[CPEO-BIF] Sorting through Gulf Coast debris

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Agencies tackle massive Gulf Coast waste removal challenge

By Paul Singer, National Journal
Government Executive
January 9, 2006

NEW ORLEANS -- When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast, 
they turned dozens of communities into massive trash heaps. When the 
winds died down and the flood waters receded, the storms left behind a 
line of debris some 500 miles long.

By year's end, contractors hired by the Army Corps of Engineers and 
other government agencies had hauled away some 40 million cubic yards of 
junk in Louisiana and Mississippi. Even so, millions of cubic yards of 
debris remained, much of it in houses that will have to be gutted or 
demolished.

...

To the untrained eye, the rubble that used to be New Orleans's lower 9th 
Ward looks as if it simply needs to be pushed out of the way by 
bulldozers to allow new construction to begin. But when waste experts 
eye the rubble here and in other wrecked neighborhoods, they see 
something else entirely: a dozen kinds of garbage, each of which needs 
to be collected and disposed of separately.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.governmentexecutive.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33135&dcn=todaysnews

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
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