MY STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Environmental Justice Issues in New Orleans,
Pollution Dangers from Chicago Rail Yards and Other Stories

By Kari Lydersen
IJJ Environmental Justice Fellow, 2009

In crafting my proposal I knew I wanted to address environmental justice in New Orleans, and I knew there were a myriad of EJ issues, both preceding and since Katrina. I had covered EJ housing issues in New Orleans in the past, and had long wanted to follow up on environmental effects on the Gulf, Mississippi River and wetlands and the communities that rely on these aquatic ecosystems for survival. I did much research ahead of time but by the time I was in New Orleans I still didn’t know exactly what stories I would end up doing.  I just had a wide and somewhat vague range of ideas and sources, covering well contamination, pollution of the Gulf and river from the oil and chemical industries, wetland erosion and other issues. My main challenge became honing in on one or more specific stories. Thanks to very helpful and patient sources in New Orleans and in the Native American community around Golden Meadow, about 50 miles from New Orleans, I was able to develop two in-depth stories and also compile a list of ideas to hopefully follow up on in the future.

My first story was about the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East and their plan to build a large urban farm for purposes of food security and cultural cohesion. But they worry that the nearby Chef Menteur landfill of Katrina demolition waste will contaminate the ground, air and soil of the farm, and they are furious that no plans exist for ongoing monitoring of the landfill. My second story was about the Native American communities who live in the bayou around Golden Meadow, who are literally seeing their land disappear as the wetlands rapidly erode because of the channelization of the Mississippi River and the cutting of canals through the wetlands by the oil and gas industry. As these communities are being forced out by the effects of disappearing land, they fear they may also lose their cultural heritage and community cohesion.

Both my project stories were published by ColorLines web magazine. I have worked with ColorLines before and have felt very fortunate to work with editors dedicated to showcasing race and justice issues and highlighting community groups and activists. I also published stories on both topics in The Washington Post, where I work as a staff writer out of the Midwest bureau.

I was not surprised to see how inter-connected the various EJ groups and community leaders in the region are, and there was much overlap among my sources on various issues. I approached one source, a public interest lawyer, about my story related to landfills in New Orleans East, and only by chance found out he was actually an authority on my other story, Native American communities in the bayou. Another environmental lawyer helped me reframe my originally erroneous assumption about the fate of the local fishing industry. I had assumed contamination from Katrina was still impacting the fishing industry. As it turned out that was not really true, but the more systematic and ongoing issue of wetland erosion was instead having a major impact on various subsistence and commercial fishing communities.

As is usually the case, sources who did not make it into the stories were invaluable. Chemist Wilma Subra gave me a wide overview of a number of EJ issues in New Orleans and Mississippi, and her day-long tour allowed me for the first time to really understand how the flooding of different communities happened during Katrina and how the Army Corps’ efforts since then have been likely inadequate to prevent another such disaster. Wilma also tipped me off to several stories I would like to cover in the future. However, these will be difficult stories since they involve residents of de facto “company towns” who are generally afraid or unwilling to speak out about serious contamination caused by local industry.

For my story on the Vietnamese community’s urban farm plan, the Mary Queen of Vietnam church, including pastor Vien Nguyen and Peter Nguyen of the church-affiliated CDC, were crucial.  Having lunch and spending downtime at the church aside from my reporting gave me a chance to fully appreciate the resiliency, generosity and quiet strength of this community, and the way a leader like Pastor Nguyen can facilitate an otherwise somewhat closed community’s cooperation with outside groups or agencies. My main reporting challenge with this story was the fact that, so far, there is no concrete evidence of risk from the landfill. I made sure to keep an open mind and weigh whether the community really had valid reasons to fear future contamination. After talking to outside experts and understanding the fact that at the very least the community wants monitoring to determine any future risk, I was reassured that this was worth a story.

For the story on the Native American communities, Houma leader Brenda Robichaux and her staff were an invaluable starting point, and Brenda’s father actually became the soul of the story. The loss of land is an ongoing issue for the tribes, and I struggled somewhat to find a timely angle for this story, but as it turned out there has been relatively scant coverage of their plight so I figured even a story without a sharp time angle was relevant.

Based on feedback I have gotten from other stories I did in New Orleans I know that coverage of these issues can help people both in the region and outside become aware of and offer support to groups like the Mary Queen of Vietnam church and the Gulf Restoration Network, which is working to restore the wetlands. And more broadly, I hope my stories help build an understanding of environmental justice in general and an awareness of how government policies and actions, or lack of action, can create and maintain systemic situations of environmental injustice. Ideally this awareness would, in the long term, allow the public to help shape more just and pro-active public policy and decision-making.

The fellowship – both the Los Angeles and Chicago conferences and my ongoing interaction with Fellows, staff and other people connected to IJJ – really informed my reporting and larger understanding of my project stories and the environmental justice component to each of them. Going into the fellowship I thought I fully understood what environmental justice is, but the fellowship gave me a much deeper, more nuanced and more academic understanding of the development of the environmental justice movement, exactly what environmental justice means and even controversy about the idea of environmental justice (or injustice). This background knowledge has helped me better figure out exactly what questions to ask for my project stories and other stories I have worked on since.

Meanwhile the fellowship programs, my project stories and the relationships I have developed with other Fellows and sources have continued to benefit my reporting in various ways. The programs also introduced me to very concrete information and sources related to the ongoing critical issue of diesel pollution. Since the fellowship I have written two stories for The Washington Post about the EPA’s attempts to limit diesel emissions from ships. I also wrote a story for The Post about clean locomotives with lower diesel emissions. I don’t think I would have done these complicated stories without the background knowledge and key sources I was introduced to during the fellowship.

 I wrote an in-depth investigative story for The Chicago Reporter that is a direct outcome of the fellowship, focusing on the health effects and environmental justice issues of rail yards in the Chicago area. Presentations by USC Professor Andrea Hricko and others during the Los Angeles program gave me the idea for this story, and Andrea was my key source moving forward with the story.

 I’m sure in coming months and years my experience with the IJJ fellowship will continue to inform my work in various and numerous ways.