By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

BATON ROUGE — An attempt by a Garyville-area group to halt construction of a tank farm in that region of St. John Parish was shot down by a state judge on Thursday afternoon.

State Judge Curtis Callaway dismissed a request by Garyville attorney Geri Baloney, on behalf of Save Our Neighborhood, to halt the construction of the tank farm by Safeland Storage, LLC.

The tank farm is planned for 400 acres to the west side of the Garyville/Mt. Airy area, and had recently gotten its DEQ permits, which were the final hurdle before construction was to begin.

Baloney had sought an injunction to halt construction, claiming other areas were not considered for the tank farm, while questioning the validity of the DEQ permits. Additionally, the question of whether the tank farm would kill a waterway diversion project through that land was also raised.

However, Callaway said plaintiffs failed to show any irreparable harm by the granting of the DEQ permits, allowing the project to move forward, although there will still be a final hearing in May to review the merits of the DEQ water and air permits.

St. John Attorney Danny Becnel, who had recently been added to the legal team by Safeland, attended the hearing and said there was simply no evidence to support the request to the court.

“They had no evidence of anything Safeland has done wrong,” Becnel said. “Mrs. Baloney talked about racial inequities in hiring at Marathon, sugar cane in her backyard, flooding in the Garyville area, and many other things that had nothing to do with whether these permits should have been approved.

“When you ask for a stay, you better come to court with some serious evidence of what was wrong in getting those permits, but she had no evidence to speak of,” he added.

Baloney did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The lawsuit delayed construction of the project by approximately a month, and Becnel was instructed by Safeland to prepare lawsuits against all those involved in the delay. He was prepared to file multi-million dollar suits on Friday seeking damages for delays, and for defamation, even including Baloney under a civil RICO lawsuit for conspiracy. However Becnel, who was given the authority to make the decision on filing or not by Safeland, said he did not want to do that unless forced to do so.

“Right now we are leaving it up to Mr. Becnel to decide if he thinks Safeland should seek damages for these delays,” Paul Beaullieu, manager for Safeland, said. “We have a great amount of respect for his ability in these cases. He is a brilliant lawyer, and we will follow his advice.”

Becnel said he has decided to hold off filing the lawsuits, which include a civil RICO suit for conspiracy, since he just wants the matter to fade away so construction of the tank farm can begin.

“As I said, I don’t want to hurt these people,” he said. “So many of these Save Our Neighborhood people have been misinformed, and right now, if they persist to try and stop this project, we will be suing them all for millions. I don’t want to do that, and if they stop trying to fight this, we will not file any lawsuits against them. But if they persist with any more court action, we will file the suits immediately.”

Beaullieu called the court ruling a “major victory” for his group, and hopes the matter will now be dropped.

“We are obviously pleased with the judge’s ruling and are anxious to begin putting people to work constructing the facility,” he said. “We still have intentions to do a lot of good for the community of Garyville, and have no hard feelings about this. But at this point, we need to move forward.”

The tank farm will be built on the property which runs from River Road to Airline Highway, and it will have a 600 foot buffer on all sides to keep it away from any residential area.

The project is a $300 million facility when all three phases are built, with Phase I set to have 27 tanks and cost $125 million.

“We just want the project to move forward so they can hire local people to work, and start paying a lot of tax money to the parish, which will further benefit the area,” Becnel said.