Link to site: Matthew Brown, West Bank bureau, March 06, 2006

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Highlights:
- authorities expressed increasing confidence in recent days that the region successfully skirted the nightmare scenario: a New Orleans forever marred by tainted soils, foul waterways and unexplainable health maladies.
- The storm highlighted chemical problems and health issues that the city had lived with for decades.
- the 46 locations across the metro area identified as potential toxic hot spots offer a significant exception to government claims that the region is generally safe. Almost all are in residential areas.


A litany of environmental and health unknowns hangs over the region more than six months after Hurricane Katrina, from 46 potential hot spots of contamination and the continuing cleanup of 8 million gallons of spilled oil, to health care workers raising the alarm over a spike in Legionnaires' disease.

Nevertheless, authorities expressed increasing confidence in recent days that the region successfully skirted the nightmare scenario: a New Orleans forever marred by tainted soils, foul waterways and unexplainable health maladies. Instead, state and federal environmental agencies and public health officials depict a region grappling with problems already present on Aug. 29.

This theory rejects the popular image of Katrina as culprit, tearing through chemical depots and unleashing the contents of tens of thousands of gas tanks to stir up the widely publicized "toxic gumbo." Rather, it suggests the storm highlighted chemical problems and health issues that the city had lived with for decades.

For instance, findings of elevated levels of lead, arsenic and the petroleum byproduct benzo(a)pyrene are being chalked up largely to New Orleans' history as an urban area, according to state and federal environmental officials and some outside scientists.

The lead could have come from lead paint or be the remnants of decades of leaded gasoline use; the arsenic, from common herbicides; and benzo(a)pyrene, from vehicle traffic, according to officials at the state Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Look, nothing is completely risk-free, and that includes the level of chemical contamination in New Orleans. It wasn't before the storm and it isn't now. It's a fact of life in many cities," said Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health in Atlanta, which is advising federal agencies on their storm response.

Skeptics, from independent researchers to environmental and social activist groups, say such sweeping characterizations gloss over complications caused by the storm. Floodwaters could have brought to the surface lead that had been buried for decades, reviving the risk of human exposure, according to experts from several universities.

Also, the 46 locations across the metro area identified as potential toxic hot spots offer a significant exception to government claims that the region is generally safe. Almost all are in residential areas.

Similarly, the threat of a rise in potentially fatal Legionnaires' disease, which often is spread by water, was rejected outright by state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard as "urban legend." Yet several doctors in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish claim to have witnessed firsthand a sudden spike in cases. They say a medical system left in disarray after hospitals closed and hundreds of doctors relocated could easily miss the trend.

Even if their warnings pan out, the doctors who first raised the issue, William LaCorte, an internist at Touro and East Jefferson hospitals, and Jesse Penico, an infectious disease specialist at East Jefferson, said it is primarily doctors who need to be on the lookout for the disease, not the public at large.

The implications of what is in the region's soils have a much broader sweep.

The contaminants still under scrutiny were found across flooded residential areas of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. Some were just above health risk standards; others exceeded the standards by five times or more. Benzo(a)pyrene and arsenic are known carcinogens, and lead exposure can damage the nervous system, with children particularly at risk.

"There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. If there's soil that's elevated (for lead), I'm not happy if there are people living around that soil," said Felicia Rabito, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. "I don't think the pre- and the post-storm question is so important as what is the current situation. We need to look at that as, 'Where do we live and play?' "

Yet with federal emergency spending limited to storm-related damage -- and the state hobbled by a perpetual cash-flow problem -- Katrina's role in any contamination is a pivotal issue in how it would be addressed.

Tom Henning, chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority's environmental task force, said calls to clean up chemical contamination, regardless of its origin, ignore the recovery's significant limitations.

"Wouldn't it be a good time to do these things? Practically, if you had no constraints on money, it would be," Henning said. "Money is the problem."

But state and federal officials are not the only ones holding the purse strings for the recovery, said John Casbon, president of First American Transportation Title Insurance. He said the nationwide firms that underwrite mortgages and home insurance policies remain skittish about backing the rebuilding. What they want, Casbon said, is a better picture of what new flood maps will look like and whether contamination could become a liability in the future.

"This is really all about markets and the tolerance for risk. There is really a very small tolerance for risk in the lending world," he said. "There's no politician that's going to decide who's going to repopulate these areas. It will be done by risk management within the insurance industry. If we don't know whether the soil has any kind of contaminants in it, whether the soil has to be raised before you can even build on it, then insurance companies become very noncommittal about coming back into those areas."

In summing up the region's post-hurricane environmental issues, Louisiana Secretary of Environmental Quality Mike McDaniel made clear his agency has little appetite for diving into problems that predate the storm.

"It is what it was," he said of the New Orleans region, suggesting the city's contamination issues are little changed since before Katrina. "The more we look at it, the more we see what was already there before Katrina. . . . The facts just overwhelmed the fantasy."

The exception, McDaniel and others said, is the million-gallon crude oil spill at the Murphy Oil refinery in St. Bernard Parish. That was the most severe of nine major spills after Katrina, totaling more than 8 million gallons.

Most of the spills occurred in lightly populated rural areas or coastal marshes. But about 1,800 homes and businesses in Meraux and neighboring Chalmette were fouled by the Murphy spill, according to the EPA. About 75 percent of the spill has been recovered, according to the Coast Guard, one of several agencies overseeing the cleanup. Murphy spokeswoman Mindy West said the company had scrubbed down about 600 home interiors and 1,000 exteriors through last month.

A one-square-mile area was affected by the spill, and whether those neighborhoods will ever rebound is unclear.

Aside from that case, McDaniel said thousands of tests performed on soil, air, water and living organisms such as fish have turned up contamination in only a small fraction of cases.

That has not quelled a running dispute between government agencies and scientists, environmental groups and others pushing for a thorough cleanup of tainted soil. One reason for the disagreement is the difficulty of pinpointing the risk posed by the chemicals in question.

With water contamination, determining risk is relatively easy: Drinking a given quantity of chemical-laced water equates to a quantifiable health risk. But for soil, scientists also must factor in how likely a person is to be exposed to the soil and for how long. That encompasses whether the soil is from a highway median or in a back yard, in a commercial or residential area, in a neighborhood full of children or one with 9-to-5 workers.

Out of about 800 soil and sediment samples collected by the EPA and the DEQ between September and late November, the number posing a possible health risk has been narrowed to 46 locations. None are said to pose a short-term health risk. An investigation for long-term risk is ongoing.

For lead, that includes all sites with levels in excess of 400 parts per million, the baseline for health dangers. For arsenic and benzo(a)pyrene, it includes all sites with levels that pose a greater than 1 in 10,000 chance for a person to develop cancer based on 30 years of exposure.

Not included in the latest round of sampling were more than 100 sites that had shown elevated levels of diesel range organics, chemicals that could have come from the tens of thousands of vehicles flooded when 80 percent of New Orleans was inundated. DEQ toxicologist Tom Harris said those generally degrade within a year, so they do not pose a long-term risk.

In New Orleans, the potential hot spots include 33 locations with elevated lead, arsenic or benzo(a)pyrene in the Lower 9th Ward, Mid-City, Uptown, Bywater, eastern New Orleans, Gentilly and Lakeview. Five locations around the Metairie Country Club in Jefferson Parish are under scrutiny for elevated arsenic or lead levels. Four sites in St. Bernard are being probed for lead and three for arsenic. And a site in Buras in Plaquemines Parish is being looked at for possible benzo(a)pyrene contamination.

Between Feb. 16 and 22, soil samples were collected in a 500-foot radius around each location. Combined, that amounts to almost 830 acres under scrutiny, or the equivalent of about 300 to 375 city blocks. Results should be known in two or three weeks, said EPA scientist Jon Rauscher. He said additional potential hot spots could develop as the agency continues sampling sediments.

DEQ officials said the results of the samples will be averaged to determine whether entire neighborhoods contain toxins or whether contamination is limited to a single spot. Because the initial findings of contamination were biased to look for problems, with EPA officials saying they searched out the worst-looking storm sediments they could find, Harris said he expected the latest round of tests to show lower levels of contamination.

Steven Presley, a Texas Tech University toxicologist whose own soil tests have turned up high levels of lead and arsenic levels in the city, said he attempted to persuade federal regulators in recent months to remediate all sites that showed high levels of toxins, to no avail.

"It seems like it would be a good opportunity. If the concentrations are there, then let's remediate it," Presley said. "I was told the immediate concern is not on the contaminated soil right now. The immediate concern is the cleanup and removal and reconstruction. And if problems develop later, then they will be addressed."

Presley declined to identify which agencies or federal officials made the comments.

Sam Coleman, regional director for the EPA's toxic waste cleanup division, said he could not respond directly to Presley's claim. But he said his agency's involvement in New Orleans did not end in December, when the EPA agreed to a broad statement drafted by McDaniel's office that said the region was generally safe for return.

"When you talk to scientists and engineers, you always get a lot of hedging," Coleman said. "In general, there's no long-term health effects, but the reason we go back and look at these locations is (that) something there has caused us some concern to go back and look further. And as we look further, we'll be able to go back and make long-term decisions."

. . . . . . .

Information about chemical contamination, broken down by ZIP code, is available on the DEQ's Web site, www.deq.louisiana.gov. An alternate view is available through the Natural Resources Defense Council, www.nrdc.org.

. . . . . . .

Matthew Brown can be reached at mbrown@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3784.

Link to Reference: RICHARD BURGESS, Acadiana bureau, Feb 28, 2006

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Highlights:
- Hurricane Rita piled more than 1,700 acres of debris in the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge in Cameron Parish, including hundreds of containers that could be filled with as much as 350,000 gallons of hazardous materials, according to a report prepared for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
- A prized national wildlife refuge that has effectively become a toxic dump
- Rita’s storm surge pushed the remnants of Holly Beach and other coastal towns into the refuge as well as storage tanks ripped from dozens of oil and gas facilities in the storm’s path.

LAFAYETTE — Hurricane Rita piled more than 1,700 acres of debris in the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge in Cameron Parish, including hundreds of containers that could be filled with as much as 350,000 gallons of hazardous materials, according to a report prepared for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The report, by Research Planning of South Carolina, concludes if work does not soon begin to remove the hazardous materials, the refuge “will be at significant risk of chemical and physical damages for decades.”

“We are looking at a prized national wildlife refuge that has effectively become a toxic dump,” said Evan Hirsche, chairman of the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement, a coalition of groups that push for more funding of the federal refuge system.

Rita’s storm surge pushed the remnants of Holly Beach and other coastal towns into the refuge as well as storage tanks ripped from dozens of oil and gas facilities in the storm’s path.

Much of the debris in the refuge is a mix of housing materials and dead vegetation, which can suffocate marsh plants and disturb natural water flow.

Of greater concern are the estimated 759 containers that could contain anywhere from 115,000 to 350,000 of hazardous liquids and gases, according to the report.

The containers — likely filled with such substances as oil, cleaning solvents and other industrial supplies — range from 10,000-gallon tanks to 35-gallon drums.

The low estimate of 115,000 gallons of hazardous material assumes that on average each container is filled to 25 percent capacity, while the high estimate of 350,000 gallons assumes the average container is at 75 percent capacity.

The report, based on aerial photography and satellite images, does not include any containers that might have sunk into the marsh.

“It is likely that there are significant numbers of hazmat debris items buried in the debris piles not currently visible,” the report states.

A lack of funding has frustrated efforts to remove hazardous debris from the 124,500-acre refuge, a coastal haven for waterfowl and shorebirds.

“A lot of that has been left there, because it takes particular skills for hazardous removal,” said Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Tom MacKenzie.

Early estimates for the cleanup of hazardous materials in the Sabine refuge are at “$10 million plus,” MacKenzie said.

He said the Fish and Wildlife Service has its hopes pinned on a $132 million package proposed by the Bush administration to fund cleanup and rebuilding on refuges throughout the southeast damaged by hurricanes Rita, Katrina and Wilma.

The funding requires congressional approval and includes money for work on 61 refuges or other Fish and Wildlife Service facilities.

“The onus now is really on Congress to step up to the plate,” Hirsche said.

MacKenzie said the $132 million would be “a real shot in the arm” for the hurricane-damaged refuge system along the Gulf Coast.

Less extensive hazardous waste cleanup work is needed in nearby Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, MacKenzie said.

He said hazardous containers have been found in the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge and the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, both near New Orleans, but no formal studies of hazardous debris have been carried out at those refuges.

“I think Sabine is just the tip of the iceberg, the most compelling example,” Hirsche said.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has been removing hazardous material containers tossed about by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but the EPA is not performing cleanup work on federally owned lands, such as refuges.

In areas outside of the refuge in Cameron and Calcasieu parishes, EPA teams have recovered about 112,000 gas and liquid containers since November, said Chris Ruhl, who is helping coordinate EPA’s effort in southwest Louisiana.

The containers recovered so far in Cameron and Calcasieu include 7,371 55-gallon drums, 2,295 propane tanks and 1,100 containers larger than 55 gallons, Ruhl said.

Link to Reference: Spencer S. Hsu and Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, 2/23/06

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Highlights:
- Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina deposited arsenic, lead and petrochemical compounds across greater New Orleans in amounts that are potentially dangerous to human health, despite federal and state assurances that the sludge is safe, according to a new study based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data.
- "State and some federal officials have been consistently denying there are any significant risks from the toxic mud that has spread across the city,"
- Environmental activists are calling on government agencies to clean up contaminated sediment; test schools and playgrounds; and provide information and protective equipment to residential- and business-property owners.

WASHINGTON — Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina deposited arsenic, lead and petrochemical compounds across greater New Orleans in amounts that are potentially dangerous to human health, despite federal and state assurances that the sludge is safe, according to a new study based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data.

The study, which was conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council and is being released today, urges the government to clean up the waste before permitting young children to return to the struggling city.

Government officials have minimized the public-health threat in New Orleans, the environmental group said. Louisiana officials have said some toxic contaminants have been found only on golf courses that use pesticides containing arsenic, but the NRDC report includes maps detailing dozens of high arsenic levels taken across wide swaths of the urban area.

"State and some federal officials have been consistently denying there are any significant risks from the toxic mud that has spread across the city," said Erik Olson, a senior NRDC lawyer. "The data they themselves have collected show that to the contrary, there are significant risks from arsenic and toxic chemicals that have blanketed much of New Orleans."

Environmental activists are calling on government agencies to clean up contaminated sediment; test schools and playgrounds; and provide information and protective equipment to residential- and business-property owners. Many toxins are especially dangerous to children, and metals such as lead can stunt development.

"Young children should not play in any areas where there is still sediment on the ground," wrote the report's authors, Gina Solomon and Miriam Rotkin-Ellman. "It would be best to keep children out of the city until cleanup has occurred."

Tom Harris, administrator of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's Environment Technology Division, said the NRDC and others have been "grossly misusing" state screening standards and presenting them as thresholds that would trigger government cleanups. He added that these toxicity guidelines would merit further investigation rather than an automatic cleanup, and would have to be greatly exceeded before harming young children.

"We have taken to date almost 1,000 soil and sediment samples in New Orleans," Harris said. "I have not seen any samples that were a problem for acute exposure, short-term exposure," meaning up to two years, he said.

The safety thresholds are based on exposure over 30 years, Harris said.

EPA spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said the agency "from day one" has provided air, water and soil sample analyses for its state and local partners, "quickly shared our information and then executed the appropriate next steps."

Also, the White House is scheduled to release a report today calling for the military to be more closely involved in handling large natural disasters as part of a plan to improve the government's emergency-response operations.

Link to Reference: James Varney, Staff writer, Feb 15, 2006

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Highlights:
- FEMA contractors have been using the Old Gentilly site, which closed in 1986, as an emergency receptacle for some of the millions of cubic yards of debris created by last year's storms. The site's reopening triggered protests from various groups who feared the antiquated landfill wasn't an environmentally sound site for new dumping, and FEMA ordered up the study in response to those complaints and lawsuits.
- There is a concern that relatively weak natural foundation soils underlying the Gentilly Landfill may be overloaded by ongoing waste placement and become unstable," the report said. "In particular, there is a potential that affected soils may include foundation soils below the MR-GO levee and extend out as far as the MR-GO canal face."
- We had already developed concerns about the close proximity of the landfill and the levee in our review of the city's levee system," van Heerden said. "And with all this new matter there is a potential for a lateral heave given this type of soil." It appears that lateral heave would come from the estimated 4 million cubic yards of waste that has been dumped at Old Gentilly since Katrina.

The pressure from a monstrous pile of debris put into the Old Gentilly Landfill since Hurricane Katrina could push mushy soil under the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet levee, weakening another piece of New Orleans' already shaky flood-protection system, according to an investigative study of the site. That finding was the most explosive in a final draft of the study commissioned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and released Tuesday.

State environmental officials disputed the findings in the report and characterized its methodology as "haphazard."

FEMA contractors have been using the Old Gentilly site, which closed in 1986, as an emergency receptacle for some of the millions of cubic yards of debris created by last year's storms. The site's reopening triggered protests from various groups who feared the antiquated landfill wasn't an environmentally sound site for new dumping, and FEMA ordered up the study in response to those complaints and lawsuits.

"Very simply, there is a concern that relatively weak natural foundation soils underlying the Gentilly Landfill may be overloaded by ongoing waste placement and become unstable," the report said. "In particular, there is a potential that affected soils may include foundation soils below the MR-GO levee and extend out as far as the MR-GO canal face."

The potential development bears an alarming similarity to what some groups believe happened with the 17th Street Canal during Hurricane Katrina. Studies in the failure zone there indicate that porous soil underneath the floodwall's steel pilings probably destabilized the protective barrier and led to its collapse. A state Senate committee is expected to take up the report's findings at a hearing Thursday.

Meanwhile, what might be developing beneath the MR-GO levee has also caught the attention of engineers investigating the 17th Street Canal's failure. Ivor van Heerden, a geologist at Louisiana State University, said he hopes to launch a formal probe of the MR-GO levee's underground strength in the next 10 days. What investigators will be looking for is something called, informally, "a hamburger effect," in which pressure atop something forces what is underneath to squirt out the sides.

"We had already developed concerns about the close proximity of the landfill and the levee in our review of the city's levee system," van Heerden said. "And with all this new matter there is a potential for a lateral heave given this type of soil." It appears that lateral heave would come from the estimated 4 million cubic yards of waste that has been dumped at Old Gentilly since Katrina. Joel Waltzer, an attorney for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, which has filed a suit against the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality that seeks the revocation of the landfill's post-Katrina permit, estimated the debris is in places piled as high as 130 feet above the landfill's old clay cap and covers about 220 of the site's 230 acres.

FEMA did not respond to phone calls late Tuesday afternoon, and officials from the Department of Environmental Quality said elements of the study were done in a haphazard fashion and without full consultation with either DEQ or other regulatory agencies. In addition, the authors of the FEMA report, who spent no more than 45 minutes on the ground at Old Gentilly, never requested any of the voluminous data amassed on Old Gentilly Landfill operations, said Chuck Carr Brown, DEQ's assistant secretary.

"We see no place for FEMA to act like a regulatory agency here," Brown said, noting that his department was still reviewing the final report and would most likely issue a more comprehensive response. "We have lots and lots of issues with this report. We as a department have been involved with this site for more than 20 years, and you'd think if you were doing a report out there you'd want to talk to the regulatory bodies involved and they didn't."

Despite Brown's protests, Tuesday's report appeared to confirm many of the fears of the environmental groups who opposed the new activity at the landfill. It notes there is a dearth of data allowing accurate measurements of groundwater contamination, runoff, gas buildups and the structural soundness of a clay cap on the old dumped material. The report suggests the landfill could become a kind of seeping, poisonous sponge with long-term, baleful results in eastern New Orleans and beyond.

That could translate into a legal predicament for FEMA, according to National Infrastructure Support Technical Assistance Consultants, which conducted the study.

The group "concludes that FEMA could potentially be exposed to high risk of future environmental liability based on current conditions and environmental history of this site," the report said.

The environmental groups voiced that doomsday scenario even before the report began, but Waltzer said he was stunned by the possibility another levee could be undermined by subsoil action.

"It is beyond ironic (that) we would allow millions and millions of pounds of waste out there when we don't have conservative estimates or reliable information about the impact," he said.

The possibility the city's recent nightmarish history could repeat should be a bugle for residents, he said. Waltzer, who lost an office in eastern New Orleans and a home in Gentilly in the post-Katrina flooding, said he is not willing to take further chances.

"They're threatening my levee now," he said. "Forget about whether or not you're an environmentalist. You don't monkey around with levees here anymore."

On Tuesday morning, the Senate Environmental Quality Commission was addressing the draft version of the report when Sen. Derrick Shepherd, D-Marrero, said he received an anonymous copy of the final report. Senators and DEQ officials have rescheduled the hearing for Thursday morning, but Shepherd was outspoken about what he thinks could be a disaster.

"I'm hoping to sound the alarm because I'm very frightened and the public should be very frightened," he said. "This report is scary, and the DEQ has no answer except to say it's erroneous, and that's not going to cut it."

At DEQ, Brown insisted such talk is hyperbolic. He cited a 2004 study tied to the impact of additional waste being put on top of Old Gentilly's clay cap and said that study showed the site could hold 2,000 times as much debris as has been dumped there since Katrina. Furthermore, tests on the actual site soil do not reflect the destabilizing influence the report theorizes could occur, he said.

"The people who did this report should have had that data, and they didn't," he said.

Similarly, fears of water contamination are overblown, Brown said. An analysis of groundwater at the site on Nov. 9 reflected zero contaminants, he said. What's more, the public is being misled about the type of debris that is being dumped at the Old Gentilly site. Brown pointed to three points at which the debris is reviewed -- at curbside when it is picked up, by "eyes" in towers who survey the trucks when they arrive, and by "pickers" at the dumping location -- as evidence hazardous materials are not being mingled.

As a result, he bristles at suggestions New Orleans might be repeating a mistake made at the Agriculture Street landfill after Hurricane Betsy in 1965. In that case, city officials dumped and burned storm-related debris atop the former landfill, which subsequently morphed into a Superfund site, the designation imposed on the nation's most contaminated areas and one that requires expensive and lengthy cleanups.

. . . . . . .

James Varney can be reached at jvarney@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3386.

Link to Reference: AMY WOLD, Advocate staff writer, Feb 13, 2006

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Highlights:
- Initial testing of the flood water showed extremely high levels of bacteria, sewage and chemicals from oil and gasoline. Speculation abounded about the “toxic soup” that would poison people and the land.
- Tests have shown that while the water was definitely unsanitary, it didn’t significantly differ from the normal storm runoff New Orleans experiences during heavy rain,
- He explained that most of the flooded areas were residential, not industrial. Even where a container of pesticide was left unsealed, the power of dilution in so much flood water made the impact negligible,

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, people predicted a life-threatening “toxic soup.” It never formed.

They expected Lake Ponchartrain to suffer or even die as contaminated water from New Orleans was pumped into it. That didn’t occur.

Then they waited for returning residents to pack emergency rooms with lung ailments from the toxic dust, contaminated soil and mold. That hasn’t happened yet. So far, state Epidemiologist Dr. Raoult Ratard said, nothing appears out of the ordinary with illness in the New Orleans area.

While Hurricane Katrina caused massive destruction, many dire environmental predictions failed to materialize, state officials say.

Initial testing of the flood water showed extremely high levels of bacteria, sewage and chemicals from oil and gasoline. Speculation abounded about the “toxic soup” that would poison people and the land.

Tests have shown that while the water was definitely unsanitary, it didn’t significantly differ from the normal storm runoff New Orleans experiences during heavy rain, state Department of Environmental Quality scientists say.

John Pardue, associate professor and director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at LSU, said his research results seem consistent with what DEQ and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found.

“It’s fair to say the water there was just like normal storm water,” Pardue said.

He explained that most of the flooded areas were residential, not industrial. Even where a container of pesticide was left unsealed, the power of dilution in so much flood water made the impact negligible, he said.

“For the most part, those things floated away pretty intact without major spills,” Pardue said.

Part of the confusion involves how some groups compare test results to standards, said Tom Harris, administrator of DEQ’s environmental technology division.

At one point, groups were applying drinking-water standards to flood-water samples, he said. The drinking-water standard is based on someone consuming two liters daily for 30 years. That wasn’t going to happen with New Orleans flood water, Harris said.

Another fear was that dust from contaminated soil would pose a severe health threat.

Harris said the way soil samples were taken led to some confusion.

The first round of EPA testing took samples from the worst areas instead of trying to get an overall picture of the city’s safety. So if contamination could be seen, a sample was taken, meaning testing was done on storm drains and in areas were there was no flood-water sediment, he said.

Harris said in one round of testing, DEQ found that out of 160 samples taken by EPA, only 14 were from actual flood sediment. The rest were from soils that were probably there before the flooding, he said.

Image persists
So where did the idea of a toxic New Orleans start, and why has that image lingered in the public mind?

Chalk that up to human nature, DEQ Secretary Mike McDaniel said. The concentration of industry led many people, even experts, to expect horrific contamination.

“Unfortunately, those first concepts took root and spread around the world,” McDaniel said.

News reports circulated of a chemical plant blast, train car explosions and the ever-popular toxic soup.

“None of it was true,” McDaniel said. “That’s the result of the initial feeding frenzy — what’s the comment I heard the other day? — of disaster porn. It just frustrated the dickens out of me.”

In December, federal, state and local officials held a news conference on the safety of New Orleans. Public health officials urged people to take precautions against mold and to be careful while removing debris, but insisted the water, soil and air were safe.

“We’ve seen very little to be concerned about. Actually, nothing to be concerned about,” said June Sutherlin, a DEQ toxicologist.

Another take
Not everyone agrees with that assessment.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network have repeatedly accused DEQ and EPA of playing down the dangers.

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association in New Orleans, cites an analysis by Dr. Gina Solomon.

“The concerns have not yet been addressed,” Dashiell said. “There’s been no remediation. It’s a matter of the EPA just not doing its job.”

Solomon, a physician who works with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, said she agrees with the test numbers posted by EPA and DEQ, but disagrees with how those results are being portrayed by the agencies.

She takes exception to the statement that there was no “toxic soup” in New Orleans.

“I think it all hinges on the definition of toxic soup,” she said.

There’s no dispute that oil, gasoline and a lot of bacteria were in the flood water, she noted.

While that contamination might be at the same level as the runoff from any storm in the city, the major difference is exposure. People walking through an inch or two of water have far less exposure to contaminants than those swimming in it, a common occurrence after Katrina, Solomon said.

Downplaying the results, she said, is an effort to make people feel comfortable moving back to New Orleans and an attempt to avoid having to clean anything up.

A question of arsenic
Solomon said arsenic levels are high all over the New Orleans area. Some groups are calling for soil removal in hotspots.
DEQ’s Harris said the higher levels his agency found were almost exclusively from samples taken from golf courses, where arsenic-containing pesticides are used.

Harris said Louisiana’s background level for arsenic is 12 parts per million. Even though that might be above EPA standards, people were likely living with those levels before the storm, he said.

“Even potting soil you bring home can have 100 parts per million of arsenic in it,” said June Sutherlin, a DEQ toxicologist.

Some people note that even if the post-Katrina contamination isn’t worse than what existed before the flooding, people still need to know what dangers they face.

Pardue noted that much of New Orleans had lead levels above residential standards before the storm. That doesn’t mean the results should be ignored, he said.

He said this question still remains: Should areas with higher arsenic and lead be cleaned up before rebuilding?

If it’s not feasible to clean to residential standards, people should be told of the long-term risks associated with returning — even if the contamination existed before the storm, Pardue said.

McDaniel said DEQ has been under no pressure to minimize the dangers. He said the department’s information is corroborated by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a long list of other agencies.

“Our pressure is to get the facts out,” he said.

Link to Reference: Pam Radtke Russell, Business writer, January 20, 2006

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Highlights:
- Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 115 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico
- 418 "minor pollution incidents" occurred within a four-week period in August and September. The agency defines a minor incident as a spill of 500 barrels of oil or less that does not reach the coastline. A spokeswoman could not provide the cumulative amount of oil that was spilled.
- The agency estimates that 3,050 of the Gulf's 4,000 platforms and 22,000 of the 33,000 miles of pipelines were in the direct path of the hurricanes. Most of the destroyed platforms were older and in shallower waters

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 115 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico in the worst natural disaster to hit the oil and natural gas industry in the Gulf, the Minerals Management Service said Thursday.

The most recent assessment from the federal agency showed that in addition to the destroyed platforms, 52 platforms and 183 pipelines were damaged, and 418 "minor pollution incidents" occurred within a four-week period in August and September. The agency defines a minor incident as a spill of 500 barrels of oil or less that does not reach the coastline. A spokeswoman could not provide the cumulative amount of oil that was spilled.

About 25 percent of the oil production in the Gulf remains down because of the damage. That amount isn't expected to significantly change until the second half of this year.

The agency estimates that 3,050 of the Gulf's 4,000 platforms and 22,000 of the 33,000 miles of pipelines were in the direct path of the hurricanes. Most of the destroyed platforms were older and in shallower waters, said MMS spokeswoman Caryl Fagot, and all but one was a fixed platform.

BP alone lost 10 platforms in Hurricane Katrina. Seven of BP's platforms were toppled, and three of them were listing after the storm, said company spokeswoman Ayana McIntosh-Lee. But many of the shallow-water facilities were not producing, and those that were producing generated only about the equivalent of 2,500 barrels of oil per day.

BP produces about 400,000 barrels per day in the Gulf of Mexico, Lee said. The company is assessing the damage to the platforms and deciding what to do with them.

The Minerals Management Service plans to award six contracts to further assess and study the hurricanes and the damage they caused, including the response of waves and currents in the Gulf of Mexico.

After Hurricane Ivan in 2004, only seven platforms were destroyed, said MMS Regional Director Chris Oynes.

The assessment is not complete, Fagot said. The amount of damage could change as companies survey their Gulf facilities.

Oynes said the assessments have been delayed because of "overwhelmed support resources, such as diving equipment, support vessels, and remotely operated vehicles."

The most significant damage occurred at Royal Dutch Shell's Mars platform, which each day was producing 130,000 barrels of oil and 150 million cubic feet of gas before Katrina. Repairs are expected to be complete in the second half of the year.

The information released in the report was self-reported by the oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Link to Reference: ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS SERVICE, Washington DC, February 23, 2006 (ENS)

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Highlights:
- 1,400 barrels of toxic liquids and gases are sinking into the coastal wetlands of the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge as a result of Hurricane Rita, which smashed southwestern Louisiana last September.
- 115,000 to 350,000 gallons of everything from oil and bleach to propane are contained within those barrels.
- "An additional unknown number [of barrels] are undetected or not visible," the report says. "It is likely that, without the address of these issues, Sabine National Wildlife Refuge will be at significant risk of chemical and physical damages for decades."


Government consultants report that more than 1,400 barrels of toxic liquids and gases are sinking into the coastal wetlands of the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge as a result of Hurricane Rita, which smashed southwestern Louisiana last September.

A report prepared for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and just released to the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE) finds that 115,000 to 350,000 gallons of everything from oil and bleach to propane are contained within those barrels.

Four containers of chlorine gas, which kills immediately upon exposure, were found, and two entire 18 wheelers were identified during the debris survey of the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge on which the report is based. Their contents is unknown.

"An additional unknown number [of barrels] are undetected or not visible," the report says. "It is likely that, without the address of these issues, Sabine National Wildlife Refuge will be at significant risk of chemical and physical damages for decades."

Debris dumped by Hurricane Rita still lies scattered across the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo credit unknown)
The refuge, on the coast near the Louisiana and Texas border, lacks the funding to begin removing the 1,400 barrels of toxics, which are strewn across the refuge.

The barrels are part of a six mile long debris field which can be seen from space and is thought to be the longest in the state. Much of the debris was created when nearby oil and gas facilities were ripped apart by the hurricane. More than 70 platforms and drilling rigs completely destroyed and more than 40 were damaged.

"This is really a simple question – do we want to clean this up now, while the impacts and costs are relatively manageable, or do we want to wait until this becomes a massive Superfund cleanup project?" said Evan Hirsche, chair of the Cooperative Alliance For Refuge Enhancement, a group of 21 nonprofit organizations committed to protecting wildlife refuges.

Neither the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nor the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been granted authority to work on the refuge lands, says Hirsche. The Department of the Interior lacks the funding to act, and current proposals before congressional appropriators appear too small to make any real difference, he says.

The destruction at Sabine has been devastating to its wildlife, Hirsche says. Dead animals alligators, small mammals and fish are scattered throughout the refuge.

The main trail through the refuge is closed, crippling the local ecotourism economy, which can bring in as much as $1.5 million daily. The toxic stew is seeping into the groundwater, putting local people at risk.

Written by Zach Nixon and Jacqueline Michel of Research Planning, Inc. based in Columbia, South Carolina, the report is based on ground and aerial surveys and remote sensing data.

In this aerial photo of the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge, debris is seen scattered across the mud. (Photo courtesy Nixon and Michel)
In addition to the hazardous debris, the researchers identified thousands of non-toxic debris items such as pieces of vinyl or aluminum siding, insulation, plywood, corrugated metal, lumber and white goods such as refrigerators and water heaters that may contain small amounts of toxics.

Nixon and Michel estimate that there are 2,900 separate debris piles within the boundaries of the refuge, covering more than 1,730 acres or about 1.5 percent of its total area.

There are more than seven million cubic meters of debris in the refuge, and "the piles themselves represent a significant physical and ecological modification to the landscape" of the refuge, they report.

"It is likely that there are significant numbers of HAZMAT debris items buried in the debris piles and not currently visible," the report states.

In their report, Nixon and Michel offer three recommendations.

First, they recommend development of a detailed plan for removal of the identified items of hazardous materials (HAZMAT). Much has already been learned during HAZMAT removal actions in Louisiana and Mississippi following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, they say.

As of January 30, they write, responders in coastal Louisiana are still working on removal of HAZMAT items from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina outside of federal lands, many located in remote and sensitive wetland areas. Responders are developing technologies and tracking costs for their removal, and their experiences can be used to evaluate cost effective technologies that will not further damage marsh habitats, Nixon and Michel suggest.

In southeast Louisiana, costs as of mid-January 2006 have been estimated to $800 per drum and $1,600 per larger container. "These costs are based on the difficult working conditions in St. Bernard Parish, where crews are getting only about four hours of actual work per day. The response team expects to increase their efficiency over time and cut these costs in half," they report.

Cost estimates for removal of large items with heavy lift helicopters are $4 million for 240 large items where the liquids have mostly been removed already, Nixon and Michel write.

This six mile long debris field was left by Hurricane Rita which made landfall on September 24, 2005. (Photo credit unknown)
Second, they suggest that surveys be conducted to identify buried debris items. Thermal surveys appear to be most promising and least expensive method, they recommend.

Finally, they say it will be important to continue monitoring the debris piles that remain after removal actions are finished

"The large amount of non-vegetative material in the debris piles poses significant risks to the habitat and use of the refuge," write Nixon and Michel. "Monitoring is necessary to track the rate of decay of the vegetative and woody material and track the behavior and fate of the persistent materials.

Hirsche of the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement warns that the situation in Sabine is a public health issue. "A national wildlife refuge could be declared a Superfund site," he told ENS in an interview. "We've got a severe situation with ramifications for groundwater, wildlife and people that depend on it for their well being."

Hirsche supports a request for emergency supplemental funding sent to Congress by President George W. Bush. It includes $132 million for cleanup of the 61 wildlife refuges in the Gulf Coast hurricane-stricken region, in addition to the $30 million approved by Congress two months ago.

But Hirsche says his group is concerned that funding for habitat restoration is not included in the budget requests made to date. Saltwater incursion has claimed miles of the coastal area, he says, suggesting that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs $75 million for habitat restoration.

Refuges in the Gulf coast states are havens for migratory songbirds, waterfowl, herons, egrets, spoonbills, and they are habitats that support a whole range of species.

"Even with all of this seemingly bad news, there is still a glimmer of hope," said Hirsche. "If we can convince our federal and state officials that this is important enough to focus on immediately, we can save future generations a dollar tomorrow for what we can spend a dime on today."

Link to Reference: Renee Peck, InsideOut editor, January 14, 2006

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Highlights:
- Mold is pretty gross stuff. It may, in fact, give the cockroach a run for its money.
- Mold spores are invisible -- typical size is 2 to 20 microns. To get a sense of how tiny that is, consider that you could fit 20 million 5-micron spores on a postage stamp.
- While there are no national numerical standards that decree what spore levels are "safe," the indoor air count should be a third or less of the corresponding outdoor count.

"But we only got 8 inches of water," Stewart kept saying as we surveyed molds in a panoply of varieties, hues and textures crawling across the walls and ceilings and into the air ducts of our East Lakeshore home.

"Eight inches, 8 feet, with mold it doesn't matter," replied the first of a series of workmen who come and go through our family like stray pets. We try to adopt them, but life on some other street invariably calls. After a career that has involved covering food, TV, parenting issues, local entertainment, the Internet and interior decor, I never saw myself as The Times-Picayune's mold writer.

Now I've spent four months in at-home and on-the-job training. I've talked to professional industrial hygienists on both coasts and states in between. I've interviewed government mold experts and licensed mold remediators and attended mold workshops. The Google home page on my computer goes automatically to "mold," without prompting.

And I've discovered that mold is pretty gross stuff. It may, in fact, give the cockroach a run for its money.

A live mold spore can live behind your walls for more than a decade, waiting for a stray drop of water to help it pop to life. A dead mold spore contains the same toxic properties as a live one, meaning that it can sit in your carpet or behind your air vent waiting to start a sneeze or coughing fit.

Until they grow into that billion-member colony that looks like cotton candy on your Sheetrock, mold spores are invisible -- typical size is 2 to 20 microns. To get a sense of how tiny that is, consider that you could fit 20 million 5-micron spores on a postage stamp.

Like us, molds need water and food for sustenance. They love to eat leather, starch adhesives and anything that contains paper (like your cellulose-filled drywall or insulation).

But for my family, the worst thing about mold is the smell. Slightly sweet and cloying, it lingers not only in the nostrils, but in the brain.

"There's something moldy in this car," Stewart will say as we drive to the Palace for a movie.

"You brought something moldy in here, I can smell it," he said in our Uptown apartment after a recent trip to our driveway POD storage unit . "I am not," I retort, "that stupid."

Mold, you see, has become our Katrina icon: It is death and loss and destruction. And it will be around for long months to come.

BRUSH-UP ON MOLD

This is remedial reading for those of you who, like me, have become pros at gutting drywall and spraying bleach and water on plaster. But for those just starting the process, here are some things about mold worth knowing, all gleaned from interviews I've reported.

-- Mold, which is a fungus, is a naturally N'Awlins kind of thing: We have thousands of varieties in the local environment. What you don't want is to have more spores inside your house than outside.

-- In Louisiana, professional mold remediators must be licensed. For a list, see www.lslbc.state.la.us/search/cresults.asp. Mold remediators cannot, in this state, conduct post-clearance tests on their own remediation efforts to document spore counts.

-- Mold can be cleaned from nonporous surfaces, such as granite or glass, but not from porous ones, such as drywall or carpets. Semi-porous substances, such as wood, often can be cleaned.

-- The recipe for mold remediation is "clean, then disinfect." Clean any visible mold with detergent, then disinfect with a solution of a half cup of bleach to a gallon of water.

-- Mold infestation requires drastic measures: Moldy drywall and any wet insulation behind it must be removed. Studs must be cleaned, disinfected and, if necessary, shaved or wire-brushed to remove mold. Plaster walls can be saved, unless there is wet insulation behind them.

-- Drywall should be removed at a height of at least 2 feet above the water line. A "flood cut" at 4 feet is common, since drywall comes in 4-foot sheets that can then fit into the opening. But remember that the mold you see on the outer walls is probably half of what's behind them. Water "wicks" up to higher levels inside the cavities, and mold colonies follow.

-- Drying is paramount to success. Studs should contain less than 20 percent moisture (some experts recommend under 16 percent) before walls are closed. Invest in a pronged hygrometer, or moisture meter, that you stick into the wood to test it yourself.

-- Cleaning mold without the proper attire is like skydiving without a backup chute. My N-95 twin cartridge respirator has replaced the muddy soccer cleats and stray homework pages in the passenger seat well of my car.

DOING IT MY WAY

I probably went overboard on mold cleanup, but everyone in my family has an allergy or three. Anyone who sneezes at the sight of a dust ball or has a suppressed immune system can be particularly sensitive to potential mycotoxins in mold. Basic drywall gutting runs $2 or $3 a square foot; professional mold remediators cost three or four times that. We felt the peace of mind was worth the cost.

Here's what licensed local company Aire-Scrubbers did at my house over the course of eight work days, with a crew of four:

-- Around-the-clock operation of commercial negative air pressure differential machines ("air scrubbers") to remove airborne spore particles.

-- Around-the-clock use of industrial dehumidifiers to dry the environment.

-- Removal of all drywall -- and ceilings -- downstairs and one mold-infested room upstairs.

-- Cleaning and wire-brushing of each exposed wooden stud.

-- High efficiency particulate air (also know as HEPA) vacuuming with a commercial vacuum that goes over floors, wall cavities and studs.

-- Application of an Environmental Protection Agency-approved latex-based bio-growth inhibitor to all exposed wood. This keeps any embedded or overlooked spores from reproducing.

The professional air quality inspector who measured spore counts afterward found the indoor mold count to be 259 per cubic meter, well under the 1,300 that designates a building "moldy," according to the National Allergy Bureau. Better yet, the indoor air-spore count was 93 percent lower than the outdoor count. While there are no national numerical standards that decree what spore levels are "safe," the indoor air count should be a third or less of the corresponding outdoor count.

For more information on mold see www.epa.gov/mold/index.html or www.buildingscience.com.

Link to Reference: KEVIN SPEAR, The Orlando Sentinel, 12/24/05

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Highlights:
- Scientists still don't know whether the slug of germs and chemicals is floating toward Florida's coast, drifting out to the Atlantic or lurking somewhere in between.
- hurricane batterings will heighten threats to an ecosystem already burdened with dead zones, toxic algae and mysterious plumes of pollution-laden black water off Florida's coast.
- The scientists never found fish kills, tainted shellfish or the pollution. Perhaps toxic floodwaters were neutralized by exposure to sun, sank to the bottom, decayed or were diluted.

NEW ORLEANS - Spilled chemicals, leaking gas tanks and city sewage all mingled with floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina that eventually drained into the Gulf of Mexico.

The toxic soup went somewhere. But its destination remains a mystery. Scientists still don't know whether the slug of germs and chemicals is floating toward Florida's coast, drifting out to the Atlantic or lurking somewhere in between.

The massive dose of pollution stands as one of the storm season's critical environmental lessons: The Gulf roils with looping, whirling currents able to turn one shore's mess into another's lasting misery.

That message is growing more urgent with predictions that hurricanes will punch harder and more often in coming decades.

Potential damage to cities, chemical plants and industrial sites — now and in years to come — could spell calamity for the Gulf's treasured wetlands, beaches, coral reefs, surf and sea life.

At the very least, hurricane batterings will heighten threats to an ecosystem already burdened with dead zones, toxic algae and mysterious plumes of pollution-laden black water off Florida's coast.

"Where does the Gulf of Mexico reach the tipping point where it can no longer fix itself?" asked Enid Sisskin, legislative chair for the Panhandle's Gulf Coast Environmental Defense.

A mess for others
The Gulf of Mexico's expanse — the world's fifth-largest sea — is really an illusion. Shaped like a fishbowl, upside down and slightly canted, its widest span equals a line from Orlando to New York. But the distance is easily conquered.

A hummingbird migrates from Mississippi to Mexico in 18 hours. Ships laden with wheat steam from Beaumont to beyond Key West in 48 hours. Natural-gas molecules surge through a pipeline under the Gulf from Mobile Bay to Tampa Bay in 59 hours.

It's not hard to see how a mess in one part of the Gulf can arrive quickly in others.

At Padre Island National Seashore, near Corpus Christi, researchers have traced trash to offshore rigs, shrimp boats, recreational boaters and more-distant sources, such as Midwest farms, said park science chief Darrell Echols.

After Mississippi River floods in the 1990s, crews hauled off everything from cow carcasses to roof trusses. After Katrina, workers returned to the park for truckloads of storm debris.

Yet how currents morph and whirl remains such a mystery that scientists aren't certain about how pollution travels. Predicting serpentine movements in the Gulf isn't nearly as reliable as forecasting a tropical storm.

"We have lots of weather observations on land," said Steve Murawski, chief fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington. "In the Gulf, we have a handful of buoys."

66 billion gallons
The unknowns of the Gulf have contributed to the mystery of what happened to the slug of pollution that flowed out of New Orleans.

Nobody can say how fast or in what direction it traveled. But they know more than 66 billion gallons drained out of the city — more than enough to fill the 50-square-mile Lake Apopka west of Orlando.

The giant plume set off such worries that an unprecedented armada of oceanographers, marine biologists and chemists fanned out in several ships across the northern Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to west of the Mississippi River delta.

Health authorities already had reported that evacuees who waded in floodwaters in New Orleans were breaking out with rashes and blistered skin.

"We had no way of knowing what to expect," said Shailer Cummings, chief scientist for one of the cruises sponsored by NOAA.

A University of South Florida oceanographer, in a separate effort, offered a theory. Using computer calculations and satellite observations of sea-surface changes, he estimated the swiftest-moving New Orleans contamination could have traveled the Gulf in circular detours for a month before hooking around South Florida to the Atlantic Ocean.

NOAA deployed "drifters" — floating electronic buoys — that broadcast their locations while riding currents. Some migrated toward Texas. Others meandered toward Florida.

The scientists never found fish kills, tainted shellfish or the pollution. Perhaps toxic floodwaters were neutralized by exposure to sun, sank to the bottom, decayed or were diluted.

Robert H. Gore, a marine scientist who wrote a book about the Gulf's wonders and plight in the early 1990s, doesn't expect that many will see Katrina's mess as a warning. He has marveled at how communities and industries that continue to crowd the region are so blind to their environmental risk-taking and the harm they cause the Gulf. "You built your own nest," Gore said. "Now you have to sit in it."

Link to Reference: Cain Burdeau, The Associated Press, 12/18/05

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Highlights:
- Regulators said environmental rules had to be set aside to save the Gulf Coast from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.
- Federal and state agencies waived environmental laws regulating open burning. They waived the laws regulating asbestos removal. They waived rules for landfills, gasoline and diesel fuel standards, and water and air pollution - all in the name of recovery and rebuilding.
- Records show the oil industry was quick to seek and receive waivers and exceptions from state and federal agencies. EPA said it would use discretion in its enforcement of emissions at refineries because of the gasoline shortage throughout the nation.

NEW ORLEANS - From the moment New Orleans' filthy floodwaters were pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, regulators said environmental rules had to be set aside to save the Gulf Coast from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.
   Federal and state agencies waived environmental laws regulating open burning. They waived the laws regulating asbestos removal. They waived rules for landfills, gasoline and diesel fuel standards, and water and air pollution - all in the name of recovery and rebuilding.
   Meanwhile, Louisiana's U.S. senators pushed for long-term waivers of environmental laws in hurricane-hit states to quicken rebuilding, tacking the proposal onto a stalled $250 billion rebuilding plan presented to Congress.
   Mostly, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the waivers were harmless. But some say they went too far, padding the pockets of oil companies and creating long-term environmental hazards.
   ''What these waivers represent is the government waiving protections of the public's health,'' said Adam Babich, director of Tulane University's Environmental Law Clinic. ''A lot of this seems to be happening under the radar without any public participation.''
   In Louisiana, the waivers and variances to permits came fast and furious after Katrina hit Aug. 29, DEQ documents show. More exceptions were issued a month later after Hurricane Rita.
   Some waivers, like the one that allows the burning of dead animal carcasses, appeared harmless. But many others have raised questions.
   Records show the oil industry was quick to seek and receive waivers and exceptions from state and federal agencies. EPA said it would use discretion in its enforcement of emissions at refineries because of the gasoline shortage throughout the nation.
   Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at EPA and longtime whistle-blower within the agency, said EPA's move to allow refineries to take longer to report emissions and not comply with environmental rules helped the companies make the record profits.
   ''The bottom line is everyone is taking major hits across the country except for one sector that's become a profit center, and that's not right, that's not American,'' Kaufman said.
   Darrin Mann, a DEQ spokesman, said the permits did not allow the refineries ''to go hog wild'' and emit large amounts of pollutants. Instead, DEQ says the waivers were needed so the refineries could work through kinks in their systems when they were shut down by the storms.
   EPA and DEQ officials have said that air monitors have shown no problems with air quality at the refineries. But Anne Rolfes, a Louisiana activist, insists that EPA tests after Katrina showed high levels of benzene near oil refineries.
   ''We're asking the neighbors of these refineries to put up with a lot of increased risk, increased fears and increased noise from these refineries so that we can enjoy the benefits of cheaper gasoline,'' Babich said.
   Meanwhile, environmentalists are challenging state regulators for sending much of the waste from gutted homes and businesses in New Orleans to an old city landfill that is not lined to keep contaminants from leaching out.
   The trucks hauling debris into the landfill are inspected from towers at the dump's entrance, but there are concerns that contractors are trucking in paint, household cleaners and chemicals by hiding the hazardous material at the bottom of their loads.
   Similar questions abound. In hard-hit Plaquemines Parish, waste is being burned 24 hours a day and mounds of debris will be bulldozed into unlined pits.
   Out in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Marine Fisheries Service waived the requirement that shrimpers use devices on their nets that let sea turtles escape. The agency said debris littering the Gulf made the devices impractical.
   On land, a Georgia-Pacific paper mill was allowed to burn petroleum coke because of a shortage of natural gas. A chemical factory was given the go-ahead to dispose of a petroleum byproduct stuck in a storage tank by burning it off in a flare.
   In the marshes, officials got rid of oil spills from broken pipelines by burning it off.
   The bottom line, many say, was getting the job done.
   But environmentalists worry. ''We should do it right now rather than paying more money in the future to clean it up,'' said Darryl Malek-Wiley of the Sierra Club's Delta Chapter.

Link to Reference: Associated Press, 12/14/05

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Highlights:
- From the moment New Orleans' filthy floodwaters were pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, regulators said environmental rules had to be set aside to save the Gulf Coast from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.
- Mostly, said officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the waivers were harmless. But some say they went too far, padding the pockets of oil companies and creating long-term environmental hazards.
- Records show the oil industry was quick to seek and receive waivers and exceptions from state and federal agencies. EPA said it would use "discretion" in its enforcement of emissions at refineries because of the gasoline shortage throughout the nation.


NEW ORLEANS — From the moment New Orleans' filthy floodwaters were pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, regulators said environmental rules had to be set aside to save the Gulf Coast from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

Federal and state agencies waived environmental laws regulating open burning. They waived the laws regulating asbestos removal. They waived rules for landfills, gasoline and diesel fuel standards, and water and air pollution -- all in the name of recovery and rebuilding.

Meanwhile, Louisiana's U.S. senators pushed for long-term waivers of environmental laws in hurricane-hit states to quicken rebuilding, tacking the proposal onto a stalled $250 billion rebuilding plan presented to Congress.

Mostly, said officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the waivers were harmless. But some say they went too far, padding the pockets of oil companies and creating long-term environmental hazards.

"What these waivers represent is the government waiving protections of the public's health," said Adam Babich, director of Tulane University's Environmental Law Clinic. "A lot of this seems to be happening under the radar without any public participation."

In Louisiana, the waivers and variances to permits came fast and furious after Katrina hit Aug. 29, DEQ documents show. More exceptions were issued a month later after Hurricane Rita.

Some waivers, like the one that allows the burning of dead animal carcasses, appeared harmless. But many others have raised questions.

Records show the oil industry was quick to seek and receive waivers and exceptions from state and federal agencies. EPA said it would use "discretion" in its enforcement of emissions at refineries because of the gasoline shortage throughout the nation.

Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at EPA and longtime whistleblower within the agency, said EPA's move to allow refineries to take longer to report emissions and not comply with environmental rules helped the companies make the record profits.

"The bottom line is everyone is taking major hits across the country except for one sector that's become a profit center, and that's not right, that's not American," Kaufman said.

Darrin Mann, a DEQ spokesman, said the permits did not allow the refineries "to go hog wild" and emit large amounts of pollutants. Instead, DEQ says the waivers were needed so the refineries could work through kinks their systems when they were shut down by the storms.

EPA and DEQ officials have said that air monitors have shown no problems with air quality at the refineries. But Anne Rolfes, a Louisiana activist, insists that EPA tests after Katrina showed high levels of benzene near oil refineries.

"We're asking the neighbors of these refineries to put up with a lot of increased risk, increased fears and increased noise from these refineries so that we can enjoy the benefits of cheaper gasoline," Babich said.

Meanwhile, environmentalists are challenging state regulators for sending much of the waste from gutted homes and businesses in New Orleans to an old city landfill that is not lined to keep contaminants from leaching out.

The trucks hauling debris into the landfill are inspected from towers at the dump's entrance, but there are concerns that contractors are trucking in paint, household cleaners and chemicals by hiding the hazardous material at the bottom of their loads.

Similar questions abound. In hard-hit Plaquemines Parish, waste is being burned 24 hours a day and mounds of debris will be bulldozed into unlined pits.

"To get businesses and communities back and running, you have to kind of bend the rules to a certain extent, but not to the point where you are creating a situation where's it's unsafe for people," said William Serpas, the parish's director of public service.

Out in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Marine Fisheries Service waived the requirement that shrimpers use devices on their nets that let sea turtles escape. The agency said debris littering the Gulf made the devices impractical.

On land, a Georgia-Pacific paper mill was allowed to burn petroleum coke because of a shortage of natural gas. A chemical factory was given the go-ahead to dispose of a petroleum byproduct stuck in a storage tank by burning it off in a flare.

In the marshes, officials got rid of oil spills from broken pipelines by burning it off. Oil well operators hit by the storm were allowed to vent gas from their wells and move oil without filling out the usual paperwork.

The bottom line, many say, was getting the job done.

"We're kind of winging it," said Jeff Morgan, an independent debris removal inspector. He said Louisianans are "head-headed" people who "don't want to be told how to do it."

Michael Wascom, an environmental law expert at Louisiana State University, said the waivers were mostly limited in duration and related to an emergency.

"I don't see anything scandalous in there," Wascom said. "They all seem fairly innocuous and limited to their sites."

But environmentalists worry. "We should do it right now rather than paying more money in the future to clean it up," said Darryl Malek-Wiley of the Sierra Club's Delta Chapter.

And Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said regulators need to ensure that companies did not take advantage of the waivers and that when the next catastrophic hurricane hits, industries are better prepared.

"I understand that we may need to run around and do these deals," he said, "but the system has to shift."

Link to Reference: Kevin Spear, Sentinel Staff Writer, 12/12/05

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Highlights:
- Spilled chemicals, leaking gas tanks and city sewage all mingled with floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina that eventually drained into the Gulf of Mexico. The toxic soup went somewhere. But its destination remains a mystery.
- Potential damage to cities, chemical plants and industrial sites -- now and in years to come -- could spell calamity for the Gulf's treasured wetlands, beaches, coral reefs, surf and sea life. At the very least, hurricane batterings will heighten threats to an ecosystem already burdened with dead zones, toxic algae and mysterious plumes of pollution-laden black water off Florida's coast.
- The unknowns of the Gulf have contributed to the mystery of what happened to the slug of pollution that flowed out of New Orleans. Nobody can say how fast or in what direction it traveled. But they know more than 66 billion gallons drained out of the city -- more than enough to fill the 50-square-mile Lake Apopka west of Orlando.

NEW ORLEANS -- Spilled chemicals, leaking gas tanks and city sewage all mingled with floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina that eventually drained into the Gulf of Mexico. The toxic soup went somewhere. But its destination remains a mystery. Scientists still don't know whether the slug of germs and chemicals is floating toward Florida's coast, drifting out to the Atlantic or lurking somewhere in between.

The massive dose of pollution stands as one of the storm season's critical environmental lessons: The Gulf roils with looping, whirling currents able to turn one shore's mess into another's lasting misery. That message is growing more urgent with predictions that hurricanes will punch harder and more often in coming decades.

Potential damage to cities, chemical plants and industrial sites -- now and in years to come -- could spell calamity for the Gulf's treasured wetlands, beaches, coral reefs, surf and sea life. At the very least, hurricane batterings will heighten threats to an ecosystem already burdened with dead zones, toxic algae and mysterious plumes of pollution-laden black water off Florida's coast.

"Where does the Gulf of Mexico reach the tipping point where it can no longer fix itself?" asked Enid Sisskin, legislative chair for the Panhandle's Gulf Coast Environmental Defense.

Shared sea

The Gulf of Mexico's expanse -- the world's fifth-largest sea -- is really an illusion. Shaped like a fishbowl, upside down and slightly canted, its widest span equals a line from Orlando to New York. But the distance is easily conquered.

A hummingbird migrates from Mississippi to Mexico in 18 hours. Ships laden with wheat steam from Beaumont, Texas, to beyond Key West in 48 hours. Natural-gas molecules surge through a pipeline under the Gulf from Mobile Bay to Tampa Bay in 59 hours.

It's not hard to see how a mess in one part of the Gulf can arrive quickly in others.

At Padre Island National Seashore, near Corpus Christi, Texas, researchers have traced trash to offshore rigs, shrimp boats, recreational boaters and more-distant sources, such as Midwest farms, said park science chief Darrell Echols.

After Mississippi River floods in the 1990s, crews hauled off everything from cow carcasses to roof trusses. After Katrina, workers returned to the park for truckloads of storm debris.

Yet how currents morph and whirl remains such a mystery that scientists aren't certain about how pollution travels. Predicting serpentine movements in the Gulf isn't nearly as reliable as forecasting a tropical storm.

"We have lots of weather observations on land," said Steve Murawski, chief fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington. "In the Gulf, we have a handful of buoys."

Pollution travels

Stress on the Gulf of Mexico began in earnest decades ago as increasing development contributed polluted runoff, and industries found it a convenient dumping ground. Catastrophes not only added to the mess but proved how trouble in one area can extend for miles.

The world's second-worst ocean oiling issued a wake-up call in 1979. Workers on a rig near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula lost control of a well, unleashing 140 million gallons of crude into the Gulf during the next nine months.

Despite efforts to skim, burn and dissolve the spill, slicks smeared Mexico's coast and drifted 600 miles to Texas, washing onto 160 miles of shoreline. In Florida, 900 miles from the blowout, officials feared tar balls on beaches and petroleum poisoning of fish.

Scientists found encouraging but worrisome news.

Mexican oil hadn't traveled to Florida. But their research at the time showed that crude from other faraway parts of the Gulf had made the journey. It came from tankers scrubbing out their holds. It wasn't a small amount of oil. The discharged oil had been swallowed by turtles -- green, hawksbill and loggerhead -- that washed up dead on Florida shores.

It was a clear sign that Florida needs to keep a lookout far beyond its own share of the Gulf's blue depths.

Mysterious currents

The unknowns of the Gulf have contributed to the mystery of what happened to the slug of pollution that flowed out of New Orleans. Nobody can say how fast or in what direction it traveled. But they know more than 66 billion gallons drained out of the city -- more than enough to fill the 50-square-mile Lake Apopka west of Orlando.

The giant plume set off such worries that an unprecedented armada of oceanographers, marine biologists and chemists fanned out in several ships across the northern Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to west of the Mississippi River delta.

Health authorities already had reported that evacuees who waded in floodwaters in New Orleans were breaking out with rashes and blistered skin.

"We had no way of knowing what to expect," said Shailer Cummings, chief scientist for one of the cruises sponsored by NOAA.

A University of South Florida oceanographer, in a separate effort, offered a theory. Using computer calculations and satellite observations of sea-surface changes, he estimated the swiftest-moving New Orleans contamination could have traveled the Gulf in circular detours for a month before hooking around South Florida to the Atlantic Ocean.

NOAA deployed "drifters" -- floating electronic buoys -- that broadcast their locations while riding currents. Some migrated toward Texas. Others meandered toward Florida.

The scientists never found fish kills, tainted shellfish or the pollution. Perhaps toxic floodwaters were neutralized by exposure to sun, sank to the bottom, decayed or were diluted.

South Florida resident Robert H. Gore, a marine scientist who wrote a book about the Gulf's wonders and plight in the early 1990s, doesn't expect that many of the region's residents will see Katrina's mess as a warning.

He has marveled at how communities and industries that continue to crowd the region are so blind to their environmental risk-taking and the harm they cause the Gulf.

"You built your own nest," Gore said. "Now you have to sit in it."

Link to Reference: Matthew Brown, West Bank bureau, 12/10/05

Return to: watercenter.org sciencefaircenter.com watercenter.net

Highlights:
- The soil, air and water across the region is mostly free of the toxic contamination once feared to be Hurricane Katrina's lasting environmental legacy, federal and state officials said Friday, as they declared the majority of the New Orleans area safe to live in, work in or visit.
- Following extensive environmental tests to gauge the public health threat, state and federal officials are saying their earlier fears have not been borne out.
- The risk level used by the DEQ and EPA was based on a 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-1,000,000 chance of developing cancer or other illness based on a lifetime of exposure to contaminants. The EPA's internal guidelines are much stricter for some contaminants, including arsenic. The agency has been using DEQ standards during its Katrina response.

The soil, air and water across the region is mostly free of the toxic contamination once feared to be Hurricane Katrina's lasting environmental legacy, federal and state officials said Friday, as they declared the majority of the New Orleans area safe to live in, work in or visit.

After analyzing hundreds of air and water samples and testing floodwater sediments left behind when many neighborhoods were inundated for weeks, the officials said only a few areas remain a concern for short- or long-term health risks. In most neighborhoods, levels of arsenic, lead and petroleum products are typical of any urban area, they said.

"With the exception of a few oil spills, there really aren't the levels of chemical contamination that we had expected," said state health officer Jimmy Guidry. "Certainly there's no toxic soup or toxic gumbo. As far as the long-term risk of living in the city, it's not any worse than what we had before Katrina."

The exceptions include an estimated 1,800 properties potentially polluted by a million-gallon oil spill in St. Bernard Parish, and four sites in New Orleans where scientists found elevated levels of arsenic and petroleum products.

But for the rest of the metropolitan region, Friday's announcement could remove a sizable hurdle in the recovery effort.

In the weeks after the storm, unnerving descriptions of floodwaters as a "toxic soup" laced with deadly chemicals and bacteria were frequently offered by elected leaders and local and national media outlets. As a result, thousands of displaced residents and businesses have waited for an official all-clear before coming back.

Now, following extensive environmental tests to gauge the public health threat, state and federal officials are saying their earlier fears have not been borne out.

The announcement came from officials with the state Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of Health and Hospitals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the federal Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Report criticized

More tests are pending, and some environmental groups contend government agencies are ignoring serious health threats in their zeal to rebuild.

"We do not believe the tests done by DEQ and EPA are sufficient to make a statement like this," said Darryl Malek-Wiley, Louisiana environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club. "To say that levels of lead and arsenic are similar to what they were before the storm, that doesn't make it OK. There was a big effort to try to reduce levels of lead in New Orleans before the storm."

But Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, seized on Friday's pronouncement as evidence southeast Louisiana is moving past the nagging question of whether living and working in the region poses a health hazard.

"Our families, taking appropriate public health precautions against mold and dust, can move back into hurricane-affected areas," Kopplin said. "That's very important in getting our economy up and off the ground."

The Louisiana Environmental Action Network, New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council and several other groups contend as much as 75 percent of the city still is marred by dangerously high levels of heavy metals, pesticides and petroleum products.

The groups conducted their own soil tests and also analyzed EPA data. They warned last week that a wave of cancer cases and other illnesses are inevitable in coming decades without a widespread cleanup of floodwater sediment. They also urged families to keep children out of areas of St. Bernard and New Orleans that flooded.

Monitored for years

In a first round of 430 soil samples taken by the EPA, 145 had levels of chemical contamination that exceeded cleanup guidelines. Only 14 of those sites were retested. The EPA said sediment depths were too thin -- less than a ½-inch deep -- for accurate readings at the remaining 131 sites.

Five of the 14, including one in the Murphy Oil spill area, showed elevated levels of arsenic or petroleum contamination. The others include two in Gentilly, near the intersections of Warrington Drive and Mirabeau Avenue, and Wickfield and Rapides drives; and two in the 9th Ward, near Poland Avenue and North Villere, and St. Ferdinand and North Rocheblave. None of the four had levels high enough to pose a serious health concern, according to Guidry and others.

But Guidry said state and federal agencies will continue to monitor contaminants for years to come.

"The question still remains: Are there going to be hot spots as we do these future tests?" he said.

DEQ Secretary Mike McDaniel dismissed criticism from the environmental groups as overblown. "They have a different way they interpret the risk standards," he said.

The risk level used by the DEQ and EPA was based on a 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-1,000,000 chance of developing cancer or other illness based on a lifetime of exposure to contaminants. The EPA's internal guidelines are much stricter for some contaminants, including arsenic. The agency has been using DEQ standards during its Katrina response.

'Very gray area'

Along Crescent Drive in Lakeview, homeowner Calvin Schnyder said he does not buy into claims that chemical contamination disappeared when his street was cleaned. The first round of soil samples taken near his house Sept. 26 showed levels of arsenic more than five times state standards. Diesel- and oil-related products slightly exceeded state standards.

During the second round of sampling Nov. 19 and 20, EPA workers could not find enough sediment for retest.

"They should come in (and test) a couple of houses," Schnyder, a 54-year-old retired BellSouth employee, said from his living room, where a thick layer of crust covered the floor. "They could get a bucket of it off the floor and test it. It's all right there."

Paul Templet, a professor at Louisiana State University's School of the Coast and Environment and former DEQ secretary under Gov. Buddy Roemer, said the conflicting messages coming from environmentalists and government leaves residents such as Schnyder in an awkward position.

"You're in a very gray area here. It isn't black or white," Templet said.

On one hand, he said the government agencies are being driven at least in part by the political goal of repopulating Louisiana's largest city. On the other, he said the environmentalists appear to be highlighting risks for maximum effect.

"What you're getting from the agencies is generalized advice. It may apply to you, it may not. It's a question of how much risk do you want to take, do you want to accept to be back in the New Orleans area," Templet said.

"At this point, there's so much gray area, you have to use common sense," he said. "If you feel bad, you should get out of there. If you're breathing a whole lot of dust, and you can tell that's what you're doing, you should do something about it."

Link to Reference: Saturday, December 10, 2005

Return to: watercenter.org sciencefaircenter.com watercenter.net

Highlights:
- study looked for signs of chemical and microbial contamination in seafood tissues.
- “Hundreds of samples of fish and shellfish, collected and analyzed in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, show no reason for concern about the consumption of Gulf seafood,”
- he good news is that no pesticides or petroleum derivatives and low concentrations of metals have been found in water samples. No metals, PCBs or pesticides have been found in fish, shrimp or crabs. Bacteria levels are much lower than had been expected.

OCEAN SPRINGS (AP) - Tests by several state and federal agencies have yielded some encouraging results for the Gulf of Mexico's commercial fisheries and seafood health.

The Mississippi Department of Environment Quality on Thursday released results of a comprehensive seafood study conducted in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The study looked for signs of chemical and microbial contamination in seafood tissues.

“Hundreds of samples of fish and shellfish, collected and analyzed in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, show no reason for concern about the consumption of Gulf seafood,” the report concluded.

The report also showed hopeful signs for the heavily affected oyster industry.

While some oystering areas are still closed until they can be tested, “many oyster harvest areas have already been tested and reopened,” said Robbie Wilbur, a MDEQ spokesman.

Officials recommended that people take normal precautions when eating seafood, including thorough cooking and not eating the skin, fat or organs.

A group of state and federal agencies conducted the survey in Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay and the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Henry Folmar, lab director for MDEQ's office of pollution control, said less than half of the data has been analyzed so far.

Folmar said the good news is that no pesticides or petroleum derivatives and low concentrations of metals have been found in water samples. No metals, PCBs or pesticides have been found in fish, shrimp or crabs. Bacteria levels are much lower than had been expected.

“Chemical contamination seems to be very limited,” he said. “The real damage seems to be physical habitat destruction.”

Water samples revealed dioxin, a compound known to cause cancer, in the Escatawpa and Pascagoula rivers and in St. Louis Bay, though the levels they detected were below the limit set for residential soil.

Researchers also found a low dissolved oxygen environment in the Escatawpa River and St. Louis Bay near Bayou Lacroix. Measuring dissolved oxygen in water is a common way to understand the relative health of the aquatic environment.

Read Hendon, a fisheries biologist with the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, said that spotted seatrout and striped bass populations fared the storm well.

Jim Franks, also with GCRL, said the Mississippi's commercial fishing industry, including fishermen, processors and dealers, received as much as $200 million in damage.

Link to Reference: CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer, 12/09/05

Return to: watercenter.org sciencefaircenter.com watercenter.net

Highlights:
- Federal and state agencies on Friday sought to quell fears that New Orleans was turned into a contamination zone by Hurricane Katrina by emphasizing few risks were found in the soil, air or water.
- From the outset of test results, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have denied that the region had become contaminated by arsenic, lead and other contaminants.
- Thousands of tests show there are no short- or long-term threats.

Federal and state agencies on Friday sought to quell fears that New Orleans was turned into a contamination zone by Hurricane Katrina by emphasizing few risks were found in the soil, air or water.

"We're pleased to be able to say that residents can return to the affected areas, that tourists can return to the affected areas," said Andy Kopplin, the executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Friday's announcement that New Orleans and the rest of southern Louisiana are safe to return to was the latest round in an ongoing disagreement between environmental groups and government agencies over the effects of the hurricanes on the environment.

Since shortly after Katrina hit Louisiana on Aug. 29 and flooded New Orleans, state and federal agencies began monitoring how dangerous the air, water and ground was to rescue workers and residents.

From the outset of test results, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have denied that the region had become contaminated by arsenic, lead and other contaminants.

The agencies also have said flooded Superfund sites did not create major problems and that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico was safe to eat.

At Friday's news conference, Dr. Jimmy Guidry, Louisiana's medical director, agreed that there are few risks. But he did caution that returning residents and cleanup workers should use good hygiene and limit their exposure to sediment.

He said that mold remains a problem for people with respiratory problems and others who are sensitive to mold.

The news conference, which was headed by Vice Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal recovery effort, was billed as an "environmental summary."

Mike McDaniel, the DEQ secretary, said thousands of tests show there are no short- or long-term threats.

He added that, in fact, the air in New Orleans is cleaner than ever because so many industries are shut down and because of the lighter traffic. And he said bacteria levels are now so low that it would be safe to swim in Lake Pontchartrain.

"Most of the contaminants are at pre-Katrina levels and are not expected to present health risks," he said.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, have urged a major cleanup of sediment in the hurricane-hit regions because flood waters churned up high levels of contaminants buried under industrial sites and urban neighborhoods.

But McDaniel said the data does not warrant a cleanup.

"These government agencies have shirked their responsibility to protect citizens," said Monique Harden, a lawyer with the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights.

Her group has been handing out protective gear to residents returning to the Lower Ninth Ward. She said the government should be handing out the suits and masks instead.

"It is safe for people to return if they are able to protect themselves and avoid contact with the sediment," Harden said.

Link to Reference: Melinda Liu, msnbc.msn.com, 12/6/05

Return to: watercenter.org sciencefaircenter.com watercenter.net

Highlights:
- Heads are rolling in the wake of the Harbin toxic spill, but it’s not Big Industry that’s getting the chop. Bungling, delay, cover-up.
- The flurry of finger-pointing isn’t just about local authorities blaming the central government—the same issues that erupted post-Katrina—in Beijing, the deeper controversy is also about economic priorities.
- China is notoriously polluted. Direct environmental damage is believed to cost the government nearly 10 percent of its $1.4 trillion economy.

Heads are rolling in the wake of the Harbin toxic spill, but it’s not Big Industry that’s getting the chop.
Bungling, delay, cover-up. When such missteps follow a major disaster, officials often have to resign.  We saw it unfold in the United States after the killer hurricane Katrina. Now we’re seeing heads roll in China, following the Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion that killed five people and spilled 100 tons of benzene-like carcinogens into the Songhua River.

There are sackings, and then there are sackings.  In China, who’s getting the axe and how—bureaucratically speaking, that is—holds greater symbolic and political significance than in many other countries.  Here, all eyes are focused on the fallout of the massive chemical spill that forced Harbin city’s four million residents go without running water for five days—and that now is slated to float by the Russian city of Khabarovsk this weekend.  

Much is at stake. Even Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, on an official visit to Paris, referred to the Harbin pollution in a lament over the high number of industrial accidents on the mainland, and confessed that he’d stayed up until nearly midnight “reviewing documents” about the chemical spill the night before leaving for France. “I was still reviewing them this morning before getting on the plane.”

In Beijing, the Chinese blame game is raging something fierce. The flurry of finger-pointing isn’t just about local authorities blaming the central government—the same issues that erupted post-Katrina—in Beijing, the deeper controversy is also about economic priorities. Which is more important: the helter-skelter red-hot growth of China’s GDP or more balanced and green efforts to save the environment?

China is notoriously polluted. Direct environmental damage is believed to cost the government nearly 10 percent of its $1.4 trillion economy. The post-spill personnel reshuffling, as one Beijing-based reporter put it, could signal whether mainland leaders intend to “sacrifice environmental protection for the sake of GDP growth, or vice versa.”  (The reporter refused to be quoted by name because the topic remains so sensitive that he could lose his job for speaking to a foreign journalist.)

In the behind-the-scenes tussle between the pro-environment faction and the pro-GDP lobby, the greens are losing so far. Oh sure, on Monday the general manager of Jilin Petrochemical was sacked by its parent company, the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), one of the country’s largest oil firms. Two workshop managers at the Jilin plant, where the blast occurred, were also fired.  Senior CNPC official Jiang Jiemin blamed the three for causing “great casualties and economic losses” which led to “bad publicity from the international community and hurt the whole image of CNPC.”

But by far the most senior official to lose his job, up to now, is the head of China’s State Environmental Protection Agency, Xie Zhenhua, 56. Xie’s forced resignation last Friday triggered a howl of protest among environmental activists and political analysts who fear he’s being made a scapegoat. Prof. Mao Shoulong, an outspoken mainland academic and an expert in governance, likened Xie’s fate to that of a traffic cop who responds to the scene of an accident only to be sacked even before anyone manages to figure out who’s at fault.

A high-level probe is underway. It’s already becoming evident that provincial authorities in Jilin—where the explosion took place—and senior CNPC figures downplayed the extent of the catastrophe, hindering official responses. The day after the blast, Xie had received a phone call from a senior Jilin provincial official who told the environmental protection agency head that the Songhua River contamination was not that serious and could be handled by provincial authorities on their own, says a source close to SEPA officials who requested anonymity because he wasn’t cleared to speak publicly about the incident.

The other problem, he says, is that the “local environmental protection department… reports to local authorities.” It’s supposed to notify SEPA in Beijing about environmental matters—but its salaries are paid by the government in its region, not by Beijing. So the local environmental protection department didn’t report the results of water quality tests from the Songhua River to SEPA until Nov. 17—a full four days after the explosion, according to SEPA deputy director Wang Yuqing, who also charged that China’s blind pursuit of economic growth has led to a quarter century of growing environmental degradation.

The state environmental protection agency didn’t immediately dispatch its own inspectors to Jilin. And while Jilin authorities informed downstream communities in their own province about the toxic spill, they at first neglected to inform their counterparts further downstream in neighboring Heilongjiang province. Jilin provincial authorities even ordered enormous amounts of water to be released from a dam into the Songhua river in an attempt to dilute the pollution within Jilin’s borders “which served to push the slick towards Heilongjiang even faster,” says the source.  When Premier Wen visited the region on an emergency inspection tour in late November, Xie was among a group of government and party officials who accompanied him. The same Jilin boss was among those who met Wen at the Harbin airport, and in a subsequent briefing he at one point turned to Xie and said something to the effect of "Didn't I call you right afterwards?", according to the source close to SEPA. Xie was reportedly stunned and could only stammer "Yes, yes" in response, says the source, who adds, "What else could Xie say?  That he knew [about the extent of the pollution] but helped the Jilin people cover it up?  This obviously made a bad impression on Wen."

Last Friday the State Council—the equivalent of China’s cabinet—stated that SEPA “has failed to pay sufficient attention to the incident and underestimated its possible impact.”  Still, Internet blogs and bulletin boards have begun to express sympathy for Xie. That may be due partly to SEPA’s surprising transformation from a toothless bureaucratic backwater into an agency that dares to challenge Big Industry. 

Recently, SEPA has been engaged in a David-and-Goliath tussle against powerful interest groups. Earlier this year, Xie’s outspoken deputy Pan Yue successfully waged a high-profile campaign to temporarily freeze 30 major construction projects, including prestigious hydropower plants on the Yangtze River, because they had proceeded illegally without the required environmental impact studies. Pan and SEPA were seen to have won the support of Premier Wen in this endeavor. But their success antagonized what political insiders call the “GDP lobby”, including key ministries and industry giants such as State Power, the Three Gorges Dam Group, CNPC and above all the State Development Planning Commission, a powerful super-ministry.

Will heads continue to roll within the ranks of local authorities and CNPC officials? Much depends on results from the current probe—and on how far President Hu Jintao intends to push his campaign to boost official accountability. In 2003, his regime sacked the then-health minister and Beijing mayor when they initially tried to cover-up China’s deadly SARS outbreak.

The big difference today is that some very important interests of some very important players—both government and industry heavyweights—hang in the balance. Even the speed of GPD growth may be affected; China’s pro-environment faction is pushing for adoption of a new measure called “green GDP” which would help gauge the health and sustainability of economic growth, not simply its speed.  All this is undoubtedly complicating the investigation. It make take some time for us to know precisely who knew what, and when—and what they didn’t do about it.