In New Orleans, a Big Green Opportunity is Wasted, Environmentalists Say

This is just a damned shame!

There is no excuse for it.

Maybe if city, state officials were spending more time working rather than ponitficarting on the glory of themselves, they might have gotten something done by now.

Unfortunately, before this crowd of goofballs can get it together, The Big Easy will get hit again.


In New Orleans, a Big Green Opportunity is Wasted, Environmentalists Say:

"NEW ORLEANS: In the rush to rebuild, this hurricane-smashed city is dumping its debris into the swamps by the truckload, and throwing away an opportunity to turn America's costliest natural disaster into the nation's greatest recycling effort, environmentalists say.

Every day, trucks rumble down the streets on their way to the Old Gentilly Landfill, a municipal dump in the swampiest part of the city, to unload the debris that homeowners and contractors have piled up on the curbs throughout New Orleans.

With large-scale home demolitions now beginning, there are no comprehensive, citywide plans to salvage and recycle building materials; things such as cypress and cedar boards, bricks, cinderblocks and roof tiles.

'We don't have the time,' said John Rogers, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's recycling specialist. He cited the sheer volume of debris created by Katrina, 30 years' worth of the stuff, officials say.

But environmentalists say that in the seven months since Katrina hit, there has been plenty of time for city, state and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to draw up contracts to recycle debris, buy recycling equipment and putting people to work sorting through the rubble."