Even though crews are moving through city-parish neighborhoods picking up large piles of debris from the historic August flood, large commercial entities have been left to dispose of their own flood-related waste.
William Daniel, the city-parish’s chief administrative officer, says the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not approved the removal of debris belonging to large commercial outlets such as shopping, industrial and manufacturing centers.
As a result, the agency will not reimburse the state, which passes the money along to the city-parish, for the removal and disposal of debris belonging to commercial giants.
“We are relying on them to pick up their own debris,” Daniel says. Initially, FEMA would only allow governments in parishes declared as disaster areas to pick up residential debris in public rights-of-way, he says, adding that the agency has since modified its approval to include small businesses and churches, but only for a single pass.
During a special Metro Council meeting on Wednesday, Karen Khonsari, the city-parish’s director of environmental services, said FEMA has granted approval for debris removal crews to go onto private residential property as far as 30 feet from the road to pick up flood remains. The logistics of doing that is still being worked out, Khonsari said.
FEMA granted the request from the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness to approve the removal of disaster-related debris from public rights-of-way last month.
The debris, the Aug. 26 letter acknowledges, had been placed in public rights-of-way by commercial entities, faith-based organizations, private homeowner associations and others.
“I understand that the state, parishes, and local governments and their legally responsible agencies have a duty and obligation to remove and reduce that threat to preserve public health and safety,” Gerard Stolar, a FEMA coordinating officer, wrote in the letter. “I am limiting such removals of debris near commercial areas to a single pass while additional passes in primarily residential areas may be required.”
Stolar also wrote that it was his expectation that commercial entities would be “properly informed of their responsibility to no longer deposit debris on public rights-of-way.”
—Alexandria Burris
