Jeff Kiefer has worked for the last year as a safety manager for a contractor helping to build fossil fuel company Venture Global’s huge LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facility in coastal Louisiana. For up to 60 hours a week, Kiefer supervises his team as they construct steel framing for the $21 billion Plaquemines Parish plant, which, when completed in 2026, will cover some 600 acres and be one of the biggest LNG producers in the country.

Kiefer, a 70-year-old longtime energy sector worker, describes the experience as “hell.”

“It’s terrible conditions,” he told Sierra in a conversation in mid-April. “Today was miserable,” because high winds were kicking up even more dust than usual. Kiefer said he had to shelter in his truck to avoid the dust getting into his eyes and mouth.

Kiefer has worked at other industrial facilities (though not ones under construction), and he finds the conditions on this job alarming by comparison. “It’s dirty; it’s dusty; it’s noisy,” he said.

His biggest concern is the vast amount of dust kicked up by “millions of trucks going in and out of there all day long.” Some of that dust contains fugitive particulates from the cement being produced at the site, according to Venture Global’s own environmental impact statement. Cement dust particles are hazardous to human health, in part because they typically contain silica, which can cause silicosis and lung cancer.

Sometimes, the cement dust is so thick that Kiefer can’t see across the worksite, and he keeps eyewash in his truck to flush out his eyes, which are left stinging on windy days. “I washed my eyes out four or five times today,” he said.

"Dust obscures the highway outside OnSite Concrete, which creates cement for Venture Global's Plaquemines LNG construction site, in November, 2023. (Credit: Healthy Gulf)

At the end of the day, when he blows his nose, dark grains of dust dot the tissue. Kiefer is aware the dust is a health hazard, but he hasn’t been provided protective breathing equipment, and while he sometimes wears a surgical mask, he doesn’t typically see any of the 60-plus workers in his area wear a respirator. “They don’t actually give out masks,” he said. They’re told to wear them “in certain areas, but really you should have one all over the place.”

Kiefer worries about hygiene in general, since “they don’t have a place to wash your hands.”

The cement dust is “a poison,” Kiefer said. “I try to sometimes wear a face mask, but when it's so hot out there, it’s hard.”

Kiefer noted that in addition to the on-site concrete batch plant and cement bin vents, and the thousands of trucks coming on and off site daily, workers within the construction site are mixing silica into mud to create temporary roadways for heavy equipment.

Kiefer suspects the dust is made worse by the 26-foot-high, 10-mile-long steel wall encircling the construction site.

“I think that wall was built for two reasons: so nobody could see what’s going on and, supposedly, to keep floodwaters out,” he said. A review of the floodwall by the former deputy director of LSU’s Hurricane Center found that Venture Global’s floodwall had “substantial design flaws.”

Other employees declined to speak with Sierra about working conditions at the site. Kiefer said that while “a lot of people” find the working conditions miserable, some are wary of retaliation, especially workers who may be reliant on a green card or a work visa. As a 50-year resident of Plaquemines Parish who says he’s seen LNG destroy his corner of “paradise,” Kiefer said he is willing to speak up, even though he knows it could result in the loss of his current job.

A Venture Global spokesperson responded to questions with a statement saying their “projects follow all federal, state, and local environmental and regulatory standards,” and that the site uses “mechanical dust suppression, water spray trucks, and extractor systems that operate throughout the day” to minimize dust. They also claimed “all of our workforce is provided the PPE (goggles, gloves, masks, respiratory protection, etc.) they need to perform their jobs safely. In addition, there are wash facilities—including numerous emergency eye wash stations—located across the Plaquemines LNG site.”

Knut Ringen, of the Department of Energy–funded Building Trades National Medical Screening Program, confirmed that even in the absence of carcinogenic silica, “any dust from cement is a serious concern, because you can develop other lung diseases, like COPD.”

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration notes that “if you see visible dust being generated, emissions of respirable silica are probably too high,” and that if dust suppression measures are “not controlling the visible dust, it is probably not controlling respirable dust either.” Venture Global’s EIS for the project states that its contractors will be using Portland cement, which typically does contain respirable crystalline silica.

Air measurements would be needed in order to confirm the presence of ambient cement dust. But the massive plant does require a staggering amount: A single shipment recently delivered 30,000 tons of bagged cement to the Plaquemines Parish facility.

Ringen noted the obligations of employers under OSHA in hazardous dust situations. If dust suppression measures are insufficient, the workplace is supposed to institute a respiratory protection program, which includes not just respirator provision, but also training and medical evaluations for employees.

“You know, it seems to me like these people don't care,” Kiefer said. “They just care about getting this plant up and running. I'm sure there's been people hurt in there that get ushered out. But you never hear about it.” Kiefer said he’s seen an ambulance with “sirens blaring” come on site four or five times.

On April 17, a crane collapsed at the worksite, injuring one worker. A different employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said that a worker was subsequently fired for taking photographs of the accident.

Even beyond the worksite, the dust from the massive construction project can be so dense it obscures visibility on the road. “You couldn’t even see to drive through it sometimes,” recalled fisher Henry McAnespy, a resident of nearby Lake Hermitage.

The dust follows Kiefer home, settling on his vehicle and the railings of his porch. Other Lake Hermitage residents also reported that the dust reaches their home, in contrast to Venture Global’s EIS statement predicting that “dust generated during construction would not travel farther than 0.25 miles.”

That dust is drifting around the sleepy surrounding fishing communities, settling into the water of pristine wetlands and vulnerable brackish marshes, some of the country’s leading seafood producers.

Justin Solet, an Indigenous leader and climate advocate, worries about what it means for the local seafood industry. “Ever since they started doing the construction,” he said, “they’ve noticed that a lot of the catch are dying in the traps—they’re drowning.” He said crabbers suspect “dust is falling into the marshes, basically suffocating the crabs in the traps.” Solet said it was reducing yields up to 40 percent; crabbers have since moved elsewhere. “These fishermen have done this for generations,” he said. “They are the pulse of the wetlands. They know when changes begin to happen, because they’re there every day.”

Construction, which began in 2021, is slated to go on for roughly six years. The EIS predicts that the project will produce 89 tons of dust in its first year, 128 tons the second year, and 165 tons the third year.

The dust could be compounded by heat and dryness, and now Louisiana is staring down another historically hot summer. Although water trucks spray down the roads to suppress dust, “that doesn’t last, especially in the summertime,” Kiefer said. “They’ll spray the roads down, and in half an hour … it’s all dusty again.”