Gordon Plaza residents continue to fight for relocation
7th October 2019 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
Americans who labor long and hard to buy a home are thought to be living the American Dream. But first-time homebuyers, who bought homes in Gordon Plaza, in the upper ninth ward of New Orleans, are living in an American Nightmare. Their homes were built on top of the Agriculture Street Landfill, which was used as the city’s dumpsite.
The impact of living on a toxic waste dump is on display at the Newcomb Art Museum on Tulane University’s campus. Visitors to the museum’s recently opened exhibition: The American Dream Denied, can feel the devastation and experience the plight of the Gordon Plaza homeowners as they fight for justice and relocation funds. “Their fight for relocation is urgent and ongoing. The most recent report from the Louisiana Tumor Registry found that cancer rates between 2001- 2015 within the census tract that includes Gordon Plaza had the second-highest sustained rates of cancer in the state of Louisiana,” exhibition documents show. The exhibition, which opened last week, will run through December 14, 2019.
This summer, Tulane students conducted video interviews with seven residents of Gordon Plaza: Marilyn Amar, Sheena Dedmond, Sam Egana, Lydwina Hurst, Jesse Perkins, Shannon Rainey, Lionel Youngblood, who spoke of being enslaved in their own homes.
Nearly half of Gordon Plaza residents currently take medication as a result of the stress of living on a landfill, and many have experienced asthma, bronchitis, sinus, emphysema, upper respiratory problems, dizziness and faintness, and cancer.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), based in Atlanta, Georgia, is a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health. In an October 1997, health consultation, the Agency found the rate of breast cancer in women from 1988-1993 was statistically significantly increased. There was a 60 percent excess of breast cancer in all females and in Black females in the census tract that was made up of the Agriculture Street Landfill.
“Sixteen people have died from cancer since Hurricane Katrina,” Gordon Plaza homeowner Shannon Rainey said. And three of the homeowners in the group fighting for relocation have cancer. Rainey, an administrative assistant at Bricolage Academy, was a receptionist for City of New Orleans during the Ernest “Dutch” Morial Administration, when she heard about the affordable housing project. “We were first-time homeowners and we were excited about the opportunity to own a home,” Rainey said. No one told us the land was contaminated.”
After testing the Gordon Plaza site, chemist and environmental expert Wilma Subra concluded, “Chemicals in the Agriculture Street Landfill comprise a toxic stew, with synergistic and cumulative impacts on the health and welfare.”
“The Agriculture Street Landfill is contaminated with arsenic, lead, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (“PAHs”) among more than 140 toxic materials, at least 49 of which are associated with cancer. There is no safe level of lead exposure with respect to developmental impacts on children. In addition, lead can damage every organ system, and the nervous system is especially sensitive to lead exposure. Arsenic is a known carcinogen and can harm health through ingestion, skin contact, and inhalation,” according to environmental tests of the site.
As a result of living on toxic soil and exposure to chemical air pollutants, residents are at risk for contracting various types of cancers, including cancer including lung, skin, and bladder cancer, pneumonia, chest pain, dermatitis, asthma and stomach irritation including ulcers, birth defects, genetic damage, skin lesions, liver damage, immune and nervous system damage, and disruptions in the reproductive system.
The Agriculture Street Landfill site is bordered by Almonaster Boulevard on the west, Higgins Boulevard on the north, Louisa Street on the east, and the Peoples Avenue Canal and railroad tracks on the south. The site covers approximately 95 acres. The City operated the Agriculture Street Landfill as a dump from 1909 until 1957 (48 years). It was New Orleans’ primary dumping ground during the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1940s and 1950s, the City sprayed the Agriculture Street Landfill with DDT. The City closed it down in 1958 and reopened it for waste from Hurricane Betsy in 1965-66. In 1967, the City of New Orleans entered into a cooperative agreement to build Press Park Town Homes and Apartments. In 1980, the 67 residential homes that comprise Gordon Plaza were built. Moton Elementary School was built on the site in 1981. Three mayors oversaw these developments, Victor Schiro, Maurice “Moon” Landrieu, and Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial.
Marilyn Amar bought her home in 1990. Amar retired from Bell South after 30 years of service and joined the Gordon Plaza residents fight for relocation in 2006. “I came back after Katrina and rebuilt my home because I own it. I couldn’t afford to buy another home. Amar raised two sons in her Gordon Plaza home. Both are college graduates. Her eldest son suffered from stomach problems for years and had to have a portion of his stomach removed. Amar suffers from sinus problems, sore throat, and breathing problems. She goes to Georgia and stays with her son during the rainy season. “The odors the rain brings up are unbearable,” she says. “One of the lawyers came to our meeting and she only stayed 20 minutes. Her throat got clogged up, her eyes swelled up and were watering and she decided not to come to any further meeting. The air and soil are toxic,” says Amar. “We are prisoners in our own home.”
In a letter dated September 17, 2017, the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic attorneys wrote to then-Mayor Mitchell Landrieu: “On behalf of the Residents of Gordon Plaza, Inc., we are writing today about another of racism’s legacies: the abandonment of African-American New Orleanians in a blighted community located on a toxic landfill. Since the 1990s, the Agriculture Street Landfill has been a national symbol of environmental racism. The problem, however, is not merely symbolic. Each day, residents on the landfill face the physical and health risks of living in a blighted community that is contaminated with toxic chemicals. We now ask that the City offer to relocate the residents of the Agriculture Street Landfill, using the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act as a starting point.”
After receiving no response from Landrieu, the Tulane Environmental Clinic attorneys sued the Mayor and the City of New Orleans in federal court on April 25, 2018. “The case is about inhumane and dangerous living conditions that the Mayor and the City of New Orleans have imposed on residents of Gordon Plaza, which is located on the Agriculture Street Landfill. This landfill is a toxic waste dump. The City duped African-American residents into purchasing homes in Gordon Plaza by failing to disclose that the City had built the development on toxic waste and contaminated soil. The Agriculture Street Landfill—as a direct result of the hazardous and solid waste it contains—is a blighted area, notable for destroyed buildings, including an abandoned school, that attract vermin and potential criminals. Living on the landfill, residents are exposed to toxic chemicals and suffer an increased risk of disease and death. The landfill poses unreasonable risks to residents and cannot support a viable community.”
“The City ‘billed the Gordon Plaza community and its respectable homes as a way for low- to middle-income African Americans to have a piece of the American Dream.’ Gordon Plaza homebuyers ‘were not told that their homes were located on what had once been a part of the City’s landfill.’ The then-Mayor of New Orleans reportedly ‘worked closely on the project with a group of his friends and financial contributors, all of whom benefited financially from the deal.’ (Clean Up This Mess-Gambit 1998) In 1983, EPA testing revealed ‘that the soil was contaminated with more than one hundred forty toxic and hazardous materials, more than forty of which are known to cause cancer in humans’,” the lawyers wrote.
“No one involved with the city wants to touch this,” says Rainey. “We’ve gone through four mayors, trying to be relocated. Did Jared (City Councilman Brossett) help us? No. Cedric Richmond (U.S. Representative) No. The responsibility for this is on the city.”
In a lawsuit filed against the city on behalf of nine residents in 1994, The Civil District Court noted that after Hurricane Betsy, “Up to three hundred truckloads per day of trash material was burned [at the landfill] for nine months. No specific closure plan was followed.” During operations, the landfill was subject to spontaneous fires, sometimes blanketing the city with smoke.” That lawsuit was settled in 2015 but Amar said most residents got pennies. Fifty-two households through the lawsuit and got pennies; not even enough to rent a moving truck, let alone by another house.” Rainey said the only people who were able to move out were the nine plaintiffs who brought a 1994 lawsuit. They were paid before the lawsuit was settled, she said. She said the five attorneys and nine plaintiffs got the bulk of the settlement monies $14 million (attorneys got half) and the remainder of the homeowners got very little.
The residents rallied against the city and the Housing Authority of New Orleans razed the Press Park townhomes and apartments and the Orleans Parish School Board shuttered the Moton School building, a dilapidated shell that remains on the site. “They closed the school because children were getting sick,” said Amar.
Last week the residents of Gordon Plaza held a press conference. They met with Mayor LaToya Cantrell on August 1, 2019 and expected to hear from her by the end of September 2019, on their request for relocation funds from the city.
“She was supposed to get back with us and put a committee together to see what could be done to do the relocations,” said Rainey.
“When Cantrell was campaigning, she said everyone deserved a clean safe environment. It took one-and-a-half years to meet with her. She made a commitment to get back by the end of September. I sent an email to the Mayor to remind her of our struggle and fight for fully funded relocation. She wrote back, ‘Thank you Marilyn for the update’,” Amar added.
The Louisiana Weekly reached out to Mayor Cantrell Office for comment. ““Mayor Cantrell met with residents of Gordon Plaza in August and heard their concerns. The Mayor continues to explore opportunities for a possible resolution. No fixed timeline was agreed to regarding any proposed resolution. Because this matter is the subject of ongoing litigation, the City Attorney has advised that there will be no further comment at this time,” said Beau Tidwell, communications director.
“If the city can invest $40 million for red and blue surveillance cameras that can’t catch criminals and $12 million to rich whites uptown to raise their homes against flooding, the city should be able to find $20 million to relocate the existing 52 families. Mayor Cantrell can stop the lawsuit by signing a check, if she wanted, to and get us off this toxic landfill, both Amar and Rainey commented.
Rainey and Amar said they will keep fighting until they are relocated. They are thankful for the help of the New Orleans People’s Assembly, the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, the Newcomb Art Museum, and the national press, including Essence magazine and The Guardian newspaper (London), which have covered their fight for justice. They are also seeking donations to continue their advocacy, supporters can donate at https://peoplesassemblyneworleans.org/.
Supporters can also purchase Gordon Plaza support t-shirts from Newcomb Art Museum for $20. The community can visit the Newcomb Art Museum to experience the exhibit featuring Gordon Plaza. The museum hours are Tuesday – Friday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Saturday: 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. The exhibit is FREE and open to the public.
https://newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu/exhibitions-current.
This article originally published in the October 7, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
