized west bank. Good jobs are part of that, but so are stronger schools for kids, improved local health care for seniors, workforce training for our young people and helping farmers make ends meet,” said Tanisha Marshall the project manager for Greenfield.
So while the two sides fight it out in court, Bienville Jackson worries for his community which he sees as dying.
