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October 9, 2008 New Orleans: the front lines. by moe. The BioLiberty biodiesel plant outside of New Orleans had been swamped by hurricanes Ike and Gustav, once under two feet of water, once under four. I volunteered to come out and help Gordon Soderberg get it back online. Common Ground volunteer Antillio and I stepped away from the usual construction and demolition to go get good and greasy. Gordon is a die-hard. Though he's a Canadian citizen, he volunteered to join the U.S. Navy in his youth, and since then has played a major role in veterans associations, including Veterans for Peace. After Katrina hit, it was Gordon that supplied Common Ground and the Red Cross with generators and satellites, and his land served as a primary base for volunteers. He's now developing a Veterans Green Jobs Alliance, in hope of teaching vets to be financially self-sustaining by making biodiesel. Check out an interview with him and AlternativeEnergy.com on BlogTalk Radio. The BioLiberty plant is a sweet little setup. It can process some 100 gallons of Waste Vegetable Oil at a time-- Gordon washes his fuel with water, which is common, and then passes the glycerin back through it to remove impurities, a kind of a dry wash, which is becoming more popular. The hurricanes had lifted up parts of the plant and spread them out over his land, shorted out his grease pump, and generally made a mess. After a day scrubbing the deck, rewiring the pump and hauling grease, we watched Gordon start up the plant for the first time since the hurricane. We laughed about the good glory of grease. For folks who run Straight Vegetable Oil, there's a special kind of love for good quality grease: clean grease means less filtering. It means less heat and more love for your engine. It means good fuel. Factor in the seventy-some-percent reduction in emissions, and the beauty of a waste-product-turned fuel in our oil-addicted economy is intoxicating. Inspiring, even, massive caravans and roadshows. Later that week the SLR crew was invited to the house of Malik, the founder of Common Ground. We chowed down on shrimp and potato gumbo while watching a Saints game. Malik had been a resident of Algiers and was instrumental in organizing post-hurricane support for his communities: health clinics, demolition efforts. He told some harrowing stories about the aftermath of Katrina. What does a community do when it's lost a thousand people, and their bodies are laying about in the streets? Stray dogs began picking at the bodies, and two weeks after the hurricane the government still had not collected them. The journalist Amy Goodman ran a segment exposing the issue on Democracy Now, and the next day the bodies were cleared. Even three years out, many homes in the 9th ward are boarded up, still bearing the original post-Katrina assessment spraypaint (listing numbers of bodies or gas leaks), and many homes are simply gone. The Make it Right Foundation has been a sole outside force in the Lower 9th rebuild, creating elevated sustainable housing for pre-Katrina residents. These new formidable houses tower above overgrown fields, hurricane ruins, and rebuilt traditional homes. It's an entirely unique combination of landscapes. Brad Pitt visited the recently completed homes yesterday as the Roadshow was preparing to leave for Austin: much of the neighborhood milled about its business, gardening and working, as camera flashbulbs popped. New Orleans is in many ways on the front lines. The front lines of past and future hurricanes. The front lines of environmental justice, of community efforts across racial lines. The front lines of a desperate need for comprehensive urban planning. The front lines of a sustainable future. More Blog Entries: |
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