U.S. New Orleans unveils 20 mln USD emergency sanitation plan amid trash crisis

HOUSTON, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- LaToya Cantrell, mayor of New Orleans, the largest city in southern U.S. state Louisiana, on Thursday unveiled a 20 million-U.S. dollar emergency sanitation plan amid the hurricane-prone city's worsening trash crisis.

"Cleaning up the city entirely remains a top priority, and so with this mission I'm just hoping it is a real demonstration to the public that I'm serious about it," Cantrell said.

The city council will pay 20 million dollars to four emergency waste haulers to ferry garbage to a transfer station which has been decommissioned since 2007 but will reopen for 90 days, local media outlet NOLA reported.

Waste Management, Inc., which owns the station and is one of the four contractors that has been hired, will then haul garbage to a landfill, said the report.

The mayor said she expects the contracts to last about a month, and her administration is seeking Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement.

Garbage bags, in some areas in New Orleans, have festered since before the landfall of Category 4 Hurricane Ida in the coastal state on Aug. 29.