HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL is a problem confronting the people of the United States right now. Across the country, Americans are fighting to get hazardous waste cleaned up so that they do not have to live in communities full of toxic contaminants which make them sick. In the northern part of New Orleans, Louisiana, for example, people are living over a buried dump full of toxic chemicals. Approximately 150 contaminants have been found in the soil around their homes, including the heavy metal lead, which can cause physical and mental developmental problems in children, and kidney and nervous system damage in adults. On a June 1999 broadcast of public television's Lehrer News Hour, one resident from this neighborhood, Nathan Parker, explained the situation he and his neighbors face: "We are living on a poisoned, toxic site . . . Our kids back there are sick, and we—it's a slow death for us...