'This land killed my child' - Settlement offers little relief in Desire
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA) - September 27, 2014

Author/Byline: Richard A. Webster, Staff writer
Section: NATIONAL
Page: A01
Readability: >12 grade level (Lexile: 1490)
A New Orleans neighborhood built on a toxic dump site more than 40 years ago could soon receive financial compensation after a 21year legal battle with the city, the local housing authority and four insurance companies.
But residents said the amount of money being offered will do little to make up for the emotional pain, loss of property and health problems
that have ravaged the Desire community.
A judge in February will hold a hearing on the fairness of a $14.2 million settlement offered by some of the insurance companies to more
than 7,000 people involved in a class-action lawsuit. If the deal is approved, money would begin to go out to plaintiffs in May.
But the court has said plaintiffs' attorneys can be paid up to half the settlement, which would leave $7.1 million for residents.
Linda Camp has lived in the neighborhood her entire life. She said she remembers playing outside as a child. The air would be thick with
smoke from toxic waste being burned in the dump. The fires would burn for days, she said.
Four years ago, Camp's 37-year-old daughter Christie Cowart, who grew up in the same community, died of a rare form of breast cancer.
Camp blames the city.
"I feel without a doubt that this killed my child, this land killed my child," she said. "They just buried another young lady. She was in her
early 40s and had the same cancer my daughter did."
Civil District Court Judge Tiffany Chase will preside over the Feb. 17 fairness hearing between the insurance companies and attorneys for
Camp and other plaintiffs. The city and the Housing Authority of New Orleans continue to fight the lawsuit through the appeals process.
Joshua Allen, a resident of the neighborhood, said a few thousand dollars won't help people relocate, pay their medical bills or bring back
loved ones they have already lost to cancer.
"I hope no other community will have to suffer the injustices our community has endured," Allen said. "And I hope the city has learned
from this that they should not build residential communities on top of toxic dumps."
Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Gregg Fortner, executive director of HANO, toured the site this week at the invitation of residents. Allen said he
was glad Landrieu cared enough to listen to the community but doesn't know if anything will come from the visit.
"For 21 years, we've been promised help by different administrations and those promises have been broken," Allen said. "Is this mayor
actually going to do something? That's yet to be seen."
The mayor's office didn't respond to requests for comment.
In 1971, the city and HANO built and opened the Press Park townhomes on the site of a former garbage dump known as the Agricultural
Street Landfill. The city operated it from 1909 to 1958, and again in 1965 to dispose of waste created by Hurricane Betsy.
The area is bordered by Almonaster and West Higgins boulevards, North Louisa Street and the Peoples Avenue Canal.
When the city built homes on the site it didn't do anything to remediate the property and didn't tell future residents about its history,
according to the lawsuit.
In 1980, a community of 67 single-family homes, known as Gordon Plaza, was also built on the site and, again, no one warned potential
homebuyers about the landfill.
Joan Davis, 57, grew up in the neighborhood and said she played in the contaminated dirt as a child. At the age of 40 she was diagnosed
with breast cancer. Four years later, she got rectal cancer. She is now fighting lung cancer and said her bones are deteriorating from
constant chemotherapy treatments.
A 2003 report by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals determined that the incidents of breast cancer in the community were
50 percent higher than other areas for a 10-year period ending in 1997.

 The community finally learned the truth in 1993, when the Environmental Protection Agency performed tests on the soil and determined it
was contaminated with 149 toxic and hazardous materials of which more than 40 cause cancer.
The next year the EPA declared that the community was a Superfund site, one of the most toxic in the country.
In 1993 nine residents filed a lawsuit against the city, HANO, the Orleans Parish School Board -- which built Moton Elementary School on
the site in 1986 -- and four HANO insurers.
Judge Nadine Ramsey, now a city councilwoman, ruled in favor of the residents in 2005, awarding the nine plaintiffs more than $674,000
in damages.
In 2009, more than 7,500 people who lived in the area between 1971 and 2001 signed up to take part in the class-action lawsuit. The
EPA remediated the site in 2001 and later retested the soil after Hurricane Katrina, again giving it a passing grade.
Their cases went to court last year, and again the court ruled in favor of the residents.
The city and HANO appealed the decision with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Attorney Linda Harang, who represents the residents, said the case has dragged on for more than two decades because the city and
HANO have fought the residents at every turn, refusing to accept any responsibility for their actions. Even if the court's ruling against them
is upheld, state law prevents parties from executing judgments against municipal agencies, she said.
"The city of New Orleans is supposed to be protecting and serving all of us, and you'd hope one day it would fix this problem it created in
1970 when, along with HANO, it agreed to take a former landfill and turn it into a neighborhood," Harang said. "Am I optimistic that's going
to happen? No, I'm not."
PullQuote: "I hope no other community will have to suffer the injustices our community has endured. And I hope the city has learned from
this that they should not build residential communities on top of toxic dumps."
joshua allen
neighborhood resident
Record: MERLIN_19821058
Copyright: Copyright, 2014, The Times-Picayune Publishing Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used by NewsBank with Permission.