After landfill odors plagued residents, Jefferson Parish to consider settling lawsuits (2024)

Editor's note: The Parish Council voted Wednesday to settle the lawsuits, but a dollar figure was not immediately available.

A long-awaited jury trial is scheduled to begin Monday in one of two lawsuits filed against Jefferson Parish by residents who say noxious fumes released by the parish-owned landfill caused health problems and other injuries.

A federal judge already ruled that the parish’s landfill in Waggaman emitted gases and odors between 2017-19 that "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."

A jury will now decide on a case-by-case basis whether those fumes are the cause of specific injuries alleged by individual plaintiffs, and if so, how much the defendants will have to pony-up as compensation.

The three-week trial will focus on the testimony and experiences of only a handful of the more than 500 plaintiffs seeking damages as part of the lawsuit. More jury trials are likely to follow, featuring additional batches of plaintiffs.

That is, unless Jefferson Parish and its former contractors decide to settle.

The Jefferson Parish Council is scheduled to meet behind closed doors on Wednesday to consider a settlement offer, the last opportunity to do so ahead of Monday’s trial.

In addition to Jefferson Parish, defendants include the parish’s former landfill management firm Waste Connections and environmental consultant Aptim.

Complaints over noxious landfill odors reached a fever pitch in 2018, when fed-up residents in Harahan, River Ridge and Waggaman banded together to sue Jefferson Parish and its contractors.

Parish officials acknowledged at the time that the landfill's gas collection systems were not operating properly, and officials with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality confirmed that the parish-owned landfill was the primary source of the odors.

It’s unclear how much taxpayer money Jefferson Parish has spent defending itself in court. The parish hired Connick and Connick LLC, a private law firm co-owned by District Attorney Paul Connick, to represent it in the landfill litigation.

However, the Parish Attorney’s Office refused to fulfill a public records request submitted by The Times-Picayune seeking checks written to Connick’s law firm from 2017 to present, arguing the records are part of a “pending claim file” and therefore exempt from disclosure.

Monday’s trial is part of what’s called a mass tort lawsuit. Jefferson Parish’s legal exposure also includes a second lawsuit, where plaintiffs are seeking class action status.

Jefferson Parish has spent millions of dollars upgrading its landfill’s gas collection system since the initial outcry over the noxious fumes. And in 2022, the parish penned an agreement with River Birch LLC, allowing it to merge day-to-day operations of its privately owned landfill with the parish-owned landfill nearby.

While the scale of complaints over odors have decreased significantly, some residents say it hasn’t gone away completely.

Sherry Vitter, a River Ridge resident who isn’t a plaintiff in any of the ongoing litigation, said odors have been particularly strong over the past few weeks, describing it as unmistakably from a landfill.

“It’s inside. It’s outside. You can’t escape it,” she said, adding that it burns her eyes and airways.

Only River Birch’s landfill is in operation at the moment, and the company is not a defendant in any of the lawsuits.

A spokesperson for Jefferson Parish said its staff conducts twice-daily inspections of the site and has noted no unusual odors during the past month. A spokesperson for River Birch also said they've also noticed no issues. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality didn't return a request for comment.

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