BBC: Water pumped from flood-hit city - (A bit of good news.)

[Liberal In Texas]

"Engineers have begun pumping water from New Orleans after repairing a key breach in the city's floodwalls, eight days after Hurricane Katrina struck.

<snip>

Engineers have plugged the breach in the 17th Street Canal floodwall, the cause of much of the flooding, and are now beginning to pump water from the canal to reduce its unusually high level.

Work continues to repair damage to other floodwalls and levees built to keep out the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River."



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4218146.stm

[Dhalgren]

1. They are pumping that lethal, toxic swill into Lake Pontchartrain.

It will effectively "kill" the Lake. The expert on Olberman, said they should try and isolate the pumped-out toxic water in some way; I guess that doing that was just too hard/expensive/time consuming/not thought os - take your pick...

[Liberal In Texas]

2. Was watching WWL last night, and apparently Pontchartrain is already

pretty well polluted with toxins. The reporter said something to the effect it was sad because they had taken years to clean it up to where people could swim in it again.

This clean-up is going to take years.

[benburch]

3. When the water level drops, other spots will breech.

Once the level inside NO gets below the lake or river level far enough, there will again be pressure on the weakened levees, and there will be additional breeches.