Dive Brief:

• New Orleans, LA and the operators of the Old Gentilly landfill have settled a lawsuit for $8 million with the owners of the land where the site is located.
• The owners of a majority of land the landfill sits on are private citizens. But the city claimed that it owned the site, and the true owners never knew the city was using the property as a landfill that accepted debris from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• The owners eventually discovered the mistake after a man who was filing a lawsuit over environmental issues with the landfill noticed that 80% of the landfill belonged to a group of private citizens who were paying taxes for the property.

Dive Insight:

After Hurricane Katrina hit, the operators of the landfill began taking in “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on some days. All documents filed with the state Department of Environmental Quality list the city of New Orleans as the owner. 

The $8 million settlement will be divided among the land holders, who will receive around $1 per square foot of property owned, or about $12,000 per lot.