Several years ago in Gert Town, New Orleans, the government discovered radioactive material at least 2 miles away from a popular stadium, when they conducted sweeps for an event.

Documents that have been released detail exchanges between the city and an environmental service which suggests that the city attempted to clean up the hazardous material, without drawing too much attention to the problem.

According to the attorneys who are representing people from Gert Town, they say that the city new about the material and knew the risk posed, regardless they still fought to keep the information out of the public eye.

According to those emails, city officials were looking to allegedly implement a recovery strategy that was as discreet as possible, they didn't want to notify the people that there might be radioactive material in the ground. One attorney, S. Rando, claims that the city didn't do enough to alert the public about the potential dangers and he suspects that the city will only continue to be untruthful about the matter.

The city claims that they took the right measures to deal with the issue and that they are continuing to monitor the situation, and during the removal of that material they had not reported any increased risk to the public.

The contaminated soil might now have been moved, but residents are still wondering what is going on and they remain concerned, wondering if their health might have been affected.

“Why are they hiding it? Why didn't they tell us about it? Why did they just put up signs saying road construction?... Nothing about chemicals. Nothing. They basically told us nothing.” - asks local resident L. Soniat

Now, the city is being sued by a number of residents over the issue.

The state Department of Environmental Quality has insisted that the contamination wasn't anything to worry about, but local residents are calling bullshit on that claim. The contamination was discovered in 2013 and crews didn't start work on clearing the problem until late 2018. The last bins containing that waste has now been removed but the problem isn't over yet.

Pics:
pixabay