It is an ominous sign of the growing influence of the conservation movement as Louisiana has traditionally been a safe haven for fossil fuel development.

In this way, the battle over coal has shifted from the Pacific Northwest, where four of six proposed shipping terminals have fallen by the wayside, to Louisiana.

The RAM Terminals project would source coal from Colorado, Wyoming’s Powder River Basin and the Illinois Basin for an 8 million tonne a year operation.

The company had proposed rail access up Highway 23 through Belle Chasse to Gretna via the New Orleans and Gulf Coast line.

A broad coalition of the Sierra Club, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, the Gulf Restoration Network and several residents challenged the coastal use permit on the grounds that it threatened the health of nearby residents and the construction of a federal-state freshwater diversion project that had been slated to run through Louisiana.

The Department of Natural Resources issued the permit for the facility on October 1 last year after RAM signed an agreement with the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority agreeing not to obstruct construction of the diversion project.

"The Department of Natural Resources failed to fully investigate alternative sites for the RAM Terminals project and the specific commodities that Armstrong Coal’s RAM Terminals intends to transport by rail in connection with the project,” Judge Kevin Connor said in his ruling.

The judge also questioned whether rail was even necessary for the project and said the state needed to “investigate alternative sites”.

He said RAM failed to specifically name an alternative site in its application, adding that the record “does not show that DNR exercised any independent evaluation of alternative sites”

"Instead, DNR deferred to RAM's assertion, unsupported by any actual evidence, that alternative sites were not feasible," the judge wrote.

“[While] DNR argues that any unforeseen environmental impacts caused by RAM Terminals' activities will be policed by the Department of Environmental Quality, the court in Save Ourselves found that an environmental agency's role as the representative of the public interest does not permit it to act as an umpire passively calling balls and strikes for adversaries appearing before it.

“The rights of the public must receive active and affirmative protection at the hands of the commission.”

Plaquemines resident Joyce Cornin, one of the locals who signed the suit against the permit, said the decision was “a blow to industry’s plan to put another huge coal terminal right in our back yard – and a blessing for the people who live here”

“Every time we have an east wind, we have dust coming over my property and you’re breathing that stuff. You can feel it on your skin, a coating like powder,” 63-yaer-old retiree Bryan Ernst told Climate Progress in October.

If the RAM terminal is built, Ernst said: “we’re going to be getting it from the north and the east.”