Six years after Jefferson Parish officials admittedtheir Waggaman landfill was emitting noxious odors, thousands of residents on both sides of the Mississippi River will soon see payouts for health issues they say were caused by the fumes.
More than 5,000 residents from Harahan, River Ridge, South Kenner, Metairie, Waggaman, Avondale and Bridge City will see paychecks ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars by the end of the summer as part of a $4.5 million class-action settlement with Jefferson Parish over its landfill emissions between 2017 and 2019, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.
The Jefferson Parish Council voted in August to approve the settlement for the federal lawsuit, which was first filed in 2018.
The years-long legal battle is far from over, though, as roughly 1,500 residents filed a new lawsuit Tuesday in the 24th Judicial District Court against the parish’s former landfill contractors, Waste Connections and APTIM. A federal judge denied class-action status earlier this year in the case against the two companies, meaning residents seeking damages against them will have to individually sue them.
Doug Hammel, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said thousands more residents who filed class-action claims could join the mass tort lawsuit.
Waste Connections did not respond to requests for comment, and APTIM declined to comment. In a recent court filing, the defendants said Waste Connections did not cause any injuries and that “any alleged odors are not more than an inconvenience to plaintiffs.”
Since 2018, Jefferson Parish has invested more than $10.4 million into landfill upgrades, including to its collection systems, and signed an agreement with River Birch to merge operations with its own landfill next door until 2037.
River Birch is not a defendant in any of the lawsuits.
‘Pretty freaking miserable’
Robyn Crossman, 40, moved into her newly-built Waggaman home with her husband, daughter, two dogs and four catsin January 2018.
But the excitement of being a first-time homeowner quickly wore off as she began to notice the smell of “burning tires” wafting over her property and burning her nostrils when the wind picked up, she said.
Crossman began waking up in the night because of the smell, and wore a face mask indoors to combat it. She canceled large gatherings her family had planned, including a house-warming party.
And when the stench hit her, so too would her migraines, she said. Crossman had pre-existing conditions that gave her headaches, but in her new home she was experiencing them up to three times more frequently, to the point that she often had to take off work.
“I felt worse,” Crossman said. “It was embarrassing. It was pretty freaking miserable, is the nicest way to say it.”
In July 2018, former Parish President Mike Yenni and Councilman Paul Johnston admitted that the landfill’s collection systems were not operating properlycausing a prevalence of odors. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality confirmed the landfill to be the primary source of the stench.
At the time, Waste Connections operated the landfill under a contract with the parish, while APTIM managed the gas and leachate collection systems.
Legal battle
A handful of lawsuits were filed against the parish and its contractors in the months following, which were later consolidated into two different lawsuits and transferred to the federal court. One of those lawsuits sought class-action status, the other did not.
Judge Susie Morgan of the Louisiana Eastern District ruled in the class-action lawsuit 2022that the landfill’s emissions of hydrogen sulfide gas “were capable of causing headaches, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, sleep disruption, dizziness, fatigue, anxiety and worry, a decrease in quality of life, and loss of enjoyment or use of property in the general population.”
Jefferson Parish settled the other mass tort lawsuit, with over 500 plaintiffs, for another $4.5 million, according to attorney Eric Rowe. Waste Connections and APTIM settled that case just before trial, but Rowe declined to disclose the settlement agreement.
Jefferson Parish paid out an additional $700,000 to LDEQ to settle compliance orders and potential violation notices issued from 2018-21.
The class-action lawsuit sought damages for anyone living in a 46-mile area covering Waggaman, Avondale, River Ridge, Harahan and parts of Metairie and Kenner in 2017, 2018 or 2019.
In March, Judge Morgan denied class certification for over 5,000 residents in the case against Waste Connections and APTIM, saying that wind patterns caused varied exposure month-to-month and by neighborhood, “affecting Class Representatives’ degree of exposure widely and inconsistently.”
As a result, each of those residents will now have to prove their case individually in court to receive compensation, which could take years to resolve.
Those named in the newest lawsuit, including Crossman, are seeking damages of up to $74,999 per plaintiff.
“I know it’s taken a long time, but at the same time, it could’ve been a situation where nobody ever listened,” Crossman said. “At the end of it, the people responsible need to be held accountable to the entire community.”
