Archive for the ‘New Orleans’ Category
Chinese drywall bill diverted to committee
Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. — The Senate diverted legislation dealing with Chinese-made building materials, which has been implicated in health problems, to a second committee hearing.
Several federal and state agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are investigating complaints that Chinese drywall is causing health problems. There also are reports that fumes from the drywall corrode metal and cause a rotten-egg stench in homes.
Sen. Julie Quinn’s bill originally would have allowed homeowners who used the drywall in their houses to sue the makers, distributors and sellers of the material for damages and attorney fees.
With the measure up for a Senate floor vote on Tuesday, Quinn had it rewritten to delete the litigation provisions. She instead proposed that homeowners with the drywall be reimbursed by the state, with tax credits for the cost of the drywall.
Senate President Joel Chaisson, D-Destrehan, ordered the amended bill to the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee, which considers all tax bills. The measure previously won approval from a Senate judiciary committee chaired by Quinn, R-Metairie.
Tainted Chinese drywall shows up in Katrina homes
By CAIN BURDEAU
April 13, 2009
CHALMETTE, La. (AP) — Thomas Stone and his wife rebuilt after their home was flooded by six feet of water during Hurricane Katrina, never dreaming they would face the agony of tearing it apart all over again.
They tapped Lauren Stone’s 401(k) retirement savings and saved $1,000 by installing Chinese-made drywall throughout their two-story home. Now the Stones are among hundreds of Katrina victims facing another, this time unnatural, disaster.
Sulfur-emitting wallboard from China is wreaking havoc in homes, charring electrical wires, eating away at jewelry, silverware and other valuables, and possibly even sickening families.
“The bathroom upstairs has a corroded shower-head, the door hinges are rusting out,” said 50-year-old Thomas Stone, the longtime fire chief of St. Bernard Parish, outside New Orleans. And then there’s the stench, like rotten eggs, that seems to get worse with the heat and humidity.
“It makes me wish there would be another flood to wash it out,” said his wife Lauren, 49.
Chinese manufacturers flooded the U.S. market with more than 500 million pounds of drywall around the same time Katrina was flooding New Orleans, an Associated Press review of shipping records has found.
The boom in imported China-made building materials peaked in 2006, driven by domestic shortages created by the nationwide construction boom, as well as a series of Gulf Coast hurricanes.