Rubble Debris Haiti Quake v 2.1

8/6/2019 Rubble Debris Haiti Quake v 2.1

1/17

1 Haiti Earthquake Rubble Debris Challenges

Rubble Debris HaitiEarthquake

Challenges in need of SolutionsCompeting claims and estimates how long to remove it so rebuilding can begin

Alister William Macintyre research notesLast updated 2011 June 19

Version 2.1

Table of ContentsFirst time visitors (1 June 19).........................................................................................................2

Introduction (1 Jan 23)........................................................................................................................2

Version History (1 Jun 16) ....................................................................................................3

Tags (1 Jun 19) ............................................................................................................................3

Progress Clearing Mess (1 May 27) ................................ ................................ ............................... 3

USAID 2011 May (1 May 27) ...................................................................................................4

US State Dept 2011 April (1 May 01) ...................................................................................... 4GAO 11-415 on IHRC thru March (1 June 16) .....................................................................4

Vancouver Sun Rubble Photos (1 March 10) .........................................................................5

US Institute of Peace 2011 Mar (1 Mar 10) ............................................................................5

Big Picture 2011 Feb (1 Feb 26) ............................................................................................... 5


2/17


Leogane progress 2011 Feb (1 Feb 21)....................................................................................7

IPS News on why Haphazard (1 March 11) ...........................................................................8

Rubble Conflicts 2011 Jan (1 Mar 10)......................................................................................8

IG audit 2010 Nov estimate (1 May 07) ..................................................................................9

Rubble progress 2010 Oct (1 Feb 21)....................................................................................10

Earthquake Rubble Debris (1 Jun 16).............................................................................................10

Whats in that Pile? (0 Oct 05) ................................................................................................11

A Machinery Solution Proposal (0 Oct 05)...........................................................................12

Debris needs to go some place (0 Oct 05) ................................ ................................ ............ 13

Confused Perceptions (1 Jun 19)............................................................................................13

Leslie Voltaire Clarification (0 Oct 04) ................................ ................................ ..................14

Prime Minister Bellerive Clarification (0 Oct 04).................................................................14

Volunteer Entrepreneur Building (0 Sep 20) ................................ ................................ ........14

Rubble Disposal Choices (1 Jun 19) ...........................................................................................15

First t ime visitors (1 June 19 )If you are visiting my doc for first time, whats significant here is there are several significantbarriers to Haiti serious rebuilding after disasters. One of them is getting the rubble cleared.In this document I explore how come it is taking so long.

Introd uction (1 Jan 23) Topic sub-titles end in a date signifying when that info last updated, so by viewing table of contents, we see where most recent input to these research notes, especially aiding people

with copy of an earlier version. Digit 1 in front of month means 2011.

Users of my research hold Alister Wm. Macintyre harmless, and also the places I upload my research to, and agree that my copyright is reserved and that the information is available forthe intended purpose of helping in the recovery of Haiti. Some of my research content isdirect quotes from other sources. I try to give credit every time I do this.

These notes began in a separate research document, which subsequently got split into relatedtopics, when they became too voluminous. If your interest is in Haiti housing challenges ingeneral, perhaps you should start with my Glossary of Haiti Housing challenges ,

which includes references to all my related Housing research notes documents, and to many external sources.


3/17


Version History (1 Jun 16)For convenience of other people to download copies of my research, I plan to uploadperiodic updates of this research notes document (Haiti Earthquake Rubble Debris), andsome of my other research, to:

Yahoo Groups / HDRR = Haiti Disaster Recovery Research / Files / Recovery Challenges

Haiti Prism which has developed some very economical and safe housing solutionsto meet Haitis needs.1

HR = Haiti Rewired / Building Housing Communities / Discussions / De-Mystifying Barriers to Haiti Recovery

RHB = Rebuild Haiti Back Better thread = Navigation Resources2

My Linked In profile3 Box Net files.4

Major updates since version 1.0: broke long chunks of text into logical pieces; trade-off between major philosophies in definition of rubble challenges;

Version 1.0 uploaded Oct 05 = 5 pages 60 k

Tags (1 Jun 19) When uploading this document, where tags or keywords invited, here are suitable choices:

Confusion, Debris, Demolition, Earthquake, Haiti, Housing, Land Owners, OCHA,Rebuilding, Recovery, Resettlement, Rubble, Shelter, Statistics, UN, USAID,

Description: Haiti cannot rebuild until the earthquake rubble is cleared. How long will thistake, and why?

Progress Clearing Mess (1 May 27)In this chapter I share progress reports in reverse date order, so on top we can see thelatest news, then work downwards to see net change rate of improvement.

I am using the same technique in my T-shelter progress notes.

Different news media have been publishing widely different estimates of how much has infact been resolved, so be careful when repeating whatever the numbers allegedly are.

1 http://www.katrina.prizm.org/index.html2 http://rebuildhaitibetter.net/forum/topics/navigation-resources3 http://www.linkedin.com/in/almacintyre4 If you are a member of Box Net, but not Linked In, my user-id on Box Net is AlMac99.


4/17


USAID 2011 May (1 May 27)USAID comes out with regular reports, which describe the overall situation in Haiti, andprogress addressing that situation. On May 16 they issued Haiti Cholera and EarthquakeFact Sheet #4, Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 which I downloaded using name Sitrep 2011 May 16USAID. It is a 5 page 54k PDF.

On April 28, USAID/OFDA staff conducted a monitoring visit of the CHF Internationalrubble removal program in the Ravine Pintade area of Port-au-Prince. As of April 28, CHFInternational had demolished and cleared four large buildings in the area deemed redorunsafe for habitationby habitability assessments, using heavy equipment. In addition tolarge-scale rubble removal with heavy machinery, CHF International employs the localcommunity through a cash-for-work program to remove smaller pieces of rubble.

US State Dept 2011 April (1 May 01)In April 2011, President Elect Martelly visited Washington DC,5 where US Secretary of StateClintons remarks included: This election comes at a critical moment. In the 15 months since

the earthquake, there has been progress in important areas. Twenty percent of the rubble,more than 2 million cubic meters, has been cleared ,6 and that was through a program,that employed more than 350,000 people, which the United States was proud to support.

GAO 11-415 on IHRC thru March (1 June 16)IHRC = Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. Projects in Haiti, involving $ 500 million ormore, are supposed to get IHRC approval and oversight. Less expensive ones dont needIHRC involvement. Here are IHRC policy review criteria:

IHRC determines if a submitted project is aligned with the Action Plan andgovernment of Haiti sector strategies;addresses a clear gap in the Action Plan or sector plan(s); provides desirable social and economic benefit; has donors and implementers with the capacity to carry out the project effectively; has an appropriate budget; has been sufficiently coordinated with the Haitian government; has been assessed for its social and environmental impact; was also submitted to affected communities for input; makes a sustainable change; maximizes use of local labor and local resources; and promotes gender equality.

86 projects have been approved by IHRC thru March 2011. 14 of them will be fully orpartially funded by the USA. GAO compared the 86 projects approved by IHRC throughMarch 2011 with the Action Plans 18-month budgetary requirements. We found that

5 http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/04/161375.htmhttp://www.belpolitik.com/blog.php/3566 If we believe 20% in 15 months, and that this rate can be sustained, thats 75 months or 6 years and 3 monthsfor the entire job, getting completed April 2016,


5/17


approved projects exceed the total 18-month needs outlined in the Action Plan in somesectors, while other sectors received only a fraction of the 18-month requirements in the

Action Plan. For example:

Debris removal . The Action Plan outlines an 18-month need of $265 million for debris

removal, but as of March 2011, IHRC approved an estimated $52 million for debris removalprojects. Agriculture . The Action Plan outlines an 18-month need of $260 million for agriculturalproduction. However, IHRC has approved projects in the agricultural sector totaling about$380 million. Institutional rebuilding . The Action Plan identifies an 18-month need for more than$800 million to rebuild and improve Haitian government institutions; IHRC has approvedabout $113 million in projects to address this challenge. Transportation network . The Action Plan identified an 18-month need of $180million to improve the national transportation network. As of February 2011, IHRC hasapproved road-construction projects totaling more than $680 million.

I explore this GAO report in more detail inside my Glossary Housing (and other)Haiti Challenges research notes.

Vancouver Sun Rubble Photos (1 March 10)In a news story published March 9, the Canadian Vancouver Sun shares details and photosof one of the dumps where the rubble has been going. 7 Haiti is going to need more dumpsites to accommodate the total volume.

US Institute of Peace 2011 Mar (1 Mar 10)In a report published March 7, on Lessons for Haiti Future, 8 the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) claims only 5% of the quake-created rubble has been removed.

Big Picture 2011 Feb (1 Feb 26) John Rigdon commented on Derek Xava's group "Architecture for Haiti" on HaitiRewired:9 The following below is what John had to say to us.

------------

Friday nite ( Feb 18 2011 ) I attended a town meeting with some officials from Haiti who

are with USAID and the state department and it helped a great deal to see the big picture.

7

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Photos+Haitians+struggle+wasteland+rubble+trash+wake+earthquak e/4410998/story.html8 See my 1 year USIP mini-review for more info. In that mini-review I shared digest of other groups claimshow much so far by various dates (1 month earlier 15% done), and how much total needs to be removed = 12to 20 million meters, in reports so far thru early 2011 March.9 http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/architectureforhaiti


6/17


These comments are my impression of the meeting and what I brought away from it. They are by no means official notes on the proceedings.

The primary speakers were: Thomas C. Adams. Haiti Special Coordinator U.S. State Department&Russell Porter, Director, Haiti Task Team USAID

They stated that there were 12 million meters of rubble to be removed and to date only 2million have been removed. By this fall they will be at 6 million and at that point they canbegin reconstruction. They stated that 20% of the structures were destroyed, 15% hadrepairable damage and 65% were damaged beyond repair. This makes removal of the rubbleextremely difficult. For any given street which is extremely narrow and too crowded to getearth moving machinery into, there may be 2 good buildings, 6 damaged but still standing

with RED warning stickers and scheduled for demolition, and two that are just piles of

rubble. The focus now is keeping the people alive and as healthy as possible. They were feeding 4.5million people daily right after the quake and are now feeding 1.5 million. Overall theirconcentrated efforts last summer to get food crops growing around the country has beenhighly successful and this is evidenced by the abundance of food in the markets.Fully half of the civil servants were killed in the quake or left the country shortly thereafterand they are just now finding people to fill most of the govermental positions.

The man who is heading up the efforts for the state department, Thomas Adams, was alsothe head of the relief effort for the fall of the Soviet Union, the tsunami, and the Iraqirebuilding and he stated several times that for disasters of this nature it takes 18 months toget the rebuilding on stride and by every measure they are ahead of goals in Haiti.Overall I'm much more encouraged with the situation now. My biggest disappointment isthat with an estimated 50,000 Haitians in Atlanta now, there were only about 100 inattendance and probably 25 of us were not native Haitians as could be told by our light skin.

A Power point slide which they presented for which I do not have a copy, but which I willtry to locate showed the twenty or so major players in the reconstruction effort. Thisincluded govenrmental, business, and NGOs. They spent some time discussing how each of these are "tasked" with reconstruction efforts. They stressed that USAID and the State

department has no real over sight over how each of these other entities spent their money,but generally they are all cooperating in the effort and not interfering with each other'sinitiative.USAID and the U.S. Government are primarily responsible for "Social" issues, establishing and training governmental and societal organizations. They are not responsible or involvedin physical reconstruction.


7/17


The Canadian government is primarily involved in decentralization of the Haitiancitizenry, working to build infrastructure in the south and north of the island.Brazil is responsible for security and this does not include just the obvious manifestationof MINUSTAH, but in training 8,000 Haitian Police of a needed 16,000 target 4 years out.

They talked about the need to VET the applicants and the necessity of remedial training inreading, etc. that is far beyond the basic training needed for most security personnel.

The American Red Cross is responsible for physical relief of the current population,but their work does not extend to long term housing.Cuba is responsible for medical relief, training of personnel, and rebuilding of hospitals andclinics.Ireland (Digicel) is responsible for communications.

Venezuela is responsible for energy issues including both gas and electrical infrastructure. This should give you an idea of how they perceive the situation and the plan going forward.Similar meetings are planned in Washington and Boston with future meetings in Chicagoand St. Louis.

I think it will be increasingly important for people looking to work in Haiti to identify who isin charge of a particular area of reconstruction and seek out those in charge of that group. I

will try to find the PowerPoint slide and / or the supporting documentation for thepresentation.

------------

Here is John Rigdon comment. 10

Leogane progress 2011 Feb (1 Feb 21) The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Associate Administrator visited theLeogane11 debris management project, and a report on this visit was shared 2011 Feb 14 .12

This project will, by the end of 2011, remove approx 325,000 cubic meters of debrisresulting from the collapse of 80 % of Leogane's buildings in the 12 January 2010earthquake.

10

http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/architectureforhaiti?commentId=4920407%3AComment%3A34021&xg _source=msg_com_group

11 Leogane is a city SW of Pap, on the inside coast of Haiti, which was one of the most devastated by the Jan12, 2010 earthquake.12 OCHA Relief Web Summary .


8/17


Thanks to the support of the Canadian, Kuwait and Finnish governments, thisproject started November 2010. According to Alexis Santos, mayor of Leogane, 10months after the earthquake nothing significant had been done to remove andmanage the debris in the town until the launch of UNDP's project.

People in the Leogane IDP communities select priorities for rubble removal, so as toexpedite their return to safe housing.

To date, 1,640 workers have been temporarily employed to remove rubble, and 240damaged houses demolished, using a combination of heavy machinery and highintensive labor activities. So far, 87,000 cubic meters of debris have been taken to aspecial site for stockpiling and treatment, where at a later stage, workers will alsosort, crush and dispose of debris following technical and environmentalspecifications. The same site will host a recycling centre that will use some of thedebris to produce paving blocks for road repairs, creating longer term andsustainable job opportunities for the local population and contributing to theeconomic recovery of the region.

IPS News on why Haphazard (1 March 11)In a news story published March 11, IPS News says,13 that as of one year after theearthquake :

Only 5 % of the estimated 20 million cubic meters of rubble has been cleared.

Only 15% of the temporary homes have been built.

Rubble Conflicts 2011 Jan (1 Mar 10)Remember that 2010 Jan 12 was when the earthquake occurred, to help us see when exactly is 1 year after. Many places have published reports a few months before and a few monthsafter the anniversary, using 1 year after in their descriptions. This is probably an estimate,really approximately 1 year after.

USAID 1 year overview report on shelters and settlements dated 2011 Jan 11 reports:14

Rubble continues as a major impediment to recovery in earthquake-affectedareas, with most reports suggesting that only a small percentage of rubblehas been removed and disposed to date. Rubble obstructs physical access to

13 http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=5407514 OCHA Relief Web Summary herehttp://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/JARD-

8D33LV?OpenDocument&rc=2&cc=hti with link to full PDF report:http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/JARD-8D33LV/$File/full_report.pdf (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)For more information on USAID/OFDA shelter and settlements sector activities, please visit:http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/sectors/shelter.html


9/17


neighborhoods and prevents use of land for t-shelters. In addition, it reducesopportunities to repair yellow houses and limits the ability to return to green-tagged structures.Some land owners may be contributing to delays in removing rubble due toconcerns regarding the future use of their property. Rubble also impedesaccess for heavy machinery to demolish unsafe buildings; prevents residentsfrom returning to safe houses, particularly those imperiled by unstablebuildings in close proximity; and creates hazards by blocking drainage, roads,and other infrastructure.Rubble removal thus requires balancing the need to remove debris quicklywith the importance of active community involvement in the removal andneighborhood improvement process. USAID is primarily utilizing cash-for-work programs for rubble removal but is incorporating the use of heavyequipment to increase the speed and quantity of rubble removed.USAID/OFDA grantees are guiding rubble removal efforts and the recovery of affected areas through a neighborhood-based approach featuring anincremental process of building confidence among neighborhood residents toparticipate in the recovery of their communities, working with residents to mapland holdings, and mediating tenure-related conflicts, when necessary.In the interest of building back better, grantees also engaged withcommunities to reconfigure neighborhoods, thereby improving pre-earthquake conditions and reducing vulnerability to future disasters. Theneighborhood approach is being supported, in part, by a larger projectfeaturing Haitian Diaspora planning, architecture, and engineeringprofessionals to assist both implementing partners and the GoH to formulateneighborhood level and city-wide plans that can facilitate increased shelter production in new and innovative ways.

In January 2011, the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission report15

claimed there are 19million cubic meters to be removed, and they anticipate that 20% of that, or 4 million cubicmeters, will have been removed by October 2011, when they turn over the job to a Haitigovernment agency which does not yet exist. (My math = at that rate, get the job completedas of 100 months after the earthquake.)

IG audit 2010 Nov estimate (1 May 07) According to Inspector General Audit of USAID, published 2011 April 19, which I discussmainly in my T-Shelter notes document, u p to 11 months after the earthquake (ie.Nov 2011), only about 5 percent of the estimated 20 to 33 million cubic yards of rubble

had been removed. This is given as one of the reasons for the delays in T-shelter construction.

15 See my 1 year IHRC mini-review.


10/17


Rubble progress 2010 Oct (1 Feb 21)New York Times reports Oct-17 about one of the contractors (Haiti Recovery Group)clearing some of the rubble of destroyed buildings. Major cleanup and rebuilding is notexpected to happen until next year. The delay in getting started on this involves fingerpointing instead of mutual cooperation, between the different actors who can eachcontribute a piece of the solution decisions, funding. International officials blamed theHaitian government for failing to take charge and create a master plan for debris removaland resettlement. Haitian officials, however, maintain that international donors themselves

were slow to make rubble a priority.

USAID Haiti Quake Fact Sheet # 2 Fiscal Year 2011 dated 2010 Oct-8 16 reports:

On October 5, USAID/OFDA Haiti Program Office staff visited the AvenuePoupelard neighborhood of Port-au-Prince to assess ongoing progress on shelteractivities by USAID/OFDA grantee CHF International. CHF International is

working to provide housing to approximately 1,300 families in Avenue Poupelardthrough yellow house repairs and t-shelter construction as part of a neighborhood-based approach to facilitate returns to areas of origin and re-establish pre-earthquakesocial and economic structures.

USAID/OFDA staff noted that large plots of land had been cleared since previous visits to Avenue Poupelard. The progress was in part due to CHF Internationalnegotiations with local landowners to arrange strategic building demolitions toimprove access to the interior of the neighborhood, thereby accelerating the rubbleremoval process.

In much of Avenue Poupelard, residents are living in temporary shelters constructedon the rubble of former houses. To clear rubble from those sites and provide shelter

while houses undergo demolition or repair, CHF International houses residents in asmall group of t-shelters known as hotels, built on land temporarily loaned by locallandowners. In exchange, CHF International removes rubble from landownersplots, saving landowners a significant cost in return for temporary use of their land.

Earthquake Rubble D ebris (1 Jun 16) The Haiti Earthquake created a volume of debris which is astronomical compared to many previous disasters. People trying to do something about it, often appear to be in a state of chaos or anarchy.

16 Relief Web summary , with link to full detail PDF. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web)


11/17


There is a trade-off that the many actors struggle with. This is not a rhetorical question,because even though some of us think one of the two choices is the obvious answer, thereslots of supporters for each of them.

1. Is it better to get the rubble debris cleared from potential rebuilding sites as fast as

possible, which means using a machinery solution? In other words, Haiti will bebetter served by putting the people in safer homes, with places they can have jobs, inthe next few years, instead of waiting decades until the rubble can be cleared by hand. Remember that the total volume of rubble from the Haiti earthquake isastronomical compared to WTC of 9/11, and remember how long it took to clearthat by modern construction machinery and convoy of dump trucks. This approachis favored by supporters of beltway bandits, meaning sooner profits for companiesfrom outside of Haiti.

2. Is it better to get the rubble debris cleared using Haitian laborers via cash-for-work (CFW) so money flows into the economy? In other words, revitalizing the economy

with stimulus money, bottom up, is more important than making it practical torebuild the destroyed buildings, any time in the next few years. This approach isfavored by many NGOs who would prefer Haiti to continue to be a Republic of NGOs for another 100 years.

Joseph Vitarelli (a contact on Facebook and Haiti Rewired) writes:17

J/P HRO 18 recently completed a rubble removal project in Delmas 32. This includedbulldozing and removal of "red" houses. This effort required heavy machinery, Haitian

workers and drivers and JP HRO staff. It seems to me this should be the model as it's beendone successfully. And I believe it took 6-8 weeks to complete.

I posted in a blog early in 2010, what I thought could be done with the rubble, and sincethen many people have added other thoughts, researched how much can be recycled, butthese ideas have not yet filtered into the consciousness of the people in charge of Haiti, andnot for want of people telling them about these ideas and research. 19

Whats in that Pile? (0 Oct 05)What can be in a Disaster Debris Pile?

Dead bodies, and body parts

E-wastes such as computers, telephones and TVs

White goods such as refrigerators, washing machines, dryers

17 End of Sept 2010.18 NGO run by Sean Penn.19 http://haitirewired.wired.com/profiles/blogs/debris-removal-from-haiti


12/17


Hazardous materials such as bleach

Radioactive materials from hospitals, industries and laboratories

Explosive gases from households, hospitals, industries

Petroleum products from gas stations, power plantsPCBs from transformers

Ammunition from houses, army camps and police stations

Disaster Rescue workers waste products, without garbage pickup

A Machinery Solution Proposal (0 Oct 05)Gilles Boulanger prepared a 20 minute video describing his proposal. Anyone interested inthe fate of Haiti, and dependent on news media version of reality, is invited to watch it andcomment on it. Click here to see the video 20 where he draws a parallel between snow removal and rubble removal. If you don't know what a snow blower is 21 because you live in aplace where it never snows, he suggests we get a primer by watching the snow blower 101

video here. Al Mac commented on Gilles proposal explaining that much of what heproposes is already being done, and has been going on for months, but when themainstream news media paints a fantasy about reality in Haiti, many well meaning personsexpend a lot of effort coming up with solutions to the news media fantasies.

Heavy equipment needed to be shipped in by sea, but could then be moved to where mostneeded, by military helicopters. Dump trucks have difficulty navigating narrow and

mountainous dirt roads, which could be upgraded using crushed rubble. What passes for real estate records system in Haiti 22 makes it hard for the government to determine whoowns a dilapidated property. Before the quake, on average it took one year for anyone tofigure out for sure who owned property. The quake just made that a worse challenge.There are few sites on which to dump the rubble, which often contains human remains.

No single person, nor ministry in the Haitian government, has been declared in charge of the rubble, prompting foreign nongovernmental organizations to take on the task themselves. NGOs are often forced to fight for a small pool of available money andcontracts - which means the work is done piecemeal, with little coordination.

20 http://www.project1849.com/Camtsia/Rubble_Removal_LinkedIn/Rubble_Removal_LinkedIn.htm21 Haiti is a nation which never experiences snow (frozen rain). A snow blower is like a lawn mower (in factmanufactured by same type companies). It runs on fuel which must be imported to Haiti, and is a method of moving snow a very short distance, typically to improve ability to navigate highways and driveways which gotcovered in snow. Haiti rubble debris for the most part cannot be recycled constructively, so it needs to bemoved a longer distance than the snow parallel.22 This topic covered in detail in another of Al Mac research notes documents see directory of them inGlossary of Housing Challenges in Haiti.


13/17


Debris needs to go some place (0 Oct 05)There are stories of the same rubble being moved multiple times by differentorganizations, to basically be out of THEIR way, which means it can end up where itstarted.

Lets suppose you are an NGO with rubble interfering with your efforts to deliver essential aid to some part of Haiti. How can you deal with this in the most economicmanner? You could sub-contract with a Haitian, or Haitian-American company, which isalready engaged in this kind of work, such as:

Dump truck National Center of Equipment (CNE) company run by Presidentialcandidate Jude Celestin;

Haiti Recovery Group, a Haitian-American company performing the largestdemolition and debris clearing in Haiti, under contract to the Government of Haiti.

There is only one place in the country where it is legal to move the debris to, and spacethere is microscopic compared to the volume of the debris, which means most everyonewho is moving it, moves it to some place where it is illegal to move it, such as someoneelses land, or the drainage canals, guaranteeing the next heavy rain storm will endanger Haitian lives. It is not just rubble debris that is dumped someplace illegal, becausetheres total inadequacy of legal places to move it. If Haiti was inside the USA national

borders, the whole nation of Haiti would have been declared an Environmental SuperfundDisaster Area, thanks to a whole spectrum of Ecology-Hostile decision-making by mostall Haitian stake-holders. 23

Confused Perceptions (1 Jun 19) There cannot be replacement housing until this rubble has been removed from potentialrebuilding sites. A major barrier to resolving the rubble debris challenge is lack of clarity

who owns the land 24 on which the rubble debris needs to be removed from, or moved to.

There is a UN report with statistics from past disasters, listing challenges facing Haitianrecovery,25 but it is apparent that a major part of the problem is the failure of UN, Gov-of-Haiti, and NGOs, to coordinate crafting a coherent master plan solution, then jointly implement it.

As of eight months after the Jan 10 earthquake, approx 2% of the debris from the

demolished buildings had been disposed of.26

At this rate, the task will take 33 years tocomplete. News-4 of Jacksonville Floridasays theres 33m cubic yards of debris in Port au

23 Environmental Disaster area which Haiti has become.24 I explore land ownership and tenure challenges in my Haiti Land Own notes.25 Debris fact sheet 2010 June (PDF) from UNDP.26 Salamanca Press.


14/17


Prince alone. This rubble, from the earthquake, does not include what will be added whendamaged buildings get demolished.

Some people have said27 that the appearance of piles of rubble along Haitian highways ismisleading, because it gets trucked away, leaving space by side of road for other residents to

dispose of rubble cluttering their property, so day after day when people see rubble there, itis not really the identical pile.

Leslie Voltaire Clarification (0 Oct 04)Leslie Voltaire,28 a Haitian architect, urban planner and Presidential candidate, says hiscountry needs a "rubble czar ." Voltaire maintains that there are enough crushers, dumptrucks and other heavy equipment for the job; others say that more machinery is needed. Buteveryone agrees that recovery will take decades - and the slower the rubble removal, thelonger the recovery.

When the US Inspector General audited USAID involvement in Cash for Work toHaitians to work on rubble clearing,29 one of the complaints was that instead of subcontracting to organizations which already had such equipment in Haiti, most of themoney was spent transferring it between organizations.

Prime Minister Bellerive Clarification (0 Oct 04)Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive quotes30 "One (U.S.) official said it would take athousand trucks one thousand days to remove the rubble from the streets of Port-au-Prince.Haiti does not have a thousand trucks, and Haiti has not had one thousand days." Bellerivesaid plans to rebuild Haiti cannot move faster than funding for those projects, and that someprogress was being blocked because the Haitian government does not control the

disbursement of money pledged in the earthquake's aftermath.

Volunteer Entrepreneur Building (0 Sep 20)Haiti has no building codes or standards. People enthusiastically build using whatevermaterials are at hand, which can include rubble into structures too fragile to survive nextnatural disaster.

In response to my posting about this overall challenge, De-Mystifying Barriers to HaitiRecovery , in Building Housing Communities Group, Alan Scouten wrote Sep-30:

QUOTE

Catch Ambassador Holbrooke on Maddow Show two days ago. To paraphrase-

27 Haiti Rewired discussions.28 For more info on Leslie Voltaire, and other Presidential candidates, see Al Mac research documents on theHaiti 2010 election, and also on the Candidates not accepted by the election commission (CEP).29 See research document Glossary of Housing challenges in Haiti for link to this audit report, and analysis of it.30 Kansas City Com Sep 14.


15/17


"We cannot afford to help Pakistan rebuild. They will have to raise the taxes on theirpeople."

Disaster Fatigue? As any child of a poor family knows, you HAVE to figure-it-out, or else.Rubble and Land Tenure just more excuses from Viceroys and Governors.

Rubble? If you can't clear it all, clear just enough space to raise your MD Shelter in its ownfootprint, and clear the rest as you can. If you can't move it, camp on top of it. Land

Tenure? If you are squatting and are forced to move, disassemble your MD Shelter andmove elsewhere.31 Set up again in the middle of the road, if you have to. It will get theGovernor's attention. Intrusion? A door to lock in a wall secure? 32

(In 1750, Conrad House cleared a spot in the Mohawk Valley woods, and built a House of plank & peg, so that he could move at a moment's notice. His neighbor, my other ancestor,Richard Elwood, built his House of stone, and stood guard)

You are right, this is not just a Haiti problem. The World's Majorities... the Multi-coloredPoor...are fast becoming a world of Nomads. Diaspora Disaster? Refugee Refusees. NIMBY.

Anybody have a plan other than that in the Negev where if you aren't registered you arebulldozed?

Not a million lives at stake in Haiti only, but millions more world wide. Why my neighbor isnow packing-heat....

UNQUOTE

Rubble Disposal Choices (1 Jun 19 ) The very first Blog I posted to Haiti Rewired listed suggested priorities for dealing withthis.33

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it was up to me to decide priorities with earthquake rubble removal:

1. Roads blocked by debris , so that they can be used to deliverrelief aid to everyone in need, and the economy can recover at grassroots level.

31 This idea does not work very effectively when thugs with clubs arrive in the middle of the night to beat upanyone who does not rapidly exit without taking anything with them.32 This is obviously what is needed, but the UN GoH and NGO supplied shelters do not have this, instead the

walls are usually made of tarpaulins, canvas, and wood.33 http://haitirewired.wired.com/profiles/blogs/debris-removal-from-haiti


16/17


2. Drainage channels blocked by debris, so as to relieve the pressureof flooding where the people are.

3. Get Severe Weather Shelters implemented .

4. Replace damaged homes with safe homes , so as to relieve the

pressures from over 2 million homeless.5. Clear debris from agricultural land , so the farmers can resume

their livelihoods.

6. Replace critical infrastructure with safe infrastructure , in whichsome priorities need to be set, what's most critical.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it was up to me to decide priorities doing what with removed earthquake rubble:

1. Raise elevation of roads which flood during rainy season, so they

are usable during rainy seasons.2. Set aside enough in each community that the municipal government,

and elections, can select appropriate sites for national monuments tohonor people who died in the quake, and for other reasons.

3. Recycle, what can be recycled, to use as construction materialsin rebuilding Haiti, along with building codes that will lead tobuildings that will survive future earthquakes, hurricanes, and othernatural disasters.

4. Create sea walls off shore from major sea ports and coastal towns, which are designed to mitigate risks to them from future tropicalstorms.

While something needs to be done to shore up hillsides to reducelandslide risks, I think the solution there is in planting vegetation,and supplying the people with access to alternatives to chopping down

vegetation for firewood.

Do we know what, if anything, is in fact being done with the debris from the

buildings collapsed in the Jan 12 quake?I had thought the roads had been taken care of, except for therainy season mud slides, but in one of the latest Situation Reports fromUN NGO efforts, we learned:

Top six priority roads for debris removal.Certain areas of the following roads are almost completely blocked:


17/17


1. Ave Magloire Ambroise, from Romain Street to Ruelle Cameau2. Ave Pouplard, from Ruelle Chretien to St. Antoine3. Ruelle Cameau, from Rue Magloire Ambroise to Mgr. Guilleau4. Rue Oswald Durant, around Facult De Mdecine5. Rue Dalencourt, from Canap Vert to Bourdon6. Christ Roi, the entire length

This is from 2010 April 17 PMCC Situation Report, which I can e-mail forwardto contacts on request.PMCC = Project Management Coordination CellHere's where I found it.

(a) WASH discussion sitehttp://groups.google.com/group/wash-response-haiti-2010?msg=new&lnk=gcis

WASH = Water Sanitation Hygiene etc. You may need to join the group to access its resources

(b) look at the discussion threadsFind the one labeled "PMCC Update -- 17 Apr"From it you can download your own copy of the report

They are called Daily Updates, but we only see one a week here

If you do join any of the UN NGO groups, for the purpose of reading their reports, to see what they are up to, Courtesy reminder:

We should refrain from using the contact information in UN NGO reportsto actually contact those people unless we have something specific tohelp them with that is ready to be implemented RIGHT NOW. If oursolution cannot be implemented, because of some need, such astransportation, money, whatever, we should say so up front.

When we cross post these reports to some public or semi-public site, weshould either cut out all such contact information, and/or include areminder to people about this courtesy need.

The relief workers on the ground are working 20+ hour days underfrenetic conditions.

They do not make the decisions regarding what they should be doing.

When we have feedback regarding the NGO efforts, send them up

Chain of HQ command.

Documents

Rubble Debris Haiti Quake v 2.1