An excavator tears into the home at 2897 Abundance St. in New Orleans. The subdivision, built on top of a landfill full of hazardous waste, will be turned into a community solar farm. (Halle Parker/WWNO)
NEW ORLEANS — The home at 2897 Abundance St. crumbled under the mechanical arm of an excavator with surprising ease, the red-brick, one story house falling to pieces as if it were made of paper and glue. A fire truck stood by, casting a stream of water onto the structure to help keep dust from the demolition from rising into the air.
It was the first home demolition in Gordon Plaza, a neighborhood infamously built on top of an old landfill that’s been designated a toxic site. The City of New Orleans has purchased 62 of the 67 homes in the subdivision – with plans to buy and tear down more – to build a solar farm atop the tainted land.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan traveled to the city for a ceremony to launch the solar farm. He noted that while the day marked promise for the project, it was also a “bittersweet” experience given the painful past for Gordon Plaza residents.
“This is where some people bought their first home,” Regan said.
The land under Gordon Plaza used to be the site of the Agriculture Street Landfill, a dumping ground for industrial, medical and municipal waste from 1909 to 1957. Its accumulated cancer-causing chemicals and “140 other hazardous materials,” according to the New Orleans Office of Resilience and Sustainability.
The landfill, nicknamed “Dante’s inferno” as an ode to chemical dumping that caused spontaneous explosions and fires, reopened for debris burning after Hurricane Betsy from 1966 to 1967.
In the 1970s and 80s, the City of New Orleans helped create and market a housing development built on top of the former landfill, primarily to low- and middle- income Black residents, in the 1970’s and 80’s. Robert Moton Elementary School, for the children of Gordon Plaza and Desire neighborhood, went up in 1987 on the same contaminated land.
(Halle Parker/WWNO)
It closed in 1994 once the EPA stepped in to address the hazardous property, putting a soil-stabilizing fabric between the toxic soil and up to 24 inches of clean dirt on top in 2002. Some of this clean soil, however, washed away in Katrina’s floodwaters, exposing Gordon Plaza again to dangers from below.
Residents of Gordon Plaza campaigned to be relocated at the city’s expense for decades after the EPA designated the area a Superfund site in 1994. But local officials dragged their feet until June 2022, when the New Orleans City Council allocated $35 million derived from bond sales to buy out Gordon Plaza homes.
The fight continued. Residents argued the city shouldn’t pinch pennies when determining home values, saying it was an issue of justice for unknowingly having to live on toxic ground. The city cited legal constraints to spending above market value for home buyouts; Gordon Plaza residents said their homes’ location atop a superfund site made them virtually worthless on the open market.
The city council approved a motion in September 2022 requiring the city-hired appraiser, Jim Thorn, to use a method to value the homes in collaboration with the authors of a 2021 study on the appropriate cost of Gordon Plaza relocation.
The study, from two Tulane school or architecture professors and a local real estate broker, valued the homes at about $293 per square foot and each land parcel at a median $45,000. Moving costs were pegged at $25,000. Gordon Plaza homeowners received offer letters in the summer of 2023 based on a median value of $335,000.
Construction of the solar farm will still have to account for contaminants that still remain. Trucks hauling out debris will be covered with tarps, structures will be soaked with water before demolition to prevent airborne debris, and concrete foundations will be left in place to seal the contaminated soil underneath.
The city expects to release a request for construction proposals for the Community Solar Farm in early 2025. Once a contract is signed with a developer, the city will release a timeline for the solar farm construction, according to the City of New Orleans’ website.
Two options for ownership of the solar farm are under consideration: The city can either directly buy and finance the operation, or the solar developer will finance and own the facility.
The city is leaning toward third-party developer ownership of the solar farm, according to New Orleans environmental affairs administrator Cheryn Robles. The site is expected to generate up to 6.3 MW of electricity, enough power for 140 homes.
A buy-in option will be offered to New Orleans residents to reduce their electric bills and lean more on renewable energy for electrical power.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell reinforced the idea that the “once hazardous ground” could be turned into a place of “resilience and sustainability” with solar energy.