A Forgotten Community in New Orleans: Life on a Superfund Site

onJun 22, 2014 @ 11:00 PDT

Shannon Rainey lives in a house that was built on top of a Superfund site in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

“I bought my house when I was 25, and thirty years later, I still can’t get out,” she told DeSmogBlog.

Rainey’s home in Gordon Plaza is part of a subdivision developed by the city in 1981 on top of the Agriculture Street landfill. No one disclosed to the buyers that their new homes were built on top of a dump that was closed in 1965.

Rainey has a view of two other city-owned properties also built on the landfill: the shuttered Morton Elementary School and Press Park, an abandoned housing project developed by the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO).

“If it were white folks back here, this would be all gone,” Rainey says bluntly.

By Julie Dermansky

Julie Dermansky is a multimedia reporter and artist based in New Orleans. She is an affiliate scholar at Rutgers University’s Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights. Visit her website at www.jsdart.com.

Can AI Slash Pollution? Fossil Fuel Industry Is Investing in Boosting Oil Production, Profits Instead

BySharon Kelly

onAug 13, 2025 @ 12:44 PDT

DeSmog reveals that Big Oil says they’re using AI to produce more fossil fuels, while utilities are exploring how “AI agents” could take over key power grid functions.