NO, Toxic Flood Lifts Lid on Common Urban Pollution Problem

[Southpaw Bookworm]

Broken sewers, flooded industrial plants and dead bodies are all likely to blame for poisoning the waters being drained from New Orleans.

But the water - and the muck it is leaving behind -- also owes its contamination to a source as mundane as it is unexpected: Toxins common in most urban environments that made their way en masse into the water as it stagnated atop the city.

So says a University of Florida professor who has spent years studying the harmful contaminants that turn up in urban runoff, or rainwater that washes across streets and other hard surfaces in cities. Environmental engineering professor John Sansalone's perspective is especially relevant because it is based on field research in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, where he was a professor at Louisiana State University before taking a job at UF this summer.

"What we see in New Orleans is that when you put a lot of water in contact with the urban environment, all the potential contaminants that stayed around in that environment are now back in the water - definitely, to our horror," Sansalone said.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=30909&nfid=rssfeeds