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NEW ORLEANS' TOXIC FLOODWATER POSES ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT |
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by CBC News Last Updated Tue, 06 Sep 2005 11:18:10 EDT The makeshift levee is holding and water is beginning to be pumped out of New Orleans. Now comes the next challenge - what to do with the floodwater.
A worker watches the flow Tuesday as water is pumped out of New Orleans. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) The toxic soup of chemicals and human waste will probably end up in the Mississippi River or Lake Pontchartrain. And that could bring an environmental disaster to the region hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. Poison water could kill fish and damage the delicate wetlands near New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi. Tests of the water that has flooded the streets of New Orleans are likely to shows traces of everything imaginable. "Go home and identify all the chemicals in your house. It's a very long list," said Ivor van Heerden, an expert studying the public health impact of hurricanes. "And that's just in a home. Imagine what's in an industrial plant," he said. "Or a sewage plant." That mix could contain gasoline, diesel, anti-freeze, bleach, human waste, acids, alcohols and any number of other substances, and must be washed out of homes, factories, refineries, hospitals and other buildings. And the longer the water sits, the greater the chance gasoline and chemical tanks could rupture and add to the mess. Rodney Mallett, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, says there really isn't any alternative to pumping the water into Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River. "I don't see how we could treat all that water," Mallett said. Bio-remediation -- cleaning up the water -- would require the time and expense of constructing huge storage facilities. That isn't considered possible since people want the water drained as soon as possible. "We're not happy about it. But for the sake of civilization and lives, probably the best thing to do is pump the water out," Mallett said. Clearing the water from New Orleans and the surrounding region could take up to 80 days. Once the water is gone, new problems will have to be dealt with. New Orleans will be a city filled with mould, some of it toxic. In past floods, researchers found many buildings had to be stripped back to concrete, or destroyed. |
