Rebuild Green / New Orleans
2006 YEAR-END UPDATE
RENOVATIONS, NEW CONSTRUCTION, AND
RECYCLING PLASTIC IN THE 9TH WARD AND ST. BERNARD PARISH
Dear Supporters of Rebuild Green,
Here is a quick summary of projects that we have under way in New Orleans as 2006 closes.
RENOVATIONS
2324/26 Congress - A "double-shotgun" house in the Upper 9th Ward that's owned by by Ms. Melveline Gaites, a retired African-American woman. This house took settled flood water five feet high in September 2005. We've removed more than 3000 linear feet of tongue-and-groove oak flooring from it. Most of this deconstruction will become flooring in the two main living-rooms in each unit of the double-shotgun; the remainder will be recycled. Electrical, plumbing, wall and ceiling work will be completed by December 20. Thus Ms. Gaites ("Grandma Mel" to Common Ground Relief workers at the St. Mary's Volunteer Center) should be able to leave her FEMA trailer and live in her house before Christmas. We hope for donation of two or more solar panels for the house. Based on precedent in the 8th Ward, even such a small addition of panels should produce 300 watts of power. These panels would provide the first solar power in the Upper 9th Ward.
7013 Fig - A double-shotgun in the Central City district of New Orleans that's being made habitable for himself and his aunt by musician Tyrone Henry. We'll provide electrical, plumbing, wall, floor, and ceiling work to enable more of foothold for the Henry family's returning to New Orleans.
NEW CONSTRUCTION
Apart from the Johnson family project on the 2500 block of Desire Street that's described elsewhere on the Rebuild Green site, we have home-owners on Piety Street and Bartholomew Street in the Upper 9th Ward and on a 13-unit lot beside Bayou St. Jean nearby City Park who want to build new homes with Structural Concrete Integrated Panels (SCIPs); who want flood-defensive elevation; and who want renewable-energy features.
They want to start with pilings and foundations as soon as January 8, 2007.
For whatever reason or reasons, however, permits for SCIP construction have been
slow to come in the City of New Orleans. One reason might be the threat they pose
to timber interests that are often allied with oil and gas interests in Louisiana--as these
interests are allied across the U. S. and the entire Earth. Based only on estimates
from damage that followed from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, 250,000 new houses may be built in southern Louisiana over the next 10 years. At an average modest price of $150,000 per house, the total amount thus at stake for new houses alone in this region is $37.5 billion. SCIP construction is expected is cut construction costs for new houses by at least 30%. Post-construction, the panels alone are expected to reduce consumers' use of utilities' energy (issuing from oil and gas) by at least 40%.
So we may reasonably suppose that opposition to SCIP construction in New Orleans
owes to billions of reasons that closely resemble U.S. dollar-bills.
Nevertheless, Rebuild Green and Invest Construction are confident that unity among
contractors and people's discernment and determination can overcome such opposition.
RECYCLING PLASIC IN THE 9TH WARD AND ST. BERNARD PARISH
The prospect for a genuine breakthrough in recycling plastic in this region arose recently.
Through efforts by a complementary organization in St. Bernard Parish (the adjoining Parish just south of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, a Parish dependent for employment on the Murphy Oil plant whose holding-tanks and smokestacks stand alongside the Mississippi's eastern bank, and a Parish even more desolated post-flood than the 9th Ward), that organization, and Common Ground Relief's bases in the Lower and Upper 9th Wards, and Rebuild Green may combine in collecting all kinds of trash plastic (categories 1 through 7) into 40-foot containers and selling the plastic for a profit in the process.
Thus we'll reduce waste and provide residents of the 9th Wardand St. Bernard Parish with alternative employment.
More will be told about this breakthrough when it's overcome more of presumable
obstructions.
AND THANKS
Without your support we wouldn't have the means with which to fight.