Landfill Worries Cloud Hope for New Orleans Gardens
By Kari LydersenWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, July 4, 2009
Urban gardens were key to helping New Orleans's Vietnamese population return and reestablish their close-knit community just weeks after Hurricane Katrina.
The gardens, which cover nearly every inch of open space in the Versailles neighborhood of eastern New Orleans, provided fresh produce long before grocery stores reopened and kept alive a farming tradition that residents brought from their North Vietnam villages more than three decades ago.
Now local church and development leaders are trying to launch a 30-acre urban farm to let elderly gardeners grow more and earn more selling produce at a popular Saturday market. The vision includes free-range livestock, aquaculture and playgrounds for gardeners' grandchildren. But leaders fear that their dream will be impeded by a legacy of Katrina: a nearby emergency demolition landfill that opponents think could release arsenic or other contaminants into the soil, water and air.
Officials with the state and Waste Management, which ran the now-closed landfill, note that air and water tests have found nothing above safe levels. Community leaders say that may be the case now, but they are upset there are no mandates or plans for ongoing testing to detect contamination that may emerge.
"This farm is part of the community's resilience," said the Rev. Vien Nguyen, pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam, a Roman Catholic church that is spearheading the urban farm. "We fended for ourselves all this time, and if Katrina happened again, we could do it all again. But we want to know we have healthy conditions for the farm."
Check out the rest at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/03/AR2009070302436_pf.html
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