The Chef Menteur Landfill

There has been significant statistics that revealed a large portion of individuals in New Orleans have low socio-economic status. The great Hurricane Katrina in 2005 did not help these statistics improve. In fact, it increased due to the damaging effects from the hurricane. Prior to the hurricane, there wasn’t a significant plan to address the vulnerable population, especially how to handle the mental state of children within this population after a major disaster. The individuals within this population includes the minority, low income, non-English speaking, and non-educated. Even though warnings and methods to prepare for the hurricane was given, not everyone fully understood the extent due to language barriers and inability to access essential supplies to protect themselves.

One of the most unique things about New Orleans particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries where this image is derived from was race and racism. People were excluded or included, considered inferior or superior based on the race they belonged to. To this end, Indians, and African Americans were classified on the lower end of the race totem pole while whites were seen as superior. Furthermore, one’s stance in society or occupation was determined by their race. The whites were majorly businessmen and land owners presiding over big farms that they owned. The blacks and the Indians were mostly peasants ‘owned’ by the white people and forced to work on the farms of the white people against their will owing to the fact that they were imported from their original residences as slaves (Appleby, Eileen and Neva 18). It is, therefore, clear that race and racism played a significant role in helping define New Orleans as we know it today. Bringing racism to the fore provides a platform upon which it can be alleviated to help

In Mantua Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey, privately owned land once stood as one of the most hazardous waste sites in the United States. This site known as the Helen Kramer Landfill included 66-acres of waste, 11 acres of unfavorably conditioned vegetation, and no onsite residents. Prior to the early 1960’s, Helen Keller landfill was a sand and gravel excavation operation, but soon began to incorporate the disposal of waste material for about a decade. After the landfill received numerous inspections and notices between 1971 and 1977, the owner Helen Kramer was informed to cease operation of the landfill. As New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection reports indicated and area residents stated, “sporadic chemical

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating disaster that has affected many people in New Orleans. The communication broke down hours after Katrina because of the unexpected fast winds and floods that broke down “3 million phone lines and 1,000 cellular towers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.”( Joch ). Because of the millions of phone lines that were broken down, contacting the government for help was difficult hours after hurricane Katrina. Not only that, the people of New Orleans underestimated the power of Hurricane Katrina causing many to be “ stranded with no food or water” (Narrator, “The Storm”,PBS).

Here the authors address an important solution; allow residents to hire their own experts from the community who are well versed in delivering the proponents message to the residents in a manner that does not exclude anyone from the process. The landfill began operating in 2006, as the proponents deemed there was not any substantive opposition to the project through official Environmental Impact Assessment (Deacon & Baxter, 2013). Deacon and Baxter in this case set out to understand the role and relation between power and participation as it relates to procedural environmental justice in order to challenge understanding of environmental justice and cease production and reproduction of environmental injustice. The residents protested as they felt they were being sacrificed for economic growth, “the landfill has become a symbol of the slow decline of the community of Lincolnville” (Race and Waste in Nova Scotia, 2006). They call this environmental racism, which is the racial discrimination in the enforcement of environmental rules and regulations, targeting minority communities for the siting of polluting industries or the exclusion of people of color from public and private boards, commissions and regulatory bodies (Race and Waste in Nova Scotia,

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating disaster that has affected many people in New Orleans as well as the surrounding areas. It had a stunning “death toll of 1300 people and damage over $100 billion ”( Davlasheridze 94 ). The communication were taken down hours after Katrina because of the unexpected fast winds and floods that broke down “3 million phone lines and 1,000 cellular towers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.”( Joch ). Because of the millions of phone lines that were battered, contacting the government for help was difficult hours after hurricane Katrina. Not only that, the people of New Orleans underestimated the power of Hurricane Katrina causing many to be “ stranded with no food or water” ( Narrator, “The Storm”,PBS ).

On August 12, the Americans of Louisiana woke up with water in their houses. A week passed, and now thousands evacuated the flooded regions around Baton Rouge. 40,000 homes were ravaged, and several were found deceased. People were stranded on highways and rooftops, trapped in deep waters infested with rodents and snakes, and floating through the destruction onto mattresses. The state has been declared a disaster area. However, national media seems entirely uninterested with this flooding - after all, it was not the first time Lousiana had to endure through a natural disaster. A multitude of critics advocated for the abandonment of Louisiana. Because Louisiana is prone to natural occurrences due to its location, critics believe that it is wholly pointless to rebuild a state that is always sinking. However, the abandonment of Louisiana would result in the movement of all the

On the morning of August 29, 2005 was one of the deadliest hurricanes in the United States, known as Hurricane Katrina struck the south coast of New Orleans, leaving thousands of African American whom lived in Treme homeless, missing and hundreds dead. Way before the hurricane Treme, which is one of the oldest African American neighborhoods in New Orleans. “The city of New Orleans is officially divided into 73 neighborhoods grouped into 13 planning districts. Among these, the 4th district is of interest because of its central location, cultural history, and socio-economic challenges confronted prior to the catastrophe”(Barrios, 2). The reason why the 4th district was so

Since African Americans are limited to such opportunities, New Orleans is considered what is presumed to be a “racially segregated landscape of differentiated risk” -- spatial benefits of the post natural disastrous situation flowed to those who weren't from the lower socioeconomic tier. The racial projects that emphasize this formulation are found in how mainstream press coverage viewed those who were stranded and how structural programs not only failed to prepare relief but also intensified city

Eighty percent of the city’s housing stock had been flooded, and sitting under this water for multiple days. Rivlin follows former mayor, Ray Nagin to show how disastrous and difficult it was to restore the housing and businesses of New Orleans. In a few pages, you can see the incompetence of public officials and how the damage from the hurricane was extremely hard to repair due to poor decision making. While the FEMA trailers are gone and a $14.5 billion food-protection system is in place 10 years later, there are still houses and businesses that were destroyed that have been untouched. Alden McDonald, president of the city’s oldest black-owned bank, says, “…the untouched destruction creates the illusion the floodwaters poured in just yesterday. There's still so much to be

Author Kristina Kay Robinson wrote in her short story 10 Years Since: A Mediation on New Orleans, “I don’t know how long my city has for me, but every day that I remain, I am working, searching for a newer, truer meaning for the concept of forward.” To this day, this sentiment remains authentic for those devastated by the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina. Accordingly, the aftermath and trauma that victims of Katrina faced in New Orleans, Louisiana, left countless amounts of people homeless and with psychological issues. Levees in New Orleans failed as enormous waves flooded the city that was already below sea level. Consequently, Hurricane Katrina’s course of major annihilation was detrimental and left various southern states, including Louisiana, with billions of dollars in damage and destruction and a

The issue with the re-developing of New Orleans is an area that has been debated between governors, investors, urban planners, residents and other professionals since hurricane Katrina, the costliest “natural” disaster in 2005. This wonderful place, is a Louisiana city near the Gulf of Mexico. Its strategic position, becomes the exit of the great Mississippi-Missouri river system, which drains the interior North of America. New Orleans is one of the lowest spots in the United States, it is already as much as 17 feet below sea level in some places, and it continues to sink more than an inch a year. Re-developing New Orleans will be a difficult aspect because of its location, topography and weather conditions. However, New Orleans is one of the most culturally rich urban

D’Ann Penner received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied belief and resistance among Cossacks, farmers and women in the formative years of the Soviet Union. Keith C. Ferdinand is a clinical cardiologist, who was previously the Medical Director of Heartbeats Life Center and Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at Xavier University College of Pharmacy in New Orleans, Louisiana. Overcoming Katrina: African American Voices from the Crescent City and Beyond, is a collection of 27 interviews of people who dealt with multiple issues of abandonment, evacuation, displacement, and having to rebuild their lives after Katrina. The authors have divide the book up in four different sections that split the

Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana on August 29th, 2005, but the failure of the local government started before this day “by allowing building and growing in areas in low flood lands.” The local government did not regulate these land areas that have always

The opinion of New Orleans residents regarding how Hurricane Katrina was handled by the government also depends on the resident’s race, class, and gender. Many of the poor urban residents in New Orleans that were the most devastated by Hurricane Katrina were African American (Pardee, 2014). These residents felt that they were forgotten by their government and left to die because they did