Opponents of a plan to build a $210 million power plant in New Orleans East have filed their second lawsuit to try to stop the project, this time accusing the City Council of illegally limiting public access to meetings at which the plan was approved.
Critics from six groups who have opposed Entergy New Orleans’ plan to build a natural gas-fired plant claimed in the suit filed Thursday in Civil District Court that the council shut out at least 100 people from its Feb. 21 and March 8 meetings.
The council heard testimony on the proposal for several hours on both occasions, though rules governing how many people could be crowded into the meeting rooms did prevent some residents from getting inside.
Plaintiffs in the case include the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Earthjustice, VAYLA New Orleans, Justice and Beyond, 350-New Orleans and the Sierra Club.
The suit was assigned to Judge Kern Reese.
"Louisian has a strong constitutional right for citizens to observe and participate in a public meeting," said Bill Quigley, an attorney for the plaintiffs. "Unfortunately, the council violated that law repeatedly. ... This was obviously a fake public process."
The new suit is the second legal challenge to the project filed by the same groups. The first accused the council of violating the critics’ due process rights by failing to seriously consider alternatives to the plant.
Entergy and the council have said the 128-megawatt plant would provide a needed backup source of power for the city in emergencies and times of peak demand and that alternatives endorsed by the critics wouldn’t provide enough power.
The critics have said Entergy should instead help residents reduce their electricity demands, integrate more solar power into its grid and overhaul its transmission lines to boost their reliability.
Entergy has said the new plant should be complete by January 2020. Barring a court order blocking the project, the company may begin construction once it receives necessary clearance from the h Department of Environmental Quality.
The new lawsuit accuses the council of violating the open meetings law because New Orleans police asked dozens of critics to wait outside until the crowds had thinned inside the packed meeting rooms at the Pan American Life Center on Poydras Street in February and in City Hall in March.
It also claims that Entergy employees and supporters were allowed to enter those meetings and another October meeting about the plant, while the utility's critics were initially barred. Many attendees who had no way of observing the meetings' proceedings eventually left, according to the suit.
Fire code rules prohibit the council from overfilling its meeting rooms.
The council said it heard from all those who wanted to speak on the issue for more than six hours at its February committee meeting and another eight hours at the March meeting of the full council.
Attorneys for the council have yet to respond to either lawsuit. The council did, however, vote 6-1 Thursday to deny the groups' official request for a reconsideration of the vote authorizing the plant. The groups' first lawsuit had been stalled until the council ruled on that request.
Councilwoman Susan Guidry, who last month cast the lone vote against building the plant, was the lone dissenting vote again Thursday.
"I think that we made a safe decision, but not a wise one," she said.
Council President Jason Williams heaped scorn on the reconsideration request and the lawsuits on Thursday.
"I am confident that our decision will be upheld at (Civil District Court) because of the care and time that was taken to make it over the course of more than a year," he said.