‘I want out’: how a natural gas project along the Gulf coast is upending residents’ lives

The construction site of the Venture Global LNG plant next to the Mississippi River, on 17 October 2023. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

When America’s newest gas giant arrives in your town, the world turns upside down.

Residents of Plaquemines parish, 70 miles south of New Orleans, say they have faced unreliable essential services, water shortages and impassible traffic since 2021, when Venture Global began construction on what will become one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) hubs.