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26 |

2Growing Up in a City Tat Care

Forgot, New Orleans

A Personal Perspective from Beverly Wright

Growing up in New Orleans was a uniquely delightul experience,

lled with the warmth o amily and riends who elt like amily. My early

beginnings in the City o New Orleans bring orth nothing but wonderul

memories. Te air was always lled with the smell o good ood and the

sounds o music. As I remember it, we all truly celebrated lie. Tese memo-

ries serve as an ironic backdrop or that period o harsh segregation where

Jim Crow ruled.

However, within the connes o segregation, the black community was

able to nurture and maintain its unique cultural traditions, which were

taught to the young and practiced by all, even across income and class lines.

Even more so than Christmas, probably the most remembered and cher-

ished holiday o my childhood, as well as in the lives o most adults, was

Mardi Gras, or Fat uesday, as it is called here. I can still recall the rst time

I heard, in the distance, the sounds o tambourines and crowds o people

chanting in a language I could not understand.

I could see a large group o people coming up the middle o the street

singing and dancing and playing tambourines to the booming sounds o di-

erent drummers. Te crowds were huge, so much so that I could not tell

where the street ended and the sidewalk began. My eyes, widened by child-

hood curiosity, could hardly take in the beauty o the magnicent costumes I

saw, with colors so brilliant it almost hurt to look at them through the bright

sunshine. I had never seen anything so beautiul in all o my our-year-old

lie! Ah, yes, these were the Mardi Gras Indians in all their splendidly eath-ered glory, and they were coming toward me! As ate would have it, they

stopped right in ront o my door to begin a spectacular display o chanting

and dancing.

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Growing Up in a City Tat Care Forgot, New Orleans | 27

Even to this day, I still cannot translate their chanting, but it was on that

day I learned the beginning steps o the amous Second Line. And, as I

made the steps my little eet could grasp, the Big Chie emerged rom the

crowd to declare, Aay pockaway! With that, everyone started singing and

dancing with such intensity that I did what any other our-year-old woulddoI joined in trying to mimic what I saw most everybody doing.

An older cousin o mine saw me trying my eeble best and was impressed

with my eorts. She immediately stopped me rom gyrating in a renzy and

told me, No, no, watch me. You move your eet like this. As she began to

give me my rst ocial second line lesson, I watched and ollowed her steps.

And so, I, like everyone in my community, became an authentic second line

dancer. It was much later in lie that I cultivated an appreciation or this

unique orm o an Arican/Haitian and New Orleans-inspired cultural tradi-tion that has helped to shape the character o my city, making it a place to

visit or most Americans regardless o race, ethnicity, or culture. Te Spirit

o New Orleans is in its people, and, without black people, New Orleans

would lose its soul.

In our most recent New Orleans vernacular since Katrina, hurricane

is synonymous with danger, but, in my experience o growing up in New

Orleans, the word hurricane was synonymous with heavy rain and a party.

Why, we even named a very powerul alcoholic drink aer this weather

event. What I remember most was the rush to the supermarket or bread,

milk, hot dogs, hamburger meat, and cold cuts. Tese were the staples nec-

essary to survive the power outages that accompanied a storm. With an

impending storm, the amily would all meet at one house to ride it out.

Inevitably, the storm would arrive during the night when we were tucked

saely into our beds, the children huddled together not so much because we

eared disaster but because it was un or us to be with our extended amilyat this unique time. In the morning, the amily would go out to survey the

neighborhood. Te greatest devastation that occurred, as I recall rom those

pre-Katrina days, were the garbage cans thrown about and tree branches

blown to the ground.

As I grew into adulthood, the hurricanes seemed to increase in intensity,

leaving more and more water, more and more oen. Several hurricanes over

the years le water high enough to wash into houses, damaging carpets and

low-lying urniture and appliances. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy hit the City oNew Orleans. It devastated the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East. 1

Hundreds o people lost their lives, and many homes were ooded. Black

mold was also a problem, even though the water did not sit or weeks as it did

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28 | The Wrong Complexion for Protection

in the wake o Katrina and the New Orleans levee ailures. As Betsys waters

began to recede, people began to immediately repair their homes with a little

help rom insurance companies, the Red Cross, and the Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA). We survived, and New Orleanians went on

with their lives.However, one thing this 1965 hurricane le behind was an increasing

perception that our ederal government had no desire to protect the Ari-

can American population o this city. o this day, black New Orleanians

still believe that the levees were broken intentionally to protect very wealthy

white homes and business owners Uptown and in the French Quarter. Victor

Schiro, who was then mayor, was blamed or the devastation, and the ques-

tion o race and who will be protected was settled in the minds o Arican

Americans in this city. We knew that we would be the last to receive protec-tion, and Hurricane Katrina has urther validated this belie.

Aer Hurricane Betsy, hurricanes and rumors or warnings o hurricanes

were more requent. But, or the greater part o orty years, New Orleans was

not hit by a major hurricane. We continued to eel the eects o hurricanes

through their heavy winds and rains. What this meant or most people was

the loss o electricity and a bit o water in our houses. Tese somewhat re-

quently occurring weather events each year were seen as an annoyance, not a

danger. When we saw the storms as annoyances or an inconveniences that

interrupted our lives, we viewed the imminent repairs as an upgrade. We

got new oors, carpets, or appliances, and that was our reality relating to

hurricanes.

My Katrina Experience

My academic lie and research agendas have been indelibly shaped byextremely personal experiences and curiosities. Over the past three decades,

I have been involved in the struggle or equality and social justice or all peo-

ple. A large portion o my work has evolved around a ramework o environ-

mental justice. Tis circuitous journey still did not prepare me or the injus-

tices perpetrated, which resulted in the governments utter ailures during

Katrina, as well as those that occurred in the storms aermath.

Te year leading up to Katrina had already been particularly hard or me

on a personal level. In January o 2004, my only brother, three years youngerthan I, was diagnosed with cancer. Te doctors gave him three months to

live. My amily and I were devastated and just could not believe or accept this

diagnosis. We, just as most amilies have done in this situation, did every-

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thing humanly possible to keep him alive. But we lost the battle, and Morris

died on August 6, 2004.

At the same time that we were battling to save my brothers lie, my amily

was dealing with another amiliar amily illness. My mother was diabetic and

had been placed on dialysis nearly two years beore Morris was diagnosed.He had been her major caregiver because my work kept me on the road most

o the time. Tis, too, was a very stressul ordeal. Aer my brothers death,

my mothers health seemed to deteriorate. In April 2005, eight months aer

the death o my brother, my mother died. I was completely devastated, heart-

broken, and inconsolable. I elt that surely nothing else could happen to me.

Ten came Katrina, only our months aer my mothers death. Tat terrible

storm washed away everything that I owned, everything that I had inherited,

and every tangible bit o memorabilia that captured my lie and amily expe-riences. Every picture, every card, every letter and keepsake that I had o my

mother and brother all washed away in those horrible oodwaters. Katrina

swept away the pictorial history o my lie and ancestry. Every picture o

children growing up, grandparents hugging, great-grandparents wisdom-

weathered aces smiling, camera-shy aunts and uncles hiding, and genera-

tions o laughing and playing cousins captured in time were lost orever, and

there was nothing I could do to bring back these treasured possessions.

I was the ocial keeper o the amily pictures. I kept pictures rom both

my husbands and my own amily. I proudly displayed them throughout my

house, careully arranging them as ocal points o my souvenir and art collec-

tion rom my travels around the world. Te tribal masks rom South Arica,

a porcelain aced image o Nelson Mandela in tribal garb, a didgeridoo and

a boomerang rom Australia, a porcelain aced puppet rom Indonesia, and

many more treasured art pieces were meticulously placed to accent amily

portraits. All were lost in the storm.Te Katrina tragedy was worsened by the act that I too had a missing

relative as a result o this storm. My seventy-seven-year-old uncle, who was

my Moms only brother, was missing. Te events that led up to his being le

in New Orleans had more to do with the loss o my mother and brother than

the storm itsel. My brother and I were the primary caregivers or our now

very small number o elderly amily members. When the storm hit, I was out

o town, and my uncle was home alone. He and my mother and brother had

all lived together. I have one sister who lives in Jackson, Mississippi. Te twoo us made arrangements or my uncle to evacuate with his cousins. Some-

how, the evacuation plans were not carried out, and they all remained in the

city, and were all missing aer the storm. We received word early on that my

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cousins were sae, but it was two weeks aer the storm beore we heard any-

thing about Uncle Walter.

Aer riding out the storm and ooding on the second oor o our New

Orleans East amily home, Uncle Walter was eventually rescued by boat, and

the Coast Guard airlied him to Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, exas,located more than 870 miles rom New Orleans. He survived Katrina and

lived the rest o his lie in Baton Rougewhich he never saw as home. New

Orleans was his birthplace and his home. He died in May 2008, one month

beore his eightieth birthday. He is buried in New Orleans.

Te emotional stress created by this situation or my entire amily can

only be described as pure agony, anger, and disbelie. Recall the horric

scenes o devastation and the abandonment o people le behind all over

the city, viewed by the world as the days slowly crept by. Now imagine notknowing where a loved one is as you watch as this tragedy unold beore

your very eyes. I was heartbroken and angry. It was as i I were watching

some cataclysmic event in a Tird World country, ar, ar away. Tis couldnt

possibly be happening in the United States! Who would have ever believed

that this country would respond to the suering o its people in such a cal-

lous and indierent manner? When I reect on my eelings in the rst days

aer Katrina, I can honestly identiy my central emotion as ear couched

in anger and disbelie at the incompetence o our government. I could not

believe the utter ailure o our government to grasp the nature o the tragedy

and to understand that it required a truly compassionate, immediate, and

coordinated response. For the rst time in my lie, I elt that, as a nation, we

were unprepared and vulnerable. Even the tragedy o 9/11 did not evoke such

ear and emotional upheaval in me. When and how did this country come to

this?

Loss of Inheritance

When I was a child, every Sunday aer church, my ather would take us

all or a ride in the amily car. We always ended up in the same places. We

would sightsee in the white neighborhoods lined with white-ramed houses

with perectly manicured lawns and large oak trees spreading their branches

over the streets. My athers words were always the same: You see, children.

Tis is what you should work or.My ather believed that every generation should do better than the one

beore it and that it was the responsibility o each generation to do every-

thing to make the American Dream possible or the next generation. As Dad

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would say, Its hard to get ahead when you are starting rom scratch. Tis

house is your scratch. In act, my mother and ather bought two houses and

three lots in their lietimes. Katrina destroyed them all.

Like many Arican American amilies in New Orleans, my amily was

just beginning to realize the dreams o our parents and grandparents. Teproperty they had worked so hard to secure or their amilies was paid or in

ull, and their children now had an inheritance, or, as Dad would say, their

scratch.

Eighty percent o homes destroyed by Katrina in New Orleans were owned

by Arican Americans. For many amilies, their rst ever inherited property

was lost in the storm, and all the dreams and hard work o their parents and

grandparents were destroyed along with them. o add insult to injury, Ari-

can American New Orleanians watched with horror as the rst rebuildingplan was presented to the City Council. What became perectly clear aer a

rst glimpse o the new map, or, as it was called, the smaller ootprint, was

that the ootprints o Arican Americans in New Orleans were to be erased.

Te map clearly showed that the areas slated or immediate redevelopment

were those that had received the least amount o waterareas where white

citizens lived. Te areas that were mostly inhabited by Arican Americans,

specically New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward, were not slated

or redevelopment and were instead to be converted into green space. With

one stroke o a pen, our land was being taken away and our inheritance lost,

along with our amilys legacy. I could think only how arrogant and racist

this plan was to take our land.

Aer the dreadul storm, my rst visit to my home could only be

described as surreal. As we drove toward the city, there were literally thou-

sands o people traveling both ways with trailers attached to cars that held

the amilys remaining, salvageable personal belongings. Te ride wasquiet and solemn, a kind o uneral procession. Tere were also numerous

accidents and breakdowns. Te scene reminded me o scenes rom World

War II movies in which villages were bombed and people were eeing the

devastation. Te only dierence was that people were driving, rather than

walking.

When I arrived at my house, I immediately donned protective clothing

and breathing apparatus. Upon entering through my ront door, which was

swollen and bent shut, I immediately realized that all o the urniture wasrearranged. In act, the rerigerator was toppled over and sitting in the den.

Te leather soa was completely white, although the original color was black.

I later discovered that it was completely overgrown with mold. Everything

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was covered with mold. Te oor was slippery, and the odor was indescrib-

ably oul.

Mold had traveled up the wall to the upstairs bedrooms, and my younger

daughters room was completely destroyed. I cried. Te roo had been blown

o in one corner, and everything was ruined. It was clear to me that theentire house needed to be gutted and rebuilt. I le my house, however, deter-

mined to rebuild. I was coming back come hell or high water. Te one ques-

tion I had centered on was the extent o the contamination le by Katrina.

For the previous ten years at least, I had worked with communities con-

taminated by toxic emissions and people living with lead-contaminated soil.

I had also worked to train young men and women in hazardous-materials

abatement and with superund sites or cleanup. I kept trying to imagine

what level o contamination would be so bad that it would keep us rombeing able to clean it up. I le my home with a determination ueled by the

words o my ather: Tis is your scratch. I needed to understand the con-

tamination le by Katrina and to develop a plan to clean it up.

Te Deep South Center or Environmental Justice, where I am ounding

director and currently work, had previously established a relationship with

the Natural Resources Deense Council (NRDC) and was keenly aware o the

Councils research, scientic, and legal capabilities. We immediately devel-

oped a partnership with them to test the air and soil contamination le by

Katrina. Te results showed that there was contamination that needed to be

cleaned up and contained. Post-Katrina contamination had rendered some

communities unsae.

Te NRDC took air and soil samples and reviewed sample data taken by

the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and ound very similar results.

Tere were high levels o lead and arsenic and derivatives o benzopyrene.

What I determined was that the cleanup was a doable project to undertake.New Orleans could be cleaned up, and its citizens would be able to return to

a sae and clean environment. Not to do what was needed to achieve this end

would be criminal.

A Safe Way Back Home

Te Deep South Center or Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) was ounded in

1992 in collaboration with community environmental groups and universi-ties within the region to address issues o environmental justice. Te Center

provides opportunities or communities, scientic researchers, and decision

makers to collaborate on programs and projects that promote the rights o all

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people to be ree rom environmental harm as it impacts health, jobs, hous-

ing, education, and general quality o lie.

Te DSCEJs Minority Worker raining Program is unded by the

National Institute o Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and provides

training or young men and women in an array o hazardous-materialsabatement and construction skills. Our program is a part o a consortium

o union organizations, universities, nonprot training organizations, and

HBCUs that provides training or workers and supervisors in hazardous-

materials mitigation and construction. At our rst meeting aer the storm,

member organizations were encouraged to assist Gul Coast organizations in

their recovery. All o the union organizations oered their support; however,

an extensive conversation with Paul Renner o the United Steel Workers was

the most productive. While sitting in the airport awaiting return ights toour respective locations, drinking a glass or two o wine, we came up with

the idea o a demonstration project that would clean up one solid block in

a devastated neighborhood. Our intent was to show the government what

could and should be done in order or citizens to return home saely. Te

Sae Way Back Home project emerged out o the rustration o many citi-

zens over the lack o inormation available on environmental contamination,

health, and saety. Even more disconcerting was the actual double-talk that

we were receiving rom the EPA on contamination levels and risks and how

residents should respond.

Te Center has been conducting environmental remediation training

with a grant rom the National Institute o Environmental Health Science

(NIEHS) since 1995. Te specialized expertise and the trained workorce

that it provided were o great benet to New Orleans aer Katrina. Tey also

meant that our University Center could and would play a critical role in pro-

viding a vital service in the cleanup o the city. We could supply trainers andworkers in areas where they were gravely needed to clean up and rebuild

the city. But, there was one more thing that we could provide besides our

proessional expertise, and that was the actual implementation o a program

that would result in the actual cleanup o a site. Aer Katrina, however, there

was mass conusion on the ground. Te inormation that we received rom

EPAs website showed contamination levels or lead, arsenic, and PCBs to be

extremely high, exceeding the recommended sae levels set by both the EPA

and the Louisiana Department o Environmental Quality (LDEQ).We consulted with scientists rom the NRDC and consulted the EPAs

website, which reported sampling data, to determine the type and extent o

remediation needed to reduce the risk o exposure rom chemicals ound in

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the soil. In our attempt to be responsive in the midst o what we saw to be

slow to no action by government in the cleanup o neighborhoods and at

the same time watching residents return to their homes every day without

protective gear or inormation on risk levels or sediment, we decided to

implement a demonstration project that the government could model in thecleanup o the city. In the projects development, we spoke with EPA (o the

record), FEMA, the United Steelworkers Union (USW), volunteer organiza-

tions, and student organizations.

Aer a short planning period and coordination o partners, the DSCEJ at

Dillard University and the USW developed a plan to remediate twenty-ve

homes or one block in the New Orleans East area. With approximately 180

volunteers over two weekends, we removed six inches o top soil, deposited

clean soil, and planted sod on the twenty-ve homes whose residents hadagreed to the terms o participation.

FEMA committed to pick up the soil, the Red Cross agreed to provide

supplies, and the volunteers agreed to assist. Te United Steelworkers oper-

ated the bobcats to remove the soil. We were well on our way to completion

o what we saw as a precedent-setting event when, on the third day, FEMA

stopped picking up the soil. All o our eorts to get the agency to honor its

commitment were thwarted. We were actually stuck with several large piles

o contaminated soil on a block we had just returned to normal, with beauti-

ul green grass on ront and back lawns, lawns sae enough or children to

play outside. We could not understand why FEMA discontinued picking up

the dirt. We were later inormed that the soil was contaminated and consid-

ered hazardous material and under the Staord Act could not be removed by

FEMA. Te EPA and the LDEQ were insisting that the soil was not contami-

nated. Te residents were caught in the middle o an unbelievable dispute.

What were we to do with these large mounds o soil now sitting in the streetin ront o our homes?

Te story does have a happy ending, but not because the ederal gov-

ernment resolved this issue. Eventually, the City o New Orleans removed

the soil rom the median where we moved it so as not to recontaminate the

entire block.

What has become clear through my interaction with the EPA and this

experience is that the agency has lost sight o its true mission to protect the

public health and the environment. We experienced a bureaucratic responsein a crisis. Te agency ollowed the letter o the law and not the spirit o

the law. For example, state and ederal ocials labeled the voluntary cleanup

eorts as scaremongering. EPA and LDEQ ocials said that they had tested

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soil samples rom the neighborhood in December 2005 and ound there was

no immediate cause or concern.

According to om Harris, administrator o LDEQs environmental tech-

nology division and state toxicologist, the government originally sampled

eight hundred locations in New Orleans and ound cause or concern in onlyorty-six samples. According to Harris, the soil in New Orleans was consis-

tent with what we saw beore Katrina. He called the Sae Way Back Home

program completely unnecessary. However, all requests or soil sampling

data beore the storm have gone unanswered. Moreover, initial sampling

results o soil collected beore Katrina are showing arsenic and lead levels

much lower than those reported by LDEQ post-Katrina.

A week aer the March 2006 voluntary neighborhood cleanup project

began, an LDEQ staer ate a spoonul o soil scraped rom the piles o soille by FEMA in ront o the beautiul new lawns planted by volunteers o the

Sae Way Back Home project. Te soil-eating publicity stunt was clearly an

attempt to disparage the proactive neighborhood cleanup initiative. I imme-

diately invited Mr. Harris back to eat a spoonul o soil every day or the next

ten years. Only then would I be convinced that his exposure to the chemicals

in the soil would be comparable to that o my children or grandchildren i

they played outside in the soil every day. I oered to buy him lunch and bury

the hatchet i he was still alive and well at the end o the ten years.

While I initially was totally conused by the EPAs response to the con-

tamination threats to my hometown presented on their website, I was truly

angry aer reading the June 2007 U.S. General Accountability Oce (GAO)

report. Te EPA did not assess and properly mitigate the environmental

impacts posed by Katrina. Te EPAs December 2005 assessment stated that

the majority o sediment exposure was sae.2 It is clear that existing policies

are not adequate to protect the public in matters related to disasters, espe-cially catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina. It seems that the existing

policies actually work in a manner that diametrically opposes the agencys

missionmonitoring and protecting the environmental health and saety o

the public.

Te Sae Way Back Home project generated excitement and increased

hope or the neighborhoods return. All o this happened without any assis-

tance rom the local, state, or ederal government. It has been the unrelenting

resolve o New Orleans East residents to rebuild their homes and their livesthat has given us a glimmer o hope or recovery.

In attempting to understand how and why ederal agencies (e.g., EPA,

FEMA, U.S. Army Corps o Engineers) were unable to assist citizens in their

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quest to remediate their own properties aer the storm, the GAOs Hurricane

Katrina: EPAs Current and Future Environmental Protection Eforts Could Be

Enhanced by Addressing Issues and Challenges Faced on the Gul Coastreport

oers much insight on the inner workings o these agencies, which ostered

their ailure to act. In act, their actions served as a deterrent to citizenseorts.3

Te response to the health implications o this enormous environmental

catastrophe ell ar below any logical or reasonable response to this disaster.

Second only to rebuilding the levees, environmental health should be the

issue o greatest concern in the rebuilding and repopulating plan or the city.

Unortunately, issues related to health and the environment have barely been

mentioned in the discussions o rebuilding the city. Tis piece o the rebuild-

ing process is missing. Its omission has given lie to numerous rumors andpanic that stalled the rebuilding process. At stake was not only the health o

the community but also the loss o property and wealth or a large portion

o the New Orleans Arican American community and a possible dramatic

shi in the citys demographics, with negative implications or the black

electorate.

Congressional HearingsShortly aer Katrina, I was invited to testiy at two congressional hearings.

Senator Barbara Boxer invited me to testiy beore the Committee on Envi-

ronment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superund and Waste Man-

agement, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton invited me to testiy beore

the Subcommittee on Superund and Environmental Health o the Senate

Environment and Public Works Committee. Te July 2007 Clinton hear-

ing was the rst-ever Senate hearing on environmental justice. Te goalwas to understand exactly what had gone wrong with the governments

preparation and response to natural disasters. Tere was also great interest

in obtaining the acts and in getting assistance with plans or Gul Coast

recovery.

In the months immediately ollowing Katrina, Congress rushed pass laws

designed to support the cleanup and recovery o the Gul Coast. Moreover, a

number o bills were submitted to allow the waiver o many important envi-

ronmental regulations and laws, as well as to limit legal responsibility ordamages by private businesses involved in the cleanup o the Gul Coast.

My second testimony took place on June 25, 2007, at a hearing beore the

Subcommittee on Superund and Environmental Health o the Senate Envi-

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ronment and Public Works Committee. Te intent o the committee was to

investigate environmental justice concerns related to health in the aermath

o Katrina, with particular emphasis on Superund sites.

In my testimony, I was eager to raise the case o the Agriculture Street

landll (discussed in chapter 5) and the irony o eects rom both Hurri-canes Betsy and Katrina. It was debris rom Hurricane Betsy, orty years

ago, that led to the reopening o the Agriculture Street landll, atop which a

community was built. Contamination rom was later ound in the commu-

nity and or years local residents ought to be bought out and relocated. But

it was Hurricane Katrina, not the government, that relocated the commu-

nity nearly ourteen years aer the community began its struggle to relocate.

Moreover, the responses o government to many o the new environmental

health risks caused by Katrina were almost identical to the way it respondedto the plight o the Agriculture Street landll community.

My testimony included a request that Congress investigate the latest

report and ood maps produced by the U.S. Army Corps o Engineers post-

Katrina, which provided no increased levee protection or the mostly Ari-

can American areas o the city. One o my major concerns at the time o

this hearing, however, was the health o the children who attended some o

New Orleanss public schools; I strongly believed the results o testing done

in 2007 indicated the need or additional investigation into the saety o a

number o school grounds.

In March 2007, a coalition o community and environmental groups col-

lected more than 130 soil samples in sixty-ve sites in residential neighbor-

hoods in Orleans Parish where post-Katrina EPA testing had previously

shown elevated concentrations o arsenic in soils. esting was then per-

ormed by the Natural Resources Deense Council. Sampling was also done

at een playgrounds and nineteen schools. Results rom the independentlaboratory testing or the nineteen schools are as ollows:

Six results indicate levels o arsenic in excess o the LDEQs soil screening

value or arsenic. Te LDEQ soil screening value o 12 milligrams per kilo-

gram (mg/kg) normally requires additional sampling, urther investiga-

tion, and a site-specic risk assessment. It is clear that the levels o arsenic

in the sediment are unacceptably high or residential neighborhoods. We

are especially concerned about potential health risks to children playing inareas with arsenic-contaminated sediments. At some o the sites sampled

in March, lab results indicate that arsenic levels have increased in the time

that has passed since earlier post-Katrina studies.

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In June 2007, the coalition sent a letter to LDEQ requesting that it take

action and recommending that it take advantage o the window o oppor-

tunity provided by the upcoming summer vacation to take several steps: to

conduct additional sampling o school playgrounds in previously ooded

areas, to conduct a site-specic risk assessment, and to work with the schoolsand community to examine potential remediation options. Because we elt it

would be unethical to withhold these data rom potentially aected parties,

we also notied school ocials in the six schools where the elevated arsenic

levels were detected. Te response that we received rom the EPA was basi-

cally that it was reviewing our letter and would respond within thirty days.4

Te response that we received rom LDEQ concerning the high arsenic

levels ound on the school grounds o New Orleans public schools once

again supports criticisms o the EPAs response to Katrina: that the agencydid not assess and properly mitigate Katrinas environmental impacts. Spe-

cically, the letter rom LDEQ, rst o all, addresses the act that 15 o the 19

schools sampled ell below health-based levels o concern and are consistent

with background levels or Louisiana. Our data actually showed that thir-

teen o the nineteen schools were at sae levels. However, this was not the

point. We were and are interested only in those schools with problems.

Second, the letter rom LDEQ immediately speaks to its process or col-

lecting samples and the act that LDEQ and the EPA together collected more

than two thousand sediment and soil samples in the impacted area, whereas

NRDC collected only one sample. Tis implied that, because we had taken

only one sample, our results, while high, did not warrant urther testing or

concern. Consequently, we were told that we should inorm the schools in

question. Te letter also stated that, although LDEQ was under no legal obli-

gation because the public schools were strapped or unds, it would provide

urther testing i the principal o a school made the request. My reply to thatwas, Well, thanks or the avor, but isnt it the job o citizens to assess and

mitigate the impacts o Katrina?

In the letter rom LDEQ, there was an attempt to educate the coalition on

a ew acts o which we were not aware. Tese involved the possibility that

the arsenic contamination existed on these school grounds beore Katrina.

I ound this to be an absolutely incredible statement. Did this mean that

LDEQ was actually aware o the elevated arsenic on the playgrounds o these

schools? I not, then why were we discussing pre-Katrina arsenic levels?Te point is that LDEQ and EPA seemed much more interested in jus-

tiying their existing positionthat they were not obligated and were even

orbidden by law to clean up pre-Katrina contaminationthan they were

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in protecting the public. Nonetheless, it was our hope that LDEQ and EPA

would rise to the challenge o its mission to ensure that Louisianas citizens

have a clean and healthy environment to live and work in or present and

uture generations by responding to these data in a time-sensitive manner.

Although contamination levels discovered at New Orleans schoolsexceeded state and ederal clean-up standards and posed a risk o cancer and

chronic illness to children who play in the dirt and put their hands in their

mouths, ederal and state clean-up unds were earmarked or contamination

that was rom the storm, not rom preexisting contamination, regardless o

the public health signicance. Contamination on the school grounds was

not cleaned up. Once again, the health o the most vulnerable population in

New Orleans, Arican American school children, is placed at risk because

o a government rule that gives clean-up priority to time o contaminationrather than health impacts.

Conclusion

In September 1965, I le my beloved city o New Orleans to attend Gram-

bling College. I was seventeen years old and leaving home or the rst time.

My rst week at Grambling was the exciting experience o reshmen orienta-

tion. I remember returning rom a student assembly and watching the 6:00

news, which was airing a special report. I was paying minimal attention to

the broadcast while laughing, joking, and becoming acquainted with my

new roommates and riends. I did, however, notice a street sign that seemed

to be leaning over and was partially covered by water. Te street sign read

Rampart! My attention was then turned to the television, not only because

Rampart is a amous street in New Orleans but also because it was the street

where my ormer high school was located.My high school, McDonogh #35, was more than a hundred years old and

was the only high school or Arican American youth during the era o seg-

regation. I guess it would today be described as a school or the gied, but,

or us, it was a college prep school or students with the highest grade point

averages in their classes. Tis school trained the best o the best public school

students in the Arican American community. It served a very important

unction and was also an historic landmark or the community. Needless to

say, when I saw a mound o bricks near the street sign, I was abbergasted.Could this pile o bricks actually be my alma mater? o my chagrin, the news

reporter validated my suspicion. It was my school! Even worse, I discovered

that my city had been hit by a powerul and dangerous hurricane named

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Betsy. Te news o the storm only worsened. I later ound out that my neigh-

borhood was ooded, that, indeed, all o New Orleans East and the Lower

Ninth Ward were ooded by waters rom Lake Ponchartrain.

Te week o reshmen orientation at Grambling College is orever etched

in my mind because o Betsy. Te excitement o going away to school wasinevitably replaced by the urgent need to contact amily and to return home

to make sure that everyone was sae. I could not act on either o these urges,

however; phone lines were down, and transportation into the city was not

available. I had to sit nervously and patiently, waiting or someone to contact

me. Te only phones we had in the dormitories back then were located at the

end o the hall on each oor. We didnt have the convenience o cell phones.

Te lines o students trying to call home were continuously long, and most

o us encountered the same nerve-wracking problemwe could not connectwith any o our amily members.

Finally, aer nearly our days, a call came through to me rom my parents.

Overjoyed at the sound o their voices, I was grateul to hear that they were

ne. But I was devastated upon hearing that the rst oor o our new split-

level home (which was only three years old) was completely ooded. My

mother described the damage created by the ve or six eet o water that had

inundated the ground oor o our home. Te rst-oor bedroom, bathroom,

utility room, and den (or, as we considered it, playroom) had been destroyed

in the storm. I was also told that ten o our neighbors, whose houses were

single-story homes, were staying with my amily in the upper oor o our

home.

My ather told me how he had walked miles rom work Uptown, where

there was no water, into the East, where the water rose above his shoulders

aer he crossed the Industrial Canal. He walked all those miles so that he

could reach his amily. And, as he walked through the oodwaters in ourneighborhood, he was joined by other neighbors. Remembering an elderly

couple who lived alone, they decided to orce open their ront door, only to

discover that this couple, both o whom were past eighty, had resigned them-

selves to die in the oodwaters. My ather, being the man he was, helped our

neighbors out o their house and up the stairs into our home. Te triumph o

the New Orleans spirit rose above the oodwaters that day and in many days

to come.

When I was able to return home or Tanksgiving break in November, Idiscovered that a vile, shy odor still lingered in our neighborhood. It would

prove to be many months beore the odor dissipated. However, I dont ever

remember eeling that recovery was not possible aer Betsy. Tere was never

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any discussion about the possibility that the many Arican American neigh-

borhoods aected by the storm were no longer sae or residents. I remem-

ber President Lyndon Johnson visiting New Orleans and the Lower Ninth

Ward within twenty-our hours o the hurricane and his assurances that

our government would assist us in recovering rom the storm. I also vividlyremember my parents telling me that they were going to get a FEMA grant

to renovate the ground oor o the house. It would include money or a new

rerigerator and a new roo. In less than one year, my entire neighborhood

was cleaned up and back to normal, all shining and new.

Many Arican Americans, to this day, however, still believe that Mayor

Schiro had holes blown in the levees to save Uptown and the French Quarter

at the expense o Arican American neighborhoods. Tere is no evidence o

record to support this theory, but some even say that Mayor Schiro admittedthat he had given the order. What we do know as act is that the oodwa-

ters grew to almost six eet in only three minutes. Many people drowned,

and many New Orleans residents still dont trust local government to protect

them rom disasters, whether natural or man-made. At that time, in a pre-

Katrina New Orleans, residents did, however, have some aith in the ederal

government and in FEMA in particular.

Hurricane Betsy was a powerul storm. In 1965, Betsy was deemed the

costliest hurricane in the history o the United States. It was nicknamed Bil-

lion Dollar Betsy. Levees or the Mississippi River Gul Outlet (MRGO)

along Florida Avenue in the Lower Ninth Ward and on both sides o the

Industrial Canal ailed during the storm. Floodwaters reached the tops o

houses in some places and covered the roos o single-story homes in the

Lower Ninth Ward and in New Orleans East. Many residents drowned in

their attics trying to escape the rising oodwaters. Breaches in the levee sys-

tem ooded parts o Gentilly, the Upper and Lower Ninth Ward, and EasternNew Orleans. Arabi and Chalmette, in St. Bernard Parish, were also ooded.

It took nearly ten days or most o the water to recede and or most o the

residents living in ood-ravaged single-story homes to return in order to

clean up. Tose who did not have amily members or riends to take them in

lived in trailers until they were able to return home. A total o 164,000 homes

were ooded. Just as with Katrina, the evidence suggests that substandard

construction and poor maintenance o the levee system led to its ailure.

A look at both hurricanes Betsy and Katrina reveals some interesting sim-ilarities but also some glaring dierences. Hurricane Katrina and its impacts

should not have been a surprise to anyone in government, which was not

the case with Betsy. While citizens were not privy to important scientic

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inormation concerning weather patterns and trends or to assessments o

the storm-worthiness o the levees or the viability o the pumping system,

government had this inormation. Several computer models and accompa-

nying predictions o the impact on the city o a Category 3 or a Category

5 hurricane were made available to government ocials on the local, state,and ederal levels. Tese models and predictions should have better guided

the decisions made by government at all levels in its response both pre- and

post-Katrina.

Te governments response in the aermath o Hurricane Betsy was quick

and ecient. Within a very short period o time, the city, along with its citi-

zens, was back up and running. Hurricane Betsy, which hit the city more

than orty years ago, was ollowed by another dangerous storm, Hurricane

Camille, in 1969. Although this storm was deadly, it did not bring with it thedevastating oodwaters that Betsy had. However, since that time, the citizens

o New Orleans and the Gul Coast have experienced increases in both the

number and the intensity o hurricanes. We have also seen an increase in

citizen awareness and evidence that government takes seriously the need to

prepare or these storms, as evidenced by improved advance planning or

evacuation. In act, approximately eight months prior to Hurricane Katrina,

the City o New Orleans was evacuated in preparation or the coming o

Hurricane Ivan.

Fortunately or us, New Orleans was not hit by Ivan, although Florida

did take a direct hit rom it. However, what was evident at the time o this

storm were the increasing tensions and stress brought on as hurricane season

approached, lingered, and waned. In act, I can honestly say that, in my lie-

time o living in the City o New Orleans, I had never experienced a degree

o anxiousness and cautiousness as the hurricane season approached as I

had in the three years beore Hurricane Katrina. Even beore Katrina, ourattitude about hurricanes was reected in the naming o an alcoholic drink

with a powerul kick that became popular in the French Quarter as a hur-

ricane. Te time spent preparing or a storm, ormerly dubbed a hurricane

party, had also taken on a new seriousness. Since Katrina, as citizens o New

Orleans, our ear o the storms has been heightened, and, even worse, our

trust in our government and the belie that it will respond to our plight both

eciently and airly has deteriorated into mistrust and unbelie.

Governments response to the impacts o Katrina on New Orleans and theGul Coast has challenged the belies o most Americans, black and white

alike, that our government is competent to meet the challenges posed by

most major disasters and, or Arican Americans particularly, that it will

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respond equally to the needs o all o its citizens, regardless o race or ethnic-

ity. Many o my white riends expressed outrage toward the government or

its slow response to a mostly Arican American city but also conessed to me

their ears concerning our governments ability to protect even them against

any threat, oreign or domestic. It is clear that the lethargic and inept emer-gency response aer Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that overshadowed the

deadly storm itsel. Nearly a decade aer the storm and the beginning o the

cleanup, it just may be a policy surge, not the storm surge, that completes

the job. I policies are not developed to protect vulnerable populations, there

will be a permanent and systematic depopulation and displacement o the

Arican American communities o New Orleans.

In 2010, just as I was thinking, Tings certainly couldnt get any worse,

I heard something about an oil spill in the Gul. Explosions at chemicalplants and oil leaks in the Gul are pretty commonplace where I live, but this

rumor seemed to be lingering. Aer pretty much ignoring the incident,

despite the eleven men who died in the explosion, news reporting on the oil

spill seemed to increase, although we were told that the oil leak was under

control. Ten, suddenly, the very quiet rumbling about the spill burst into a

panicked outcry related to the uture the Gul o Mexico and the impact o

the spill on the people and industries that rely on it or a living.

Inormation rom the media exposed me to the complexities o the pro-

cess o oil drilling. Most o us knew that oil drilling played a major role in the

destruction o the coastline as it led to erosion o the wetlands and marshes

so precious to the wildlie and marine lie in our area. Most o us who live

along the coast understood that wetlands and marshes serve as natural bar-

riers against ooding and that they had protected us well beore Hurricane

Katrina. But I am certain that we never knew that there was a drilling acci-

dent just waiting to occur, with the potential to completely destroy the Gulo Mexico, or at least our way o lie, or a very long time.

Te reality is that the sher community o Louisiana and other Gul states

was devastated. Beaches and the related tourism industry and community

have also lost their economic base. For most, all income or 2010 was lost and

showed signs o struggling in 2011. Small and minority businesses have been

slowest to recover rom the Gul Coast disasters.

Who should be blamed or this disaster? Aer Katrina, it became obvious

that much o the human suering that ollowed the ood could be blamedon the governments slow response. We later learned o the problems with

levees, pump stations, and coastal erosion. In the end, a ailure o govern-

ment at all levelsederal, state and localwas responsible or the magni-

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tude o the devastation rom the storm and the enormous amount o human

suering.

Lets compare the results o this analysis to our eort to decipher the cause o

the BP oil rig disaster and to determine the responsible parties. Initially, onemight very easily have believed that this was just an accident, the outcome

o a risk that must be taken in our eorts to supply our country with oil. Lets

say that, in this instance, the good outweighed the bad and that, moreover,

the greater good was served. Americans are not unaccustomed to accepting

high risk or the greater good. For example, during war, we know that there

will be a loss o lie; we also accepted the risks posed by manned space travel

as we attempted to reach the moon despite the loss o lie to astronauts.

Te oil spill and the attempts by BP to cap the well created an emotionalroller-coaster or Gul Coast residents. Every day was one o wonder and

worry over the wells closure, with all good news receiving only cautious

acceptance. Aer months o hoping or the best, we learned to expect the

worst.

Aer nearly eighty-ve days o oil spilling into the Gul, on July 15, 2010,

we nally received good news. Te well had been capped. Te caution, how-

ever, was that it would be orty-eight hours beore we could be certain that

the cap would hold. Well, the orty-eight hours passed, the cap held, but

there were concerns about leakage rom the bottom o the well. As it turned

out, the cap was only a temporary x, and engineers, as in the past, disagreed

on what would be the best next steps.

Capping the well was only part o the headache that gripped my commu-

nity and me. We constantly worried about the lasting economic and psycho-

logical impact o the spill. Some estimates have valued the lost ecosystem

services from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill at between $1.2 and $23.5 bil-

lion per year into the indenite future (until ecological recovery), or between

$34 and $670 billion in present value. We later learned that our psychologi-

cal fears were not wild paranoia but fears documented by health scientists.

Te researchers concluded that Current estimates o human health impacts

associated with the oil spill may underestimate the psychological impact

in Gul Coast communities that did not experience direct exposure to oil.

Income loss aer the spill may have a greater psychological health impact

than the presence o oil on the immediately adjacent shoreline.5

Intertwined in this ongoing dilemma was the relationship between the

ederal government and BP. At what point could the ederal government

orce BP to comply with its directives or sealing the well? What I ound most

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disturbing is that neither the government nor BP had a scientically conclu-

sive remedy to expeditiously seal the well or to clean up the coast. o quote

an old V show, What a revolting development this is!

Tis takes us to the more perplexing and complicated parts o this saga,

the oshore deepwater drilling moratorium imposed by the Obama adminis-tration, which suspended new drilling projects so that the government could

study the risks revealed by the disastrous BP oil spill. While I was completely

bafed by the response o our state and some o our local governments to the

moratorium, in some ways it came as no surprise. Not long aer the burial

and memorial services or the eleven men burned alive in the BP oil explo-

sion and the announcement by the president o a moratorium on deep-well

drilling, our state governor and many small parishes whose amily members

were not killed in this accident were yelling or a liing o the moratorium.Sadly, many o my ellow New Orleanians did not return home aer

Katrina. And those o us who did return and who were continuing to rebuild

their homes and communities ound themselves threatened by the BP oil

spilla man-made disaster that spilled more than 210 million U. S. gallons

o oil into the Gulequivalent to one Exxon Valdez disaster every ten days.

Te 2010 environmental disaster in the Gul complicated the ragile recov-

ery rom Hurricane Katrinaespecially among communities o low-income

people and people o color that were marginalized beore the storm.

Residents in New Orleans and the Gul Coast are a resilient people. We

have lived through numerous disasters and have come back. However, one

has to wonder how many additional natural and man-made disasters and

inept responses we can shoulder. No community should be asked to live with

health-threatening pollution, whether rom a hurricane, a ood, or an oil

spill. Te 2010 BP oil spill was a disaster waiting to happen. It turned out to

be Gul Coast residents worst nightmare economically and environmentally.In July 2010, winds rom Hurricane Alex blew tar balls and an oily sheen

into Lake Pontchartrain, the 630-square-mile brackish lake that drowned

much o New Orleans aer the levee breach during Hurricane Katrina. Te

lake is located just a ew blocks rom my East New Orleans home and is a

bountiul shing ground and a popular spot or boating and swimming. Gul

Coast residents, including me, are worried about the uture o our region.

Te BP disaster heightened stress levels and added mental strains on a popu-

lation that had yet to ully recover rom Hurricane Katrina.In September 2011, ederal investigators rom the Bureau o Ocean Energy

Resource Management and Enorcement (BOERME) issued their long-

delayed report on the causes o the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and

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oil spill. Te joint investigation conducted by the Bureau o Ocean Energy

Management and the Coast Guard concluded that BP and its contractors

ransocean and Halliburton violated at least a hal-dozen ederal regu-

lations. It also ound that the disaster resulted rom a culture o compla-

cency.6 Te BOERME report includes dozens o recommendations or newways to improve saety in oshore drilling, including measures that would

strengthen blowout prevents and would require operators to more requently

report well-control problems. Gul Coast residents need a break rom disas-

ters and they need it now.

Bullard, ch 2

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