Two months into a simmering dispute over a new landfill in a
heavily Vietnamese section of eastern New Orleans, the federal
government is sending a representative from a Commerce Department
program aimed at helping Asian-Americans in hopes of resolving the
tangle.
The action comes just over a week after the state Senate passed a
resolution, which has no force of law, that "urges" the state
Department of Environmental Quality to test the "actual contents" of
the Chef Menteur landfill. Whether the state plans to heed that
request was unclear.
The debate has revolved largely around community concerns about
what, precisely, is going into the landfill, which by law may accept
only construction and demolition debris. Though normally benign, the
definition of such debris was dramatically expanded by the state
after Katrina, leading opponents to fear the landfill could pollute
the nearby community as well as the adjacent Bayou Sauvage National
Wildlife Refuge.
Heightening those fears, leaders of the anti-landfill movement
have been unable to get city and state regulators or the landfill's
operator, Waste Management, to agree to allow them to test the
material in the landfill itself. Instead, regulators and Waste
Management have proposed testing material that is slated to be taken
there.
Though the dispute might seem technical, it could dramatically
change the results. The landfill's operators are likely to argue
that toxic materials in debris piles would have been screened out by
spotters and thus should not count in results, while
environmentalists will make the opposite argument.
City officials and landfill opponents both have performed tests
on debris piles, but neither side has announced any results yet.
Today at 11 a.m., opponents plan to hold a rally at Mary Queen of
Vietnam Catholic Church, timed to coincide with the arrival of
Piyachat Terrell, deputy director of the White House's Asian
American and Pacific Islander Initiative. The initiative, which is
under the Commerce Department's umbrella, is intended to help link
Asian communities with federal programs.
After Terrell meets with local leaders, she is scheduled to meet
with DEQ officials. On Thursday she is supposed to help mediate a
gathering that will include local, state and federal officials,
along with community opponents.
However, a Commerce Department spokesman said Terrell's role is
not to make a decision in the matter but to facilitate cooperation
among the various parties. "She will have no role in deciding the
outcome," the official said.
Though landfill opponents hailed Terrell's deployment as a
positive sign, it was Chuck Carr Brown, assistant secretary of the
DEQ, who requested a mediator. DEQ spokesman Darin Mann said Brown's
request is part of an ongoing commitment to "reach out to the
community."
"Bringing Ms. Terrell here was our idea," Mann said.
"We're hoping to have some positive dialogue with the
Vietnamese-American community. The window of dialogue is
open and remains open"
But community leaders are mistrustful of DEQ, saying
the agency's actions have always favored the landfill
over the community, starting with the fast-tracking of
its permit earlier this year. They fear the site will
stigmatize their area, which has been among the most
active in eastern New Orleans since Katrina.
State Sen. Ann Duplessis, D-New Orleans, who
sponsored the resolution urging testing, noted that the
Chef landfill is the third landfill to be permitted in
eastern New Orleans, an area that also is dotted with
unofficial dumps.
"By them placing another facility here, there's
starting to become a concentration of these kinds of
facilities," she said. "We're disturbed by that."
At a minimum there should be tests performed to put
residents' minds at ease, she said.
"We need to get a better comfort level about what's
being put in that landfill," Duplessis said. "They had
agreed to do testing of soil, water and air. They did
the water testing and the air testing, all of which came
out OK, but with the actual soil testing, the agreement
broke down, and that's why more of a red flag is thrown
in. What is the problem? Something isn't right."
But Mayor Ray Nagin, who used emergency authority to
grant the landfill's operator a zoning waiver allowing
it to open, said Monday that he felt the testing
protocols proposed by Waste Management were
satisfactory. Nagin ordered the landfill shut last month
while the various parties attempted to agree on testing
methods, but he allowed it to reopen after negotiations
broke down.
. . . . . . .
Gordon Russell can be reached at grussell@timespicayune.com
or (504) 826-3347.
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