Contaminated Water...

[Clandestino]

I am waiting for the environmentalists to complain about the city pumping all that contaminated water out in the lake.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

well it seems like a necessary evil, given the conditions

only a liberal as stupid as you would argue otherwise

[Cant_Be_Faded]

i was just thinking more about it....i'm sure theres a few things that can be done to counter the contamination effect in the lake

like releasing a bunch of decomposing bacteria or something

on the downside, this would have all kinds of crazy effects on the dynamics of the ecosystem

i dont think releasing that water into the lake is an ethical issue...what would be an ethical issue is to let it stay there and let mother nature take its course or take active steps to counter the contamination, and possibly lead to adverse effects

when hardcore environmentalists argue stupid shit, they dont take into consideration how complex and interlocked so many things are...i'm sure theres some smart scientist out there that can find a decent solution to this

[Das Texan]

throw it into the lake for all i care. just dont throw it into the gulf.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

ummm, if my memory serves, the lake is linked to the gulf by a narrow channel....so it will reach the gulf eventually

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

They already have, it just buried in the news (and rightly so).

Look, the environment is important, but it gets trumped by the city of New Orleans and her people.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

i dont think its unreasonable to at least get some professional advice on their actions, and things to soften the blow towards the lake's ecosystem

i mean all they gotta do is ask...shouldn't cost much money/time

[CosmicCowboy]

It's called dilution and overhyping of the contamination.

Lake Ponchatrain will be fine in six months.

Long before New Orleans wil be.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

It's called dilution and overhyping of the contamination.

Lake Ponchatrain will be fine in six months.

Long before New Orleans wil be.


its never that simple
and it wont be fine in six months

[boutons]

"it gets trumped by the city of New Orleans and her people."

... which got trumped by shrub/Repug strategy of "starving the beast" which included unfunding levee maintenance while cutting taxes for the rich/corps and over-spending the govt into mind-boggling debt.

Tom Friedman describes shrub/Repug tax policy:

"An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist - who has been quoted as saying: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" - doesn't have the instincts for this moment."

[jochhejaam]

I am waiting for the environmentalists to complain about the city pumping all that contaminated water out in the lake.

It's the Kerry/nbadan mentality, no solutions , just sit back and take potshots at whatever happens.


A litany of complaints is not a plan


http://www.rushonline.com/kerry/photos-kerry/kerry-idiot.jpeg

[Useruser666]

its never that simple
and it wont be fine in six months

They have experts looking at it right now. The lake is very large and very close to the gulf, which means polutants should not have a lasting effect on it.

[SWC Bonfire]

It's called dilution and overhyping of the contamination.

Lake Ponchatrain will be fine in six months.

Long before New Orleans wil be.

Dilution is the Solution to Pollution.:tu

[boutons]

The New York Times

September 7, 2005

Water Returned to Lake Contains Toxic Material
By SEWELL CHAN and ANDREW C. REVKIN

BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 6 - While the human and economic toll of Hurricane Katrina continued to mount, New Orleans was beginning to pump back into Lake Pontchartrain the floodwaters that had inundated the city.

But this is not the same water that flooded the city. What started flowing back into the lake on Monday and continued spilling into it Tuesday is laced with raw sewage, bacteria, heavy metals, pesticides and toxic chemicals, Louisiana officials said on Tuesday.

Whether or not the accelerating pumping of this brew from city streets into coastal waters poses a threat to the ecosystems and fisheries in the brackish bay remains to be seen, the officials said.

They added that they could do little more than keep testing and count on the restorative capacity of nature to break down or bury contaminants.

Though the state of the lake was a prime issue, it was just one of a host of problems identified in the storm-ravaged region on Tuesday by Louisiana and federal environmental officials.

For example, the officials said that although two large oil spills, from damaged storage tanks, were under control, thousands of other smaller spills continued to coat floodwaters in New Orleans with a rainbow sheen.

The first samples of the city's floodwaters were taken on Saturday by the Environmental Protection Agency, and results were expected later in the week, officials said.

"It's simply unfeasible" to try and hold the pumped water somewhere to filter out pollution, said Michael D. McDaniel, the Louisiana secretary of environmental quality.

"We have to get the water out of the city or the nightmare only gets worse," said Dr. McDaniel, who is a biologist. "We can't even get in to save people's lives. How can you put any filtration in place?"

Some scientists outside government tended to agree that the risk of long-term damage to the coastal waters was not high. One reason is that the lake is fed by several rivers and flushed by tides through its link to the Gulf of Mexico.

There will probably be an "initial toxic slug" entering the lake but that will be diluted and degraded by bacteria, said Frank T. Manheim, a former geochemist for the United States Geological Survey who teaches at George Mason University and was a co-author of a 2002 report on pollution issues in the lake.

"I think the lake has withstood has some big hits," he said, including an oxygen-sapping algae bloom after a 1997 flood.

He said that most of the long-lived industrial pollutants that can accumulate in organisms and work their way up the food chain have largely been phased out.

Overall, though, it was becoming evident that just the flooding of New Orleans had created environmental problems that could take years to resolve, state officials said.

Each of the estimated 140,000 to 160,000 homes that were submerged is a potential source of fuel, cleaners, pesticides and other potentially hazardous materials found in garages or under kitchen sinks, officials said.

The E.P.A. on Tuesday estimated that more than 200 sewage treatment plants in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were affected, with almost all of the plants around New Orleans knocked out of action.

Hundreds of small manufacturers or other businesses using chemicals or fuels, many with storage tanks held in place by gravity instead of bolts, are probably leaking various chemicals and oils, officials and independent experts said.

The E.P.A. and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a joint statement on Tuesday warning people that "every effort should be made to limit contact with floodwater because of potentially elevated levels of contamination associated with raw sewage and other hazardous substances."

The statement urged anyone exposed to the water to wash thoroughly with soap and water and alert medical personnel about open cuts. "Early symptoms from exposure to contaminated flood water may include upset stomach, intestinal problems, headache and other flu-like discomfort," the statement said. Officials pointed to a short list of developments they called encouraging: the two largest known oil spills were declared under control, with one slick drifting out into the Gulf of Mexico and away from the state's ravaged coastline, where it will probably degrade over time.

As for the lake, "The wonderful thing about nature is its resilience," Dr. McDaniel said. "The bacterial contaminants will not last a long time in the lake. They actually die off pretty fast. The organic material will degrade with natural processes. Metals will probably fall and be captured in the sediments. Nature does a good job. It just takes awhile."

Kenneth Chang contributed reporting from New York for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[boutons]

washingtonpost.com

Katrina Takes Environmental Toll
Water Could Be Unsafe for Years; Bush, Congress To Probe Relief

By Timothy Dwyer, Jacqueline L. Salmon and Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writers

Wednesday, September 7, 2005; A01

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 6 -- The dank and putrid floodwaters choking this once-gracious city are so poisoned with gasoline, industrial chemicals, feces and other contaminants that even casual contact is hazardous, and safe drinking water may not be available for the entire population for years to come, state and federal officials warned Tuesday.

Mayor Ray Nagin authorized law enforcement officers and the military to force the evacuation of all residents who refuse to heed orders to leave. Nagin's emergency declaration, released late Tuesday, targets those still in the city unless they have been designated by government officials as helping with the relief effort.

It came as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gingerly pumped swill into Lake Pontchartrain, where rising water levels could increase pressure on levees that may have been damaged when Katrina hit but cannot be checked because they are under water on the city side.

As hundreds of police officers, emergency workers and volunteers waded through flooded neighborhoods trying to coax remaining residents from their ruined homes, health officials offered the first tentative assessments of the environmental damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and its resulting floods: They ranged from contaminated water to the destruction of coastline that acts as a buffer against hurricanes and other severe weather.

The fallout from Katrina continued to buffet Washington; President Bush and members of Congress announced at least three separate probes into the faltering governmental response to the storm and its aftermath. Bush, reeling from bipartisan complaints about the slow federal reaction, promised to lead an investigation to "find out what went right and what went wrong" and informed congressional leaders of a request for as much as $40 billion in additional relief funds.

State officials released new tallies of Katrina's destruction, with up to 160,000 homes in Louisiana destroyed and nearly 190,000 public school students displaced by the storm and its aftermath.

Louisiana health officials reported 83 confirmed deaths but cautioned that the total is likely to soar into the thousands as corpses are uncovered in receding floodwaters. As of late Tuesday, 59 bodies had arrived at a temporary morgue in St. Gabriel, La., that is set up to handle more than 5,000 dead if necessary.

"It could take days, it could take years, it could take lifetimes" to identify some victims, said Bob Johannessen of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

Some local officials in Louisiana were adamant in placing most of the blame on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies.

"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area," Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, said on CBS's "Early Show." "So I'm asking Congress, please investigate this now. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."

Amid the detritus in New Orleans, officials began to shift their focus from rescue to recovery, affixing red tags to floating corpses and noting locations by global satellite positioning for retrieval later. Survivors were being talked out of staying.

Micheline Doley, 24, and three companions agreed to abandon their dry third-floor apartment on South Liberty Street after aid officials warned they would no longer drop off water for them. Doley said she had a battery-powered television, hot water and gas for cooking.

"I didn't want to leave New Orleans," Doley said, carrying a duffel bag after getting off a rescue boat with her friends. "As long as they kept bringing us water, we didn't want to leave. We kept telling them to go help other people."

With tens of thousands taken out of the city in recent days, rescuers said there was a dramatic drop in the number of survivors found Tuesday.

"We're just seeing fewer and fewer people," said Larry Gillian, a paramedic volunteer from the North Arkansas Regional Medical Center. "The two people we brought in today, we've been after for the last couple days to come in and they wouldn't come. . . . Then they saw their friends come in and decided to come in themselves."

Gregory J. Smith, director of the National Wetlands Research Center for the U.S. Geological Survey in Lafayette, La., who was helping in search-and-rescue efforts, warned that parts of the city will be uninhabitable once the waters recede.

"There are concerns about hotspots for disease and for environmental hot spots," Smith said. "Some people left before the storm, some people left right after the storm and there are some people who will only leave under desperation, and that's where we are now."

Although levels have continued to drop in some areas, authorities only began concerted efforts to pump floodwaters into Lake Pontchartrain after plugging the biggest levee breach on Monday.

Only three out of 148 pumps in the New Orleans pumping station are operating, and it could take 80 days before the city and its outlying suburbs to the east are dry, according to Gordon Nelson, an assistant Louisiana transportation secretary. In the city's 17th Street Canal, which had been the site of the most serious break, only 9 cubic feet per second is being pumped out, compared with a potential capacity of 4,600 feet per second, Gordon said.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representative Dan Hitchings said 34 portable pumps were being installed, with more on the way.

Tuesday brought the first sign that the number of evacuees housed in hundreds of shelters nationwide may begin to fall off, with the Department of Homeland Security reporting about 180,000 shelter residents, down from about 230,000 the day before. Officials in several states said evacuees are leaving shelters once friends and family members can take them in.

At the same time, the number of storm victims seeking assistance continued to climb. FEMA said more than 360,000 individuals and families had applied for state and federal disaster relief by Tuesday afternoon. That number includes about 270,000 in Louisiana, 70,000 in Mississippi and 26,000 in Alabama, according to FEMA spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker.

In the first formal assessment of the environmental devastation wrought by Katrina, state authorities in Baton Rouge announced a litany of contaminants likely to be found in the floodwaters, including tens of millions of pounds of concrete, lumber, cars, animal carcasses and all the other solid waste of a major metropolitan area.

Most sewage-treatment plants in New Orleans were destroyed. Two major spills sent 78,000 barrels of oil into Lake Pontchartrain, and fuel has coated the city from 2,200 fuel tanks and leaking gasoline from flooded cars and boats.

"It is almost unimaginable what we're going to have to plan for and deal with," said Mike McDaniel, the state's secretary of environmental quality. "I don't think anyone has ever dealt with this. The tsunami comes to mind."

When residents return to the city, they will probably need to bring in bottled water and other sources of water while the city rebuilds water-treatment plants.

The mix of contaminants poses a serious disease risk to those wading through the filthy water on rescue and body-recovery missions, McDaniel and others warned. Rescuers were urged to get hepatitis and tetanus shots.

In a telephone news briefing Tuesday, Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said "it would not be too surprising" if evacuees living in shelters experience somewhat higher rates of infectious illness.

Respiratory illnesses, including influenza when the season for it begins in the fall, are the most likely, she said. Diarrheal diseases are also possible, especially ones caused by norovirus and the bacterium Escherichia coli . The infections most likely to appear are ones already in the population before the flood, she said, noting that "in the city of New Orleans, cholera has not been present for years."

Other aspects of the environmental toll wrought by Katrina are obvious to rescuers and others traveling the increasingly empty city. On such grand boulevards as St. Charles and Napoleon avenues, the foliage that drapes the majestic oaks and magnolia trees is suddenly turning brown. Birdsong has largely disappeared, replaced with the whine of boat engines and the shouts of rescuers seeking survivors.

Lloyd Thornton, a volunteer from Kemah, Tex., cut the engine on his airboat Tuesday while floating along General Taylor Street. He and his companion, a New Orleans police officer, spotted a towel hanging out a broken window that could have been a cry for help.

"Is anybody in there?" Thornton yelled. "Is anybody home?"

There was no answer. Thornton restarted the engine and continued the search.

Salmon reported from Baton Rouge, La.; Eggen, from Washington. Staff writers David Brown, Juliet Eilperin, Michael A. Fletcher, Spencer S. Hsu and Shankar Vedantam and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report from Washington.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Clandestino]

cindy sheehand needs to set up shop outside a pumping station and say she is not leaving until they stop pumping water

[clubalien]

put containinated water into water supply only bush woudl think that up!

[Spurminator]

They need Superman.

Remember in Superman 3 where he froze an entire lake and lifted it to put out a fire? He could totally do that with New Orleans and toss that bitch into space.

Stupid stem cell research cuts.

[Useruser666]

They need Superman.

Remember in Superman 3 where he froze an entire lake and lifted it to put out a fire? He could totally do that with New Orleans and toss that bitch into space.

Stupid stem cell research cuts.

But Bush only has the ability to change votes, not super freeze breath.

[Useruser666]

put containinated water into water supply only bush woudl think that up!

Do you actually believe it's Bush's plan to drain the water back into the lake?

On a side note, where would you like all the water to go?

[Spurminator]

But Bush only has the ability to change votes

...And kill the paralyzed.

RIP Superman. We miss you.

[MannyIsGod]

cindy sheehand needs to set up shop outside a pumping station and say she is not leaving until they stop pumping water
:lmao

Where the fuck else are they supposed to pump it?

Man, both sides of these fights make my head hurt. Why can't we just move all the pundits into NO as is and let them live there and sort it out?

[Useruser666]

...And kill the paralyzed.

RIP Superman. We miss you.

I wonder if superman could still fly if he were paralyzed?

[Marcus Bryant]

You know, there is one thing missing from this tragedy.

What do you get when you take 10 strangers, a townhouse in the French Quarter, and a foot thick layer of mud, raw sewage, and dead bodies?

Yes, that's right, the basis for a new reality show.

[Shelly]

You know, there is one thing missing from this tragedy.

What do you get when you take 10 strangers, a townhouse in the French Quarter, and a foot thick layer of mud, raw sewage, and dead bodies?

Yes, that's right, the basis for a new reality show.

They already did The Real World-New Orleans! :lol

[Clandestino]

:lmao

Where the fuck else are they supposed to pump it?

Man, both sides of these fights make my head hurt. Why can't we just move all the pundits into NO as is and let them live there and sort it out?

oh, i know it has to be pumped into the lake. it was a knock on cindy.

[cecil collins]

I think he knows that you were making a stupid fucking joke.


It's the Kerry/nbadan mentality, no solutions , just sit back and take potshots at whatever happens.

As opposed to your defend the administration any cost without offering any solutions not supported by Bush. Also, you are not above taking potshots yourself, and I think it's pretty lame that you try to pretend you always take the high road.

[Zombie Terri Schiavo]

On a side note, where would you like all the water to go?

In my fucking mouth for starters................

[Vashner]

It depends..

1. If the pumping results in environmental damage = Bush's Fault
2. If the pumping does not = Not Bush's Credit

The democrats .. I mean CNN would never let anyone question the (D) mayor and gov.

[Nbadan]

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.

Big News Network (http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=14671c0dd528c8ee&cat=c08dd24cec417021)

[Useruser666]

Here's the problem. No one knows how bad the pollution is yet. So this is all speculation.

[Hook Dem]

Here's the problem. No one knows how bad the pollution is yet. So this is all speculation.
Yet, a lot of self made experts post here!

[mouse]

Yet, a lot of self made experts post here!


Thank You :smokin