FEMA agrees to fund Katrina debris removal

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to fund the removal of debris throughout southern Louisiana caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Four months after it was learned that no federal program was in place to tackle the post-Katrina problem, FEMA officials have formally agreed to pay for the removal of the debris from various marshes across southern Louisiana, the New Orleans Times-Picayune said Saturday.

FEMA had previously funded such cleanup efforts through the U.S. Coast Guard, but both funding efforts have still left some Louisiana officials concerned that it will not be enough.

Those concerns are due in part to the fact that much of the debris strewn across Louisiana marshland is not readily visible from the surface and could easily go unnoticed, the report said.

Added to those concerns is the fact that FEMA officials in Louisiana have announced the cleanup effort will primarily be focused on problematic debris.

"We're not going to vacuum-clean the entire water system here," FEMA's director of external affairs in Louisiana, Bob Josephson, told the newspaper. "We're going to get the stuff that's affecting health and safety."