{"id":650,"date":"2016-12-28T10:49:42","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T10:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haroldweiser.com\/\/?p=576"},"modified":"2025-12-28T12:02:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T12:02:27","slug":"river-birch-and-morrell-s-consort-to-stop-recycling-in-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/river-birch-and-morrell-s-consort-to-stop-recycling-in-new-orleans\/","title":{"rendered":"River Birch and Morrell \u2018s consort to stop recycling in New Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"650\" class=\"elementor elementor-650\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-7c19c2d7 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"7c19c2d7\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-37bd0028 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"37bd0028\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1d4ef39e elementor-widget elementor-widget-theme-post-title elementor-page-title elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"1d4ef39e\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"theme-post-title.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">River Birch and Morrell \u2018s consort to stop recycling in New Orleans<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-16eed8ac elementor-widget elementor-widget-hfe-breadcrumbs-widget\" data-id=\"16eed8ac\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"hfe-breadcrumbs-widget.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<nav aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\"><ul class=\"hfe-breadcrumbs hfe-breadcrumbs-show-home\"><li 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0l204.118-204.118c18.745-18.745 18.745-49.137 0-67.882zM112 160c-26.51 0-48-21.49-48-48s21.49-48 48-48 48 21.49 48 48-21.49 48-48 48zm513.941 133.823L421.823 497.941c-18.745 18.745-49.137 18.745-67.882 0l-.36-.36L527.64 323.522c16.999-16.999 26.36-39.6 26.36-63.64s-9.362-46.641-26.36-63.64L331.397 0h48.721a48 48 0 0 1 33.941 14.059l211.882 211.882c18.745 18.745 18.745 49.137 0 67.882z\"><\/path><\/svg>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"hfe-post-info-text hfe-post-info__item hfe-post-info__item--type-terms\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"hfe-post-info__terms-list\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"hfe-post-info__terms-list-item\">Uncategorized<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-40d722b0 elementor-widget__width-inherit elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"40d722b0\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2>River Birch, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell and J.P. Morrell consort to stop\u00a0recycling\u00a0in New Orleans<\/h2><p>According to the Times-Picayune:<\/p><p>With the demolition business still in overdrive a couple of years after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/haroldweiser.com\/river-birch-and-morrell-s-consort-to-stop-recycling-in-new-orleans\/\">Hurricane Katrina<\/a>, New Jersey businessman David Stoller hatched a plan to start recycling construction materials from torn-down houses at a facility on the Gentilly side of the Industrial Canal. Initially, he had a hard time selling neighbors and bureaucrats on the idea.<\/p><div><div><h4>ONE MAN\u2019S TRASH<\/h4><p>The fourth article in a series on the River Birch landfill<\/p><h5>Previous stories<\/h5><ul><li class=\"first-child\"><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160327165003\/http:\/\/www.nola.com\/politics\/index.ssf\/2012\/09\/river_birch_owners_turn_a_trou.html\">River Birch owners turn a troublesome property into a landfill empire<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130616025933\/http:\/\/www.nola.com\/politics\/index.ssf\/2012\/09\/river_birch_is_outflanked_by_w.html\">Ward and Heebe try to block a competitor\u2019s plan to expand in Livingston Parish, but they are outflanked<\/a><\/li><li>When Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans, a world of opportunity opens for Ward and Heebe<\/li><li>River Birch campaign database<\/li><li class=\"last-child\">Ray Nagin abruptly reversed his position, killed a New Orleans landfill receiving storm debris<\/li><\/ul><h5>Coming Up<\/h5><ul><li class=\"first-child\">SATURDAY: Would-be competitors in Assumption Parish blame their permit struggles on the invisible hand of River Birch.<\/li><li class=\"last-child\">SUNDAY: Heebe and Ward finally achieve a long-sought monopoly, only to find themselves targets of a sprawling federal probe.<\/li><\/ul><\/div><div><br \/>So Stoller, chief executive of TransLoad America Inc., met with community groups on both sides of the canal. The New Orleans City Planning Commission, which split 4-4 on the proposal the first time around, in part because of community objections, voted it through unanimously in September 2008. At least four neighborhood organizations were there to back the plan the second time.<\/div><\/div><p>All the project needed was City Council approval, and the councilwoman from Gentilly, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, had told Stoller she was ready to green-light it, he said. But powerful forces had lined up against Stoller.<\/p><p>TransLoad\u2019s facility was going to take a big chunk of the construction and demolition debris business from the two nearest competitors: the Old Gentilly Landfill, in eastern New Orleans, and the Highway 90 Landfill, on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish.<\/p><p>TransLoad hoped its France Road sorting facility would take up to 2,000 tons a day out of the region\u2019s waste stream \u2014 costing local debris landfills as much as $10 million a year in lost tipping fees.<\/p><p>Fred Heebe and Jim Ward, the owners of the Highway 90 Landfill, the busiest debris landfill in the region, didn\u2019t plan to lie back and ignore the threat. Dutchie Connick, a lobbyist for Heebe and Ward and the brother of Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick, was a fixture in the City Planning Commission\u2019s office as he waited for TransLoad\u2019s applications and other supporting documents to arrive.<\/p><p>Another consultant for the company, Rick Michaels, was sussing out the TransLoad project\u2019s potential environmental impacts and feeding tips to the political operatives Heebe and Ward employed.<\/p><p><strong>\u2018The bidding of the landfills\u2019<\/strong><\/p><p>At public meetings, veteran political consultant Ron Nabonne emerged as a leading opponent of the TransLoad proposal, as well as a second facility the company was pitching in eastern New Orleans.<\/p><div id=\"asset-11626031\">A political operative for Fred Heebe and Jim Ward blanketed the surrounding neighborhood with glossy mailers warning that a proposed recycling plant would generate dust, massive truck traffic and possibly even cause a major flood. One flier, with a picture of a barge crashing through a levee, urged residents to ask their city councilwoman to vote it down.<\/div><p>Nabonne was a reliable presence at public meetings on the topic, and he warned that the France Road recycling plant was a \u201cTrojan horse.\u201d If it was approved, he promised, it would turn into a massive trash depot receiving refuse from all over the country, though the city Planning Commission had stipulated that TransLoad would be allowed to accept waste only from the New Orleans metro area.<\/p><p>Nabonne never disclosed at those meetings that he was on retainer for Heebe and Ward, a relationship he said began in 1999 and continues today. However, Nabonne said then, and strongly maintains now, that he was speaking as a private citizen in those post-Katrina days, not as a hired gun. He says he had grown increasingly upset \u2014 almost to the point of paranoia \u2014 as he watched landfills and other undesirable projects get approved in poor and mostly minority neighborhoods.<\/p><p>On at least a couple of occasions, Nabonne blanketed the surrounding neighborhood with glossy mailers warning that the recycling plant would generate dust, massive truck traffic and possibly even cause a major flood. One flier, with a picture of a barge crashing through a levee, urged residents to ask Hedge-Morrell to vote it down, and to attend the Oct. 16, 2008, council meeting to tell her so in person.<\/p><p>Nabonne said he paid for the fliers himself, at a cost of perhaps a few thousand dollars. Along with Nabonne, the other leading voice against the project was that of former New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, a longtime confidant of Nabonne\u2019s.<\/p><p>When the Planning Commission met to consider the TransLoad project in September 2008, only six people showed up to voice their objections. None of them lived within two miles of the site. They included Barthelemy; his wife, Mickey; her brother, Thomas Thibodeaux Jr.; the Barthelemys\u2019 next-door neighbor, Rhea Lucien; Blayne Bondy, a radio host on WBOK-AM who lived near UNO at the time; and Joyce Brossett, Barthelemy\u2019s sister and a relative of Hedge-Morrell\u2019s then-chief of staff, Jared Brossett.<\/p><p>Tempers flared at the meeting, according to the minutes, when a supporter of the TransLoad project, Lyndell Harnes, said the opponents were not motivated by conviction but because \u201cpolitical cronies would not benefit from its approval.\u201d Stoller suggested that Nabonne was \u201cdoing the bidding of the landfills,\u201d in particular River Birch, a suggestion Nabonne angrily rebuked.<\/p><p>Despite the dust-up, the measure passed the commission 9-0, and Stoller was looking forward to City Council approval on Oct. 16.<\/p><p>Sometime in the intervening weeks, the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, an umbrella organization for many neighborhood groups, took a position strongly opposing the TransLoad proposal. The association\u2019s current president, David Welch, recalls the group was swayed by Barthelemy and his wife, \u201cwho really came to our rescue.\u201d The Barthelemys warned of the dangers posed by concrete crushing, and said not to be fooled by TransLoad\u2019s promises.<\/p><div id=\"asset-11063095\">When New Orleans City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell withdrew her support from a proposed recycling center in 2008, the project developer says he gave up.<\/div><p>On the night of Oct. 15, less than 24 hours before the council meeting, Stoller said, he got a call from Jared Brossett, who informed him that Hedge-Morrell was no longer going to support the project. Stoller was flabbergasted: He had flown Hedge-Morrell to New Jersey to observe his operations there, and he had wooed the neighborhood groups she said he needed to get on board. He had signed on to a \u201ccommunity engagement agreement.\u201d<\/p><p>Without Hedge-Morrell\u2019s support, the project was essentially dead: By tradition, the City Council allows district council members to call the shots for zoning matters in the areas they represent. Stoller gave up.<\/p><p><strong>Flood of donations<\/strong><\/p><p>In late 2008, Hedge-Morrell\u2019s son, J.P. Morrell, was a state representative hoping to get promoted to the state Senate. He was running for the seat that Derrick Shepherd, a River Birch ally, relinquished on Oct. 10, when he resigned and pleaded guilty to money laundering.<\/p><p>Two weeks after his mother killed the TransLoad project, Morrell received a bundle of four checks for $2,500 apiece. They came from four different firms that all have close links to River Birch.<\/p><p>Just over a month later, and days before the Dec. 6 election, Morrell received another infusion of cash from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20151003145405\/http:\/\/topics.nola.com\/tag\/river-birch-landfill\/index.html\">River Birch\u00a0<\/a>crowd. This time, contributions of $2,500 apiece came from four different firms.<\/p><p>Seven of the eight firms that donated were labeled \u201cstraw man companies\u201d by the state Board of Ethics in a pending lawsuit. Six of them were formed on the same date: March 12, 2007. State records show that three of them \u2014 Anne\u2019s Properties, Big Bang Properties and Dangle and Associates \u2014 are managed by Anne Dangle, Ward\u2019s daughter and Heebe\u2019s stepsister. She is also a shareholder in River Birch, according to a 1999 company document.<\/p><div id=\"asset-11627003\">Click to enlarge.<\/div><p>Two of the other firms, B&amp;C Contractors and Water Front Properties, are managed by Dominick Russo, Ward\u2019s son-in-law and Heebe\u2019s brother-in-law. Russo\u2019s wife, Adrea Heebe, is also a River Birch shareholder.<\/p><p>The other three firms that gave to Morrell \u2014 Door Lock LLC, Pasture Land LLC and Ring Associates \u2014 are managed by Dominick Fazzio, River Birch\u2019s chief financial officer. Fazzio is awaiting trial on federal charges in a case tangential to the landfill probe.<\/p><p>Six of the eight companies that gave to Morrell were also named in an application for a search warrant filed by federal investigators before a raid on River Birch\u2019s offices in September 2010. A few months later, former Wildlife and Fisheries Commissioner Henry Mouton admitted taking bribes from River Birch\u2019s owners to use his influence to close down competing landfills, in particular the Old Gentilly Landfill in eastern New Orleans.<\/p><p>Anne\u2019s Properties and Dangle and Associates both also served as conduits for bribe payments from River Birch to Mouton, according to federal prosecutors.<\/p><p>Before the TransLoad matter, campaign finance reports don\u2019t show many donations flowing from the Heebe camp to the Morrell camp, which now includes four elected officials: the councilwoman; J.P. Morrell, now a state senator; Arthur Morrell, the councilwoman\u2019s husband and the clerk of Criminal District Court; and Brossett, who was elected to the state House seat that J.P. Morrell left.<\/p><div id=\"asset-11627008\">Click to enlarge.<\/div><p>But after TransLoad was dead, the money started to come in earnest. In addition to the $20,000 received by J.P. Morrell, Brossett received $5,000 in early 2009 from Anne\u2019s Properties. And in early 2010, two other River Birch-related entities contributed $2,500 apiece to Hedge-Morrell.<\/p><p>Both Hedge-Morrell and her son, the senator, say they opposed the project because the community opposed it. \u201cThe people of Gentilly and New Orleans East loudly and clearly communicated that they did not want a processing facility for solid waste in their neighborhoods,\u201d Hedge-Morrell said in a statement.<\/p><p>Both also said they have never been swayed by campaign donations.<\/p><p>\u201cLet me be clear: Never have campaign contributors, mine nor Sen. Morrell\u2019s, affected how I represent my district and conduct myself on the New Orleans City Council,\u201d Hedge-Morrell said.<\/p><p>Morrell noted he has received nearly 1,000 campaign donations over the years, and said he is \u201cthankful for each of them.\u201d But, he added, \u201cI take my role as senator very seriously and will continue to represent the interests of my constituency day in and day out.\u201d<\/p><div data-position=\"34\">\u201cIt really was a tragedy that we were shut down.\u201d<\/div><p>Stoller still feels burned by his experience in New Orleans, which he said cost him about $2 million with nothing to show for it.<\/p><p>\u201cWhat we were going to bring \u2014 and never say never \u2014 would have been a tremendous contribution to the city, which still does not have a recycling center,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really was a tragedy that we were shut down.\u201d<\/p><p><strong>Environmental concerns<\/strong><\/p><p>Not everyone is so sure.<\/p><p>Nabonne and Barthelemy insist the concrete-crushing could have sent dust airborne over a wide swath of neighborhoods, and Nabonne said he believes the facility would have grown in scope once it had been approved. Siting such a place in a neighborhood mostly populated by black families of modest means was a clear example of \u201cenvironmental racism,\u201d Nabonne said.<\/p><p>Nabonne\u2019s fears may have some basis. A similar recycling station owned by TransLoad in East Providence, R.I., has drawn the ire of its neighbors, who complain that dust from the facility causes respiratory distress. Rhode Island\u2019s Department of Environmental Management has said the recycler is in compliance, but the state\u2019s attorney general filed suit last year to block an expansion.<\/p><div id=\"asset-11615475\">Jim Ward, left, and his stepson Fred Heebe turned River Birch into a landfill empire.<\/div><p>In New Orleans, the environmental community was mixed on the merits of TransLoad\u2019s local project. Though there was universal praise for reusing wood, rock and metal while drastically reducing the waste stream, there were other concerns.<\/p><p>Despite those positives, Wilma Subra, a New Iberia chemist who works with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, said she felt the proposed TransLoad facility was too close to the neighboring community.<\/p><p>But Joel Waltzer, a New Orleans lawyer who has represented the Louisiana Environmental Action Network on most of its crusades, including the group\u2019s fights against the Chef Menteur and Old Gentilly landfills, said he thought the France Road recycling plant had merit.<\/p><p>\u201cYou\u2019d be extending the life of the landfills in the area, and taking the trash out of flood zones,\u201d Waltzer said. \u201cI\u2019ve looked in my career at dozens of solid waste solutions for New Orleans, and this one may have been the least offensive.\u201d<\/p><p>Beverly Wright, director of Dillard University\u2019s Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, also thinks the concerns about the recycling facility were overwrought.<\/p><p>\u201cI really thought it would have been a good thing, because it was recycling,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we couldn\u2019t get that off the ground. People had different motives in this, but nobody had the community\u2019s interest at heart. They created such a divisive climate we didn\u2019t get anything.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home December 28, 2016 admin Uncategorized River Birch, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell and J.P. Morrell consort to stop\u00a0recycling\u00a0in New Orleans According to the Times-Picayune: With the demolition business still in overdrive a couple of years after\u00a0Hurricane Katrina, New Jersey businessman David Stoller hatched a plan to start recycling construction materials from torn-down houses at a facility on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17839,"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/17839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinewebsolutions.store\/haroldweiser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}