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His story may have been an "old wives tale" but it is possible, although unlikely to have happened after 1972.

1) If a building is old and worn out and heavily mold infested it might be better to demolish it than rebuild it. Think about a building that was already falling apart. Of course the insurance company might be paying only for a remediation that could be less money than the demolish + rebuild.

Here's part of an article from the Ottowa Herald of Kansas, which discusses a church that demolished a moldy building.

...The congregation of Homewood Christian Church has decided to demolish its building because of a mold problem. The 141-year-old structure is one of the oldest church buildings in Franklin county Franklin County is the name of 24 counties in the United States...."It's a hard decision," said Don Higdon, a member of the church board. "We felt the need to protect the health of all the members of our congregation. We wanted to play it safe. "The building is infested with black mold black mold ...

The building was originally used by another congregation in a nearby rural neighborhood. When that church closed, records show that the 28 feet by 54 feet wood frame structure was moved on rollers by teams of horses to its present location.

It was perched on rocks and does not have a foundation, which Higdon says likely contributed to the mold problem. The congregation considered repairing the building and trying to control the mold, but decided it would be cheaper to build a new church building.

2) Ocean dumping of construction waste was legal prior to 1972.

So I could see the story being possible prior to 1972 but not as likely afterward.

No one took this clown at his word. It was just a tall tale.

Since a primary component of construction is WOOD which is highly buoyant, it is highly unlikely.

This person was very gullible and just repeated a story he herd. I don,t think any trash has been dumped in the GOM in my lifetime.

I was doing daily claims for a major carrier in Chicago. I was assigned a drive by shooting where there were 16 -9mm shots put into the front of a home just off Harlem ave.The insured said there would be a parking spot for me right in front of the home on the street. I had to go around the block to get to the home and when I turned the last corner before getting to the home there were 6 gentleman standing on the corner.
   When I pulled up in front of the home I noticed the gentlemen had split up and were coming down both sides of the street towards me. Of course you could imagine what was going thru my mind at this time. Why the heck don't I have my 357 magnum. God put a thought into my head to throw a tantrum at that very moment. I took my notebook slammed it on the hood of my rental car, I then proceeded to walk around in the middle of the street cussing every word I could think of and for no known reason I hauled off and kicked the fender of the car. As I was doing all this unprovoked wierd acting the two groups of gentlemen on both sides of the street stopped ,Turned around and left.
  God saved my bacon that day and I will not forget it as long as I live. This by the way is a totally true story and the names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

This is gonna be a record year for hurricanes -- everyone is gonna have plenty of work!

Can't remember where I first heard it.....

I was working water damage claims in Milwaukee, mostly sewer back up claims. Some areas, including the home accross the street from this insured was flooded(basement). I saw the water line on the building and adjacent fence indicating that the water was high enough to enter through the back door. Insured insisted water entered through sump pump and/or sewer drain.

Then he opened his picture file on his desktop, (after giving me a copy of his pictures on CD) showing me how high the water was during the storm, clearly showing the water over the back door threshold. When I told him he needed to contact his flood carrier, which he had none, he told me I would be talking to his attorney next.

I was working a winter flood in Northern California and had a very odd flood loss on a rent house. I called the insuredand stated it did not look like a flood by the definition of flood. The insured freely admitted the tenant had told him the house flooded, but he had never seen the loss. One of the GA,s was in the area and ask me if I had any problem claims he could inspect with me, as he would like to take a nice ride for the day up in the foothills around Chico,

When the tenant showed us the floors and all the "flood damage" she also wanted us to see the two car garge damage that has 25 inches of water on the garage doors by her version. About 22 feet behind the doors a bank of file cabinets were sitting on the floor. I pulled one of the bottom drawers out that was full of old paper files that did not have one drop of water on them. I ask her why the files and cabinets were not damaged by the water and she explained it was much deeper at the front of the garage than the rear. I got a nice "atta boy " from the carrier who got a "atta carrier" letter from the GA.

As many of you know, everything in New Orleans was covered in mold after Katrina because no one could get to their property to dry it out for at least three weeks. 

I had a chiropractor with a "holistic" practice in a rented building that claimed he couldn't use any of his equipment that had mold on it.  Cleaning would be inadequate to get rid of the taint of the mold.  (Didn't ask what he planned to do about the walls, ceiling and floors.)  Included in his list of unusable items was the toilet plunger!  I said, "It's a toilet plunger - commonly used in dirty toilets to get the waste to go down.  How is a little mold on the handle worse that what it sees in it's normal usage?" 

He was adamant, but he was also underinsured.  I was able to max out his policy without paying for the toilet plunger.