New Orleans neighbors overcome tainted soil to rebuild

New Orleans CityBusiness, Jun 16, 2008 by Stephen Maloney

When Lorraine Tyler was deciding whether to rebuild her eastern New Orleans home after Hurricane Katrina, the list of reasons to leave the city for good began in her front yard.

Seven feet of water swamped her home on Little John Drive near Eastover, and the 59-year-old retiree said she immediately became concerned about what toxins the water left behind.

"Everything was dead, all the grass and trees and everything else," Tyler said. "It was all brown and yucky and we were all wondering what was in that water."

Dillard University chemistry professor Lovell Agwaramgbo's testing confirmed Tyler's worst fears of soil contamination by uncovering an array of cancer-causing toxins, including lead and arsenic.

Another program at Dillard is addressing Wright's fears and those of homeowners reluctant to return to homes surrounded by toxic topsoil.

Beverly Wright, director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, said Katrina brought a new sense of purpose to the 15-year-old Dillard-based program. Displaced residents began contacting her about soil toxicity levels as they began the rebuilding process.

"The project really evolved right after Katrina when we had so many concerns about soil contamination," Wright said. "I was convinced that that was not a reason to not come back home."

Wright helped create a soil remediation project, "A Safe Way Back Home," with more than $100,000 in funding from nonprofits.

Wright and Agwaramgbo started to study the extent of soil contamination in New Orleans in early 2006 and develop ways to deal with it. Agwaramgbo's team sampled more than 200 sites throughout the city and found levels of lead and arsenic exceeding federal safety guidelines.

The Environmental Protection Agency's safe level of lead contamination in soil is 400 parts per million. Agwaramgbo said he found lead levels as high as 1,900 parts per million in the Lower Ninth Ward.

The EPA's safe level of arsenic contamination is 4 parts per million, and the state calls any soil with arsenic concentrations less than 12 parts per million safe.

Agwaramgbo found an arsenic concentration of 53 parts per million in Mid-City on Carrollton Avenue -- more than 13 times higher than the EPA safe level.

"The levels vary from one locality to another," Agwaramgbo said. "Depending on where we looked, there seemed to be a little bit less lead in the Ninth Ward than Mid-City. When we went to the West Bank, there tends to be more arsenic and less lead."

Arsenic poisoning in humans affects soft tissues, such as the liver and kidneys, and can cause skin pigmentation problems and cancer. Lead poisoning can be much more devastating, Agwaramgbo said.

"The problems we have with lead, especially for the young kids whose brains have not fully developed, they tend to have some IQ and developmental problems," he said. "For adults, it would take a whole lot to cause some of the problems we see with the children."

Wright said her remediation project is focusing on areas where older and younger populations congregate, recently replacing 6 inches of sod and topsoil at Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School in the Ninth Ward.

Agwaramgbo said several different ways of dealing with contaminated soil exist but simply replacing the soil is by far the most direct, cost-efficient and immediately effective process.

Soil experiments conducted in the Dillard lab found lead in floodwater will only penetrate 3 inches of soil, Agwaramgbo said.

"So in order to deal with that, you must remove the contaminated soil and make sure you have a safe level to cover it up," he said.

Tests conducted after 6 inches of topsoil were replaced at homes in Tyler's neighborhood showed no lingering contaminants, which Wright said is evidence the program is working.

Tyler said having that piece of mind has helped her and her husband, Joseph Tyler, with their decision to return to the house they have called home for the past 21 years.

"The best part is almost 100 percent of the people on our block have returned, so the neighborhood is bouncing back," she said.