Finally something that doesn’t stink!
New Orleanians who call one of the city’s most polluted cesspools home had a rare legal victory this week.
The 5,000 current and former residents of the Gordon Plaza and Press Park neighborhoods — both of which are built on top of a Superfund-designated landfill — named in a class-action lawsuit were awarded $75.3 million in a Monday court ruling.
The case has been decades in the making for residents of the noxious area.
“Thirty years down the road, to see this come to an end, it’s an emotional moment,” said Suzette Bagneris, a lead attorney representing residents, according to Nola.com.
However, it is unclear when residents will receive the awarded compensation for the distress and damage caused by living atop a toxic mound.
The City of New Orleans Housing Authority of New Orleans and Orleans Parish School Board are liable for the payout. The city — which has a reputation for failing to pay out on lawsuits — declined to discuss with multiple outlets whether it planned to appeal the ruling. (The city currently has over 560 outstanding judgments and settlements in state and federal courts, the Times-Picayune has reported.)
It is also still to be determined how exactly the money will be allocated, although according to Bagneris distribution will take into account how long residents lived in impacted addresses, The Guardian reported. Someone who lived in Gordon Plaza for 20 years, for example, might receive $25,000 and 20 percent of their home’s value, the latter an extremely relative number considering area homes arguably have no value due to the nabes’ 1994 Superfund designation.
“My property taxes were $57 last year,” said Jesse Perkins, a member of a non-profit representing area residents, according to Nola.com. “That gives you an idea of the value of my house.”
In the meantime, many mostly Black families still live in the two residential neighborhoods, which were built up in the 1970s and ’80s and sold to mostly low- and middle-income homeowners without informing them that the site had previously been a landfill.
Still, the ruling is a significant step for long-fighting neighborhood residents.
“It’s good news that will hopefully get some of us off this nasty landfill,” said Perkins, adding “We still have to fight fiercely to make this right.”