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Gulf Coast Community Residents Participate in BP Landfill Waste Community Training in Avondale, Louisiana |
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Community Outreach Workshops
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 September 27, 2011 - In response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice has partnered with communities along the Gulf Coast monitoring waste disposed in landfills near communities of color. A multi-state community training was held Saturday, September 17, 2011, in Avondale, Louisiana to train community residents in waste tracking, landfill truck traffic monitoring, and air emissions. As of November 7, 2010, landfills in areas where the minority population is larger than fifty (50%) of the total population received 33, 259 tons or 40.3% of the waste from the BP spill.
Residents were engaged in interactive workshop sessions including topics on Deepwater Horizon waste tracking, protecting human rights after the oil disaster, and adverse health effects of air emissions from landfill diesel trucks, and community resilience and landfill operations. Residents learned about a range of environmental hazards associated with landfills.
Community training participants were asked to describe the hazards they have observed in their community. They indicated the presence of foul odors from nearby landfill(s), sewage plants, various fires, and chemical plants. They also mentioned water pollution, illegal dumping, and vectors (rats, mosquitoes, and other rodents) as hazards of concern. (READ MORE)
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New Orleans East Brownfields Survey |
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Surveys
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 Changes in New Orleans‘ economic and industrial landscape over time — accelerated by the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — have resulted in increasing numbers of unoccupied former commercial and industrial sites throughout the city. Many of these sites — known as brownfields — are challenged with possible environmental contamination, inhibiting their reuse and exacerbating problems associated with blight and vacancy.
Failing to address these sites through remediation and redevelopment can be hazardous to public and environmental health, reduce property values (and, by extension, tax revenues), and limit opportunities for economic growth and employment (Brownfields Center 2010). Many New Orleans neighborhoods were severely impacted by the storm and suffer acutely from blighted, vacant, and potentially hazardous brownfield sites.
Local, regional, state, and federal programs exist that focus on addressing brownfields and bringing them back into commerce. However, in order for these programs to work effectively there must first be an accurate list of potentially contaminated sites that may be eligible for grant assistance. To this end, the development of a comprehensive brownfield inventory is essential to comprehensive planning. (see full report) |
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Oil Spill Commission Landmark Report on Gulf Disaster Proposes Urgent Reform of Industry and Government Practices to Overhaul US Offshore Drilling Safety |
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Latest News
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 President Obama appointed the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Commission to investigate the causes of the Deepwater Horizon Oil disaster. The Commission found that the Deepwater Horizon disaster was foreseeable and preventable. Errors and misjudgments by three major oil drilling companies- BP, Halliburton, and Transocean – played key roles in the disaster. Government regulation was ineffective, and failed to keep pace with technology advancements in offshore drilling. (see full report) |
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New Orleans East Residents Remain Vigilant Concerning Proposed Risky Waste Technology |
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News
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In partnership with Air Products, Sun Energy, through a joint venture company, Louisiana Gasification Facility LLC (LGF), proposes to build, own and operate what they call an “Energy From Waste” (“EfW”) facility” at 3900 Jourdan Road, New Orleans, Louisiana in the New Orleans Regional Business Park.
The LGF would use “Plasma Arc Gasification” technology supplied by Westinghouse Plasma Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alter NRG. Sun Energy and other companies promoting plasma arc and gasification all claim that the technology is not incineration. If you relied on company websites, diagrams and process descriptions, you might not realize that these are indeed two-stage incinerators disguised as “renewable energy” technologies.
While there are differences with traditional incineration technologies, the plasma arc technology proposed by Sun Energy involves incineration/combustion as an essential component. One difference is that while traditional incinerators burn the waste directly, plasma arc heats the waste in the gasification stage, creating a synthetic gas (“Syngas”). Key to the process and technology proposed by Sun Energy is the burning of the Syngas in a turbine or boiler. This combustion process is the incineration that results in emissions of toxic and criteria pollutants into the air. These emissions would include dioxins and furans, highly toxic chemicals linked to a wide range of profound illnesses including cancer, reproductive, developmental and immunological diseases. Plasma Arc Facilities around the country have been plagued with failed equipment and no merit of energy produced from the Syngas Technology has been found.
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