Water protectors at L'eau Est La Vie camp consistently disrupted construction of the BBP for most of 2018, causing delays and millions of dollars in added cost to the project.
[4] With the 2015 joint venture, Phase I of the project began with the construction of a 30-inch pipeline from Nederland, Texas to Lake Charles, Louisiana.
[8] Communities directly affected by the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (BBP) have expressed broad concerns about the interconnected threats of human health, environmental pollution, and impact on the fishing industry.
An early concern voiced by opponents to the pipeline was the lack of an escape route for area residents in the event of emergencies.
They also expressed frustration about the iniquity of people from the "brownest, poorest part of Louisiana" bearing the burden of a project whose profits they will not share,i.e.
As Energy Transfer's militaristic tactics of dealing with protest at its Dakota Access pipeline became public, such as the employment of security companies for aerial surveillance, radio eavesdropping and infiltration of camps as counterterrorism measures,[18] culminating in the attempt to build a conspiracy lawsuit, it demonstrated how it could scare protestors from further activism.
[7] Although the St James Parish council delayed its vote for the permit, it was eventually approved by a margin of 4-3 along racial lines, with the white majority prevailing.
[23][24] On Halloween, people went to the Louisiana Capitol demanding that Governor John Bel Edwards should require an environmental impact statement for the pipeline.
[28][29] By the end of that year, water protectors had purchased land in Rayne, Louisiana in the path of the BBP from which to stage resistance to the pipeline.
Cherri Foytlin, a leader of the water protector camp, reported a brick thrown through her window, her cat being poisoned, and being brutally beaten by two masked men outside her home.