Thanh Truong / WWL-TV News Reporter

Members of a New Orleans East community who had protested a landfill on Chef Menteur were outraged Thursday when they saw debris still being dumped at the site, a day after Mayor Ray Nagin promised to temporarily shut it down.

WWL-TV

File photo of protests regarding the opening of a New Orleans East landfill.

Residents said they felt insulted when they saw the trucks going in and out of the landfill, despite what Nagin had pledged.

“We are suspending dumping for 72 (business) hours at the New Orleans East location,” Nagin said Wednesday.

When Eyewitness News asked the drivers hauling debris if they knew of a moratorium on dumping, they responded by saying it was business as usual.

For weeks, Pastor Vien Ngyuen’s church members protested Nagin’s decision to open the landfill less than two miles from their homes.

At a closed door meeting Wednesday with Pastor Vien, Nagin agreed to have the dumping stopped, and both sides would then send in their own inspectors to test the landfill for health hazards.

Vien said Thursday he felt betrayed.

"We thought we had reached a certain understanding, and then he announced it to all of us, apparently now he has went back on his word or just didn't carry them out," said Vien.

When Eyewitness News asked Mayor Nagin to explain why there were still trucks going in and out of the landfill on Thursday, he responded, “The executive order was signed today, and it is going to be delivered to the Corps and everybody associated by 3 p.m. today.”

Eyewitness News called the company running the landfill, and as of 4 p.m. they had received no order to stop.

"It's just FEMA, it's the Corps of Engineers, its government, the paperwork just has to flow and it'll get stopped," said Nagin.

Nagin said he would honor his promise, one that Vien said the mayor cannot break.

"For him to go back not only on us but the rest of the city, that I would submit would be political suicide," said Vien.

Eyewitness News tried to contact the Army Corps of Engineers to see if it had received the mayor’s executive order, but phone calls were not returned.

Waste Management, the company handling the landfill, said as of 6:00 p.m. thursday, they still had not received an order to stop.