Rebuilding New Orleans
HOLY CROSS PROJECT SITE UPDATE
Global Green, in partnership with the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, chose to build its green affordable housing development on a site that is immediately adjacent to the Mississippi River in the Lower Ninth Ward. At approximately 7 feet above sea level, this half city block is on the highest ground in New Orleans, and should therefore be safe from future hurricane storm surges.
In selecting a site next to the river, however, Global Green is encountering lead contamination - an additional hurdle to sustainable rebuilding that tens of thousands of sites in the city are also burdened with.
Even before the federal levee system failed after Hurricane Katrina's storm surge reached New Orleans, submerging approximately 80% of the city and spreading various toxic wastes in the flood waters, the legacy of lead paint and leaded gasoline that were not banned until the mid-1970s left widespread contamination. This is a problem that most inner cities and older homes throughout the United States struggle with. Pre-Katrina, it was estimated that at least 40,000 homes and 40% of New Orleans soils exceeded cleanup standards for lead contamination.
The site chosen for the Holy Cross project was once used to clean and repair ships that transported materials on the river, and as a result, our investigation revealed that there are a few areas which contain lead, as well as arsenic, contamination on the site. Both lead and arsenic are heavy metals, which means that they can't evaporate into air or become diluted in water, but they can be dangerous if eaten or inhaled in dust.
Global Green has met the challenge of cleaning up a contaminated site in a sustainable way head on: rather than simply scrap the contaminated soils into a dump truck and ship them off to a landfill in someone else's community - usually a low-income and/or minority community without the power to protect themselves from toxic imports - Global Green has chosen to keep the soils on-site, but to do so in a way that ensures that they are safely sealed off from the community and the environment.
To ensure that we can complete our 23 homes as soon as possible, we will be addressing the areas of contamination in phases, moving soils to safe areas as we build first the remaining 4 single family homes, then the 18 unit apartment building, and finally the community center.
Most experts agree that simply burying heavy metal contaminants under clean soil and then landscaping on top of the new soil will remove any health threats to a community. However, Global Green is striving for the most sustainable and protective cleanup possible onsite, and is planning on placing all of the contaminated soils beneath the foundational concrete slab for the non-residential building on the Holy Cross site, the Community Center, as well as putting soils underneath the driveway onsite. Global Green is involving the Holy Cross community in this process, signing up for a unique public input program that the state environmental agency has established whereby residents are invited to review the problem and our proposed solution with Global Green and state officials, and to help guide
our efforts to nurture a Lower Ninth Ward that is sustainable both in buildings, and in people.
By ensuring that the contaminated soils are removed from all areas where people will live and play, and that they are covered by permanent barriers, and not just soil, Global Green hopes to demonstrate a model of sustainable cleanup and protection that can educate and inspire homeowners, builders and government officials as they grapple with the legacy of lead throughout communities in the United States.