N.O. East residents express concern about proposed power plant
21st November 2016 · 0 Comments
Residents of eastern New Orleans who live in a part of the city still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina more than a decade after the devastating storm and several levee breaks flooded 80 percent of New Orleans are expressing concerns about a plan by Entergy bring a power plant to the area, WWL News reported last week.
Donald Bacot, who has lived in New Orleans East for more than four decades, told WWL last week that N.O. East today and the one he lived in before Lake Forest Plaza closed and Katrina flooded the area are like night and day. The former chef said he would like to see New Orleans East grow like the plants in his garden.
“Before Katrina, and before the mall closed and other things like that, it was really nice,” he told WWL.
Bacot said he is hoping that Entergy’s proposal to build a new power generation station on the site of the closed Michoud plant will jumpstart recovery in eastern New Orleans.
“I think that would help, start bringing businesses and companies out here because right now we don’t have that many,” he explained.
While Bacot is optimistic about the proposed power plant, many others in the community think it could be a problem.
At a community meeting Monday night Entergy officials listened to residents’ concerns about the possibility of pollutants making their way into their neighborhoods and sinking land from the plant drawing millions of gallons of ground water.
“It could be good in a sense, but you have to think about the environment and the people in the neighborhood and the effect it might have on that,” said New Orleans East resident Dave Dabney.
Entergy New Orleans CEO Charles Rice explained the company commissioned several scientific studies that they say show a minor amount of pollution and no effect from sinking infrastructure.
“What we had out there was a ‘56 Chevy, we’re going to give you a Prius,” Rice said. “The analysis has shown that you will get more toxic emissions from participation in a tailgate at an LSU football game where they’re using a generator than you’ll ever get from this facility.”
WWL reported that the plant would take five years to complete and cost about $216 million. Officials estimate that the average customer that uses 1,000 kilowatts of power will see an increase of around $6 a month.
“Why should the people of New Orleans have to pay for an Entergy power plan in the East,” a resident who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Louisiana Weekly Wednesday. “We already pay too much in electric bills and Entergy is rolling in the dough.
“Let Entergy pay for its own plant,” she added.
Pamela Jackson, whose mother and brother live in N.O. East, said that she’s tired of seeing communities of color and low-income neighborhoods getting the short end of the stick from the government and the business community.
“Why are they always trying to put a toxic landfill, low-barrier homeless shelter, juvenile detention center or something that poses a danger to our health or safety in our neighborhoods?” she told The Louisiana Weekly. “Let them build a new power plant in Lakeview or the Garden District.”
Ramessu Merriamen Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, agreed.
“This proposed power plant smacks of environmental racism and sounds like the first step to turning New Orleans East into another ‘Cancer Alley,’” he told The Louisiana Weekly.
“If you don’t want your children or grandchildren growing up in a neighborhood with a power plant, you better make that clear to your city councilman, James Gray, to the at-large members of the New Orleans City Council and to anyone even thinking about running for mayor or the city council,” Aha added.
In recent weeks a number of residents and community leaders have called into WBOK radio and talked about the idea of New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward seceding from the City of New Orleans to form its own entity, collect its own property taxes and set its own agenda. Such discussions illuminate how weary N.O. East and Ninth Ward residents are from waiting for the city to make those parts of the city a priority.
Meanwhile, residents like Bacot and others are just hoping something will happen to help the eastern New Orleans bloom to its fullest potential.
This article originally published in the November 21, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
