Cover-up: toxic waters 'will make New Orleans unsafe for a decade'

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=14671c0dd528c8ee&cat=c08dd24cec417021

Cover-up: toxic waters 'will make New Orleans unsafe for a decade'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Correspondent
Published: 11 September 2005
Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed. "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.


Cancer Alley!!! OMG!!!

[DawnneOBTS]

1. My mother now will not buy seafood anymore. n/t

[shanti]

25. why?

does most seafood come from the gulf?

[sandnsea]

34. Me either

We had shrimp a few days ago and I told my family, enjoy, won't be eating it any time soon. I won't eat anything that comes from the Gulf in the future, it wasn't all that clean before this.

[MissMarple]

41. Whole Foods & Wild Oats have shrimp from Thailand.

Just to let you know.

[barb162]

43. But what do we know of the pollution there? Their sewage and how

they treat it? Do they treat it?

[MissMarple]

47. Well, I rely on the integrity of the chain owners.

As far as I know, they have been reliable. I was looking for a resealable package of frozen, boneless chicken breasts and the butcher said the supplier was working on complying with their standards. So, they didn't have any at that time to sell.

The package of shrimp says "pristine ponds". :shrug:

[sandnsea]

44. After the tsunami?

My understanding is that the tsunami wiped out their shrimp beds. I'm just not going to eat it. :(

[MissMarple]

49. Here's an article on that. It estimated six months to recover.

But it also says that the destruction of mangrove forests by the aquaculture in southeast Asia caused many much of the destruction caused by the tsunami. Where the mangroves were in place villages were buffered from the destructive effects of the water. There seems to be a move to rebuild the mangrove forests.

That sounds a lot like our experience here with Katrina and the destruction of the wetlands that protect coastal habitation.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/journeys/tsunami/good_fortheenvironment.cfm

[Fridays Child]

2. 9-11 clean-up redux.

Please, good people of New Orleans, whatever you do, do not mistake anyone in the Bush administration for someone who gives a fuck.

[NMDemDist2]

3. lovuian, please edit your post to conform to DU copyright rules

4. Copyrights: Do not copy-and-paste entire articles onto this discussion forum. When referencing copyrighted work, post a short excerpt (not exceeding 4 paragraphs) with a link back to the original.

and this news is awful.

[lovuian]

5. Thank you for the warning I corrected it!!!

I had my finger too long on the copy Sorry!!!

[NMDemDist2]

11. thanks! and I can't say the news surprises me, but it's still just

horrible.

and once again, like Ground Zero, the Bushits are lying to us.

[Sgent]

4. What

is the big news network?

Why is it legal to post an entire article at DU from them, unlike all other news sources?

[lovuian]

8. I corrected it and if you look the article is written by the

Independant!!!

[BlueEyedSon]

6. Ironic.... we didn't need a terra-ist to deploy a biological/chemical WMD

on US soil.....

[CountAllVotes]

7. flash on MSNBC re: dog that drank the water - DEAD ASAP

They said that a dog drank some of the water, walked away and dropped dead 15 mins. later.

and ... on to the next heart warming story .... :puke:

Beyond CANCER ALLEY IMO!

:kick:

[Imagevision]

9. Watch the High rises to go up during this time - NO. elite don't want

the poor class of people to return.

http://downingstreetmemo.com/

[Pachamama]

17. No, watch the energy company's get the natural gas - they will say NO is

not fit for human habitation, but its just fine and dandy of a place to get to all those natural gas resources! They''ll suck the natural gas out of the area and then in a decade, after getting the Federal gov't clean it up as a superfund sight, THEN it will become the haven of new hi rises, casinos and what not....

[donsu]

38. agree - and they will get the Mex. army to do the clean up

the oil, gas, chem. barons will dance over the dead all the way to the bank.

[lovuian]

10. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I thought people

should be warned!!! This is by a British newspaper called the Independant!!! Big News gets articles from around the world!!!

If you think Yahoo Cnn Or any other US News Media printing this stuff well your living in delusion land!!!

[BrklynLiberal]

12. True. If you want to know what is going on in the US you have to read

the papers from other countries.

[lovuian]

14. I love how our News Media concentrates on EColi

but theres worse stuff in there than EColi!!! Benzene is one of them!!! New orleans is a toxic Waste dump now!!!

[CountAllVotes]

13. I figured this out over a week ago

NO = one big toxic pit that is for all practical purposes no better than a nuclear waste dump. Sad yes, but true. :( POISONED! All of it!

:dem:

[lovuian]

15. All of that toxic waste has seeped into the houses and ground

and in the lake!!! Anybody working in there for long periods should be wearing chemical suits to protect them!!!

Thats the REAL REASON they want to evacuate New Orleans!!!

[CountAllVotes]

18. yes I know = HORRIBLE

and it was also the reason for keeping the people locked up in the shelters - they did not know what to expect and they STILL DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT!!!!!!!

on edit: I believe that every single person that had any contact with that water should be in quarantine, and I am very serious about this. I fear a pandemic. :scared:

:dem:

[dansolo]

52. Especially in construction

Even after the ground dries out, it will be laced with all sorts of chemicals. Construction sites kick up massive amounts of dust. You breath that stuff in, and you will get sick or die, guaranteed. Just watch Bush to secretly push through an executive order allowing anyone involved in the rebuilding to be exempted from lawsuits that may result from improper cleanup efforts.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. People who lived there were not drinking the tap water BEFORE Katrina hit!

[CountAllVotes]

19. maybe the rich yes

But when you are poor you cannot afford water filtering systems and the purchase of bottled or delivered water.

The "base" wins again! :grr: :grr: :argh: !!!!!!!

:kick:

[BrklynLiberal]

20. Ys. That is true. It was only those who could afford filters and bottled

water who were able to avoid the polluted water.

[CountAllVotes]

22. I was in that situation

Where I lived for over 10 years the well was contaminated. The water tasted awful and I mean awful. Not long after I moved in I bought a multi-pure water filtering system. I had to replace the filters ever 3 months. They came out green and brown when I cracked it open to replace them. :puke:

One person living there became very ill and took a sample of the water to the local water testing place. It came up positive for e.coli. The slumlord did nothing but deny it but he was very scared I could tell; still nothing was ever done until the well ran dry and there was NO water at all. As for the rest of the people living there, many very poor, they are all still there and they continue to drink that well water to this day. They are all in very poor health; young woman across the street from me died of cancer at the age of 36.

Luckily I had the money to get the filtering system (cost was about $250. at that time). The filters cost about $40 every 3 months to replace. Under normal circumstances, you need to change the filters every 6 mos. to a year. I still have a water filtering system now where I live and I replace the filter once a year and it comes out looking almost unused, not green or brown!

However, no one living there really seemed to care when I told them about the water problem. They were too busy worrying about having no money to live on and the essentials in life. Water was their least thought or priority sadly.

:kick:

[BrklynLiberal]

24. I worked down there back in the late 70's early 80's and it was bad then..

and I know it has not gotten any better.
The local government did not impose any rules on the chemical and refinery corporations. They had free rein to pollute everything in the environment...water, air and soil.

[barb162]

45. LA has been notorious for decades on its lack of pollution laws

and its lack of enforcement of the few laws it has on its books

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[caligirl]

21. Erin Brocovich part dux

[nashville_brook]

23. ...

[FloridaPat]

26. What toxic waste! CNN took the water in to see what's in it. Said it

would take awhile to get stuff other than bacteria and virsus. And the gov't hasn't told the truth on anything in the last 2 weeks. No one knows what's in it as far as I know. So how can they say it's toxic.

As for the dog. if the poor thing was without food for a week or hurt, he could have dropped dead after 15 minutes drinking beer. If it's that toxic, there should be no animals left in NO.

[Bravo411]

51. Re: What toxic waste!

Re: "No one knows what's in it as far as I know. So how can they say it's toxic."

That makes no sense. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that its' contaminated with all sorts of household and industrial chemicals as well as raw sewage. As for the test done by CNN, below is a snip and a link to their article.


"CNN gave three samples to Analytical and Environmental Testing Inc., in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which found 20,000 fecal coliform colonies per 100 milliliters of water, the highest the lab could count. That's 100 times the normal count found in water runoff from storms, the company said."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/09/06/katrina.water/index.html?section=cnn_latest

The government was saying that. "And the first government tests of the New Orleans floodwaters confirmed the presence of bacteria levels at least 10 times higher than what's considered safe."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20050906_neworleans_fires_050906/?hub=Health

That's a big difference and given that the amounts the independent lab found were the highest they were able to test for, then it could be even greater than 100x.

Posted by Bravo411
http://bravo411.blogspot.com

[FloridaPat]

55. Most of this stuff will die when the water receeds. We've dumped human

waste into the ocean for decades. It recovers. Sinking ships will contaminate the ocean too. I'm interesed in the toxic stuff that is going to make NO unliveable for 10 years. I want to know what chemicals are going to be that bad not one should live there. Most of the chemicals in a home in in containers with lids on them. I still haven't seen names except for bacteria that can kill people if drunk.

[Bravo411]

57. I agree there needs to be more on the chemicals

The biological stuff is pretty bad. As far as chemicals go, well there's fuel, oil, antifreeze, pesticides, etc. I've also heard the lead levels are very high, there are a lot of car batteries that have been sitting in water for a couple weeks now and I'm sure they're starting to leak by now.

As far as the industrial chemicals go, who knows? But I'm pretty sure that it doesn't help the situation out any. It just adds to the problem. The water is pretty damn toxic. I sure wouldn't want to go wading through it and I doubt anybody else would either.

[JCMach1]

27. This part of Louisiana was already cancer alley because of

all the chemical industry located there...

Any toxicity would more than likely take years to show its affect...

[AtLiberty]

28. Nothing to fear --

JAY-SUS IS COMING! ;)

[sarcasmo]

42. The Jesus nuts will tell you this is all part of "His" plan.

[Usrename]

29. This may be a red herring that reveals the true aspirations of the

White House. They want to declare NO a blighted area, seek iminent domain, pour a big concrete slab over the horror of the Katrina disgrace, and start drilling for oil/natural gas for Halliburton.

And the media will say "oh well, what can you do, it's contaminated?"

(I believe the slow response to the disaster and the curious behavior with the Governor was an attempt by * to quarantine the entire area. By the grace of God there is no Cholera or other epidemic. This could very likely be due to pollution, but I suspect a high salt content from the storm surge is just as likely. Mosquitos don't live in brackish water.)

[donsu]

39. agree

and yes, the water is too toxic for mosquitos

[Lone_Star_Dem]

30. "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys "

From the article:

"Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House group tackling the crisis. "Its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," Mr Kaufman said. "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."

More failure by bush and his cronies. A gift of toxic chemical pollution that's going to keep on giving for a decade or more.

This brought to mind an article I read some time ago.

Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism

[Freedomfried]

31. If its too unsafe for residents, its too unsafe for developers also

Don't let them take their land!

[barb162]

46. maybe this land should be left bare for decades

[Tilei]

56. 'maybe this land should be bare for decades' NOT

The land won't be left bare for decades. There are a number of ways that the contamination can be dealt with. Each situation in NO will require appropriate assessment and risk management, but it can be done. Many petrol based contaminates can be safely remediated using 'bugs' or bio-remediation. Other areas may need to de-conned, knocked down, and capped over. It will all depend upon the levels of contamination in a given area.

Not all of the levels of contamination will be equally distributed, some of it will breakdown in sunlight alone or 'burn off' and some of what is spilled that is toxic now readily degrades in the environment. Until we know what is left behind from the flood waters, it is all a hysterical guessing game with questions that can't be answered.

Anyone who works in the EHS field knows the NO area had higher than normal background pollutants to begin with, I would project that the new NO will be safer and healthier than ever before. Now in order for that to happen professionals must be in there doing their good work, unhampered by the politics or corruption the LA is known for.

[texpatriot2004]

32. Yeah and they are destroying the evidence by just pumping

into the lake/Gulf which is, again, morally reprehensible since we are supposed to be stewards of the Earth. I really will hate to hear what God has to say when He asks us what happened to the fish in the sea and the birds in the air and the plants that he had before we made stupid decisions like this one.

[Zhade]

35. Covering up? This administration?

Why, you'd almost think they'd done this kind of thing before, like with the air quality in NYC after 9/11...

[GeorgeGist]

36. I can tell you what they did after Hurricane Betsy.

SCHLEIFSTEIN: I can tell you what they did after Hurricane Betsy. And the community was still dealing with it today. They had re-opened an old garbage dump and they had burned everything and dumped all the ashes and a bunch of waste into that dump and then reclosed it. And then a couple years later they went back, covered it up and built public housing on it. And then it turned out that it ended up being a designated Superfund site because they found all sorts of toxic materials at the top. I guarantee you that they're not going to do that again. Things have progressed dramatically in terms of environmental protection for wastes of this kind.

I would not be surprised if they end up burning quite a bit of material, but the biggest question is going to be how much material there really is? If indeed 80 percent of the housing stock in New Orleans is destroyed, I guarantee you that they're going to have to tear down many, many, many of those houses. And that's quite a big of material, and there'll be a lot of asbestos in there. It's going to be mind-boggling trying to figure out what to do. Remember when Galveston was hit in 1900, they just leveled it, the entire island, pushed that stuff aside, and poured seven feet of sand on top of it and rebuilt on top of the rubble.

GELLERMAN: Mark Schleifstein, an environment reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, spoke to us from a makeshift newsroom in Baton Rouge.

http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=05-P13-00035#feature1

lots more at this site

[rfkrfk]

37. who needs 'Eminent Domain', when the city can declare

any piece of real property to be toxic.

This will make, chasing the poor out of their homes,
a lot easier.

[debbierlus]

40. This needs to be on the FRONT PAGE of DU

Nominate this topic -

I don't get it. This is the top story on buzzflash today & it potentially has the most far reaching consequences of any of the devastation of Katrina (& the Bush administration's failures)!

New Orleans is an envirnomental disaster area, & that is getting very, very little press.

C'mon people.

Nominate this one!

[Disturbed]

48. Nominated.

The Bush Crime Admin. will try hard to keep this environmental disaster from becoming public knowledge.

[NickB79]

50. Think of the dust after everything dries out

When the waters rose and flooded New Orleans, it brought with it not just sewage and disease-causing bacteria, but heavy metals, oil and other petroleum byproducts, and industrial chemicals of all kinds. The water can be pumped out, taking with it some of these contaminants. The disease-causing bacteria will die out as the muck they're in dries out. However, unless you turn all of New Orleans into a Superfund site and haul out millions of pounds of soil, the chemicals and metals stay behind where they settled out in the mud.

Years from now, children playing in a park that was once submerged will kick up contaminated dust and inhale it. It will get in their food, or on their hands before they pick up their food. Many poor neighborhoods that supplement their diets with community vegetable gardens will eat fruits and vegetables that absorbed the toxins from the soil.

[lovuian]

53. Nick your right!!!

I know Benzene causes lymphoma and luekemia. Its very well documented. That would be from the chemical plants and the refineries but thats really just a small thing considering what other things are floating in there!!!

What people don't realize is they may nver be able to go back home.

But Bush isn't wanting to tell people that because his incompetent job at the helm made it worse!!!

[Laelth]

54. How awful!

I'm not an emotional person, but this article has made me truly sad. I have visited NO several times, and I am finally forced to come to grips with the fact that this great, multi-cultural, historic, and uniquely Southern city is truly gone. At most it will be little more than a shadow of its old self. How will Bush ever be able to remove this millstone from around his neck?

Before now, I said it because I knew no better and I was angry at what Bush was doing to the country I love. Now I say it because it is undeniably and tragically true.

Worst President Ever ...

-Laelth

[nicknameless]

58. They'll also be spraying pesticide this week, just for good measure.

That will not only kill off many of the remaining, stranded pets, but also compound the toxicity problem there, giving them an additional excuse to keep people away.

[NeoConsSuck]

59. It's back to Maine lobsters for me!

I wish :(