Hurricane Bends Landfill Rules

WaPo reported New Orleans is building a mountain, a heap of broken concrete and soiled mattresses and shredded curtains plopped out on the edge of a swampy road that routinely draws comparisons to a hellish scene from Dante's "Inferno." This place is called the Old Gentilly Landfill, an ancient dump that was shut down after being identified by federal regulators as a possible hazardous waste site nearly a quarter-century ago and that taxpayers have spent millions to clean up. The rebirth after Hurricane Katrina of Old Gentilly -- designated as a disposal site for "clean waste" from construction and demolition operations -- is the starkest example of how Louisiana is relaxing environmental laws to deal with the immensity of the storm's residue. Debris, such as soggy carpeting and plastic furniture that before the storm could never have gone into this kind of landfill, has been cleared by state environmental regulators to be dumped here in the open air. The state is allowing dumping at unlined Old Gentilly, even though more-modern landfills are nearby.

Why dump this stuff in any landfill? They should turn the land that is 7 to 15 feet below sea level into one huge landfill.