Official Cover-up: Toxic Waters Will Make New Orleans Unsafe for a Decade

According to Hugh Kaufman, a US government official at the Enviornmental Protection, the toxicity of the New Orleans flood waters will render the city uninhabitable for a decade. Furthermore, he adds thats the Bush administration is officially covering up this story in order to not panic the migrant workers who are putting their lives at risk by pumping the water out of New Orleans.

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed. "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.
news.independent.co.uk...

I think New Orleans WILL be the Headquarter Concentration Camp. It will be operational soon, not in 10 years.

Honestly, I don't see the cover up here! Everyone already knows that the water is ultra toxic. Everyone already knows that anyone coming in contact with it is risking their health. Everyone already knows that the gov is sending in low paid workers to clean up. Everyone already knows that the Pontchartrain and the Gulf will be polluted and the fishing industry devasted. Everyone already knows this will be the largest environmental disaster in our history. We also know that it is impossible to remove that amount of water through any kind of filtering system, so where is the cover up?

Originally posted by Yorga
Everyone already knows that the water is ultra toxic.
Everyone already knows that anyone coming in contact with it is risking their health.
Everyone already knows that the gov is sending in low paid workers to clean up.

...so where is the cover up?

Everyone does not know.

I live in a poor predominately black community on the gulf coast. $250 a week is considered good pay around here. Personally, I own my own company and am doing better than that... but that is not the point. Those around me are truly ignorant to the dangers posed by assisting in NO cleanup. Yet they are being lured by offers of $1500/week minimum 4 week stay. They do not understand the chemicals involved. They have no concept of biowarfare labs at tulane. Many cannot read and write. They do not make the connection between these agents and their long term health and reproductive capability. They are simply ignorant, poor, and struggling to keep food on the table. Most of them are good people... they just don't know any better and no one is taking the time to educate these potential migrant workers of the hazards that we at ATS consider common knowlege.

That is the cover up.

Kinda like in that star wars movie when they put up that first line of defense of "lesser" creatures... which southpark later did a spoof on.

Sri Oracle

New Orleans has been unsafe for the past decade as well.

Good thread simulacra.

loam has a similar thread here, with some excellent info:


Potential Disaster Looming: Stop the pumps in New Orleans NOW!

Wondering if there are past occurences dealing with proven long term drinking water pollutants with this type of serious flooding?

Dallas

And What will happen to the Ocean to which this "Toxic Waters" are being pumped to?

[edit on 13/9/05 by Souljah]

I’ve been seeing a lot thrown about on how “toxic” the water is, but I haven’t seen much in the way of hard data to back this up.

www.epa.gov...

Further more, the water will be mostly gone from the city in a couple of months so to claim that it will remain toxic for ten years doesn’t seem to make much sense.

There are a lot of different things that can be called toxic. All of them have different degradation and dispersion pathways. For example:

• Stachybotrys and other molds. These aren’t really a water issue, (actually they are an airborne irritant. but they will appear and grow in the areas that were inundated and later dried out. This will be one of the biggest issues related to the salvage of existing housing stock.
  
  
• e-colli, it is no surprise that the e-coli is high, since the flood basically back flushed the entire sewage system into the streets. Will this take ten years to go away? I doubt it/
  
  
• Other pathogens, The same thing does for other biological pathogens. Once the city dries out, how long will those remain viable?
  
  
• Organic chemicals (i.e. oil, gasoline, diesel fuel, etc) obviously those chemicals that get released into the environment will be there for as long as it takes that particular compound to either volatilize away or degrade naturally though normal processes. Certainly there will be some areas that will be affected more than others, but unless there is a major oil spill, which I have not seen evidence of, I don’t put this in the high hazard category.
  
  
• Heavy metals (mainly lead) This is going to be one of the biggest headaches. The problem is that all of the lead based paint and lead contaminated soil have now been mixed up with the floor waters. Lead does tend to settle out fairly quickly so that the lead levels in the city after the flood dries out will probably not be that much higher than before, (typical for any large metropolitan area) but I would be concerned about the impact of the lead that is being flushed out on the shrimp fishery.
  
  

Originally posted by HowardRoark
I’ve been seeing a lot thrown about on how “toxic” the water is, but I haven’t seen much in the way of hard data to back this up.

www.epa.gov...

Then why are people being removed forcibly from their homes, and detained in armed camps?

The official justification for the forced "evacuations" is that NO is not safe.

Yes the water is a hazard now. the e-colli counts are very high.

But the use of the term "toxic" is anoying since it implies a hazard without defining the nature of that hazard.

Anyway,

I was simply disputing the claim that it will be a hazard 10 years from now. That seems a little exaggerated.


[edit on 13-9-2005 by HowardRoark]

[edit on 13-9-2005 by HowardRoark]

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Yes the water is a hazard now. the e-colli counts are very high.

But the use of the term "toxic" is anoying since it implies a hazard without defining the nature of that hazard.

I think you are missing the point here. The toxicity level is has reached a point in which New Orleans has been rendered inhabitable for 10 years. This could be anything from chemicals absorbing into the soil levels, atmospheric conditions...etc.

Frankly that is a bunch of b.s.

Once the water is gone, what will be toxic? the soil? the air? different chemicals, pathogens, etc. have different fates in different media. Just claiming that it will be toxic for the next ten years without defining the parameters is nothing more than scare mongering.

What will be there for 10 years, e-coli? I don't think so.

Gasoline? There is not that much there, what doesn't volatilize off will biodegrade fairly rapidly.

Oil? Even less then the gasoline.

Lead?

How will these levels be any different then they were before the flood?

(in other words, where do you think all of the lead in the water came from? that's right, the soil)

Kinda wondering if the water can be filtered from the serious impurities back to a consumable state?
And homes half filled with polluted waters can they be cleaned using some sort of agent?

Dallas

I think the city will remain toxic for a long time, possibly 5-10 years even after "ALL" the water is removed from the city. The thing is, the toxins and bacteria can soak into the wood from houses, all houses will have to be bulldozed, the bacteria WILL be in the soil, there is no doubt of that. That means no making clay for bricks from the soil there because then you will have possibly toxic bricks, and yes it is possible. Think about, the city was flooded with sewage, blood, oil, gas, chemicals, and who knows what else.. maybe a lil bit of water in there too Point is, the city is toxic now and it WILL be there like for years, even after the water is gone. Yes, the media and gov know this, and yes they are dumbing down the reports on it now, making it seem like its safe to go there and work~!

Originally posted by Dallas

Kinda wondering if the water can be filtered from the serious impurities back to a consumable state?
And homes half filled with polluted waters can they be cleaned using some sort of agent?

Dallas

Well that would depend on what the contaminants are, now wouldn't it?

a disinfecting detergent or bleach would take care of the e-coli.

As for the homes filled with water, I'm afraid that most will not be able to be cleaned. Most modern building materials don't handle prolonged submersion well.

Drywall will fall apart, wood will warp, mold will grow everywhere. Plywood will delaminate.

Originally posted by SpilledBeans
I think the city will remain toxic for a long time, possibly 5-10 years even after "ALL" the water is removed from the city. The thing is, the toxins and bacteria can soak into the wood from houses, all houses will have to be bulldozed, the bacteria WILL be in the soil, there is no doubt of that. That means no making clay for bricks from the soil there because then you will have possibly toxic bricks, and yes it is possible. Think about, the city was flooded with sewage, blood, oil, gas, chemicals, and who knows what else.. maybe a lil bit of water in there too

Point is, the city is toxic now and it WILL be there like for years, even after the water is gone. Yes, the media and gov know this, and yes they are dumbing down the reports on it now, making it seem like its safe

to go there and work~!

Clay for bricks?

this is New Oreands, not Egypt

I don't think that there are too many clay pits in the middle of New Orleans.

Yes, most of the houses will have to be demolished. Like I said, the water will destroy the building materials.

As for the soil, the sewage and crap will biodegrade fairly quickly. How long does it take that pile of dog poop in your front yard to disappear? The e-coli will disappear once things dry out a bit.

As for the oils and gasoline, I haven't seen much evidence of extensive problems. Those chemicals do degrade naturally in the environment, especially in the presence of air and sunlight.

The heavy metals like lead were already there in the soil to begin with.





[edit on 13-9-2005 by HowardRoark]

HowardRoark:

You couldn't be more wrong....

Read my thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

or at a minimum, the post www.abovetopsecret.com...



[edit on 14-9-2005 by loam]

Originally posted by HowardRoark
I’ve been seeing a lot thrown about on how “toxic” the water is, but I haven’t seen much in the way of hard data to back this up.

Further more, the water will be mostly gone from the city in a couple of months so to claim that it will remain toxic for ten years doesn’t seem to make much sense.

From USA Today

Even when it dries, the polluted stew will coat streets, parks and yards with a film of toxic chemicals and sewage. Cleansing the land of contamination could take months, maybe years.

"Are the schoolyards and people's yards going to be so contaminated that we're going to have to scrape them up? That's the big unknown right now," Pardue says. "It's not a very rosy picture, I'm afraid."

You are talking about drying out a city that is almost never dry anyway. Annual rainfall in NOLA is over 60 inches. Add the fact that most of it is below sea level and must be pumped daily to prevent it from becoming a lake. Also things don't dry very well in that high humidity. All they are doing right now is pumping the standing water out.

Just to be clear, we seem to be talking about two separate issues here.

One is the effect of the flood waters on the city, and the other is the overall environmental issue with the gulf as a whole.

Since the title of this thread specifically mentions the city, I have limited my comments to that subject. Thus while I am aware that there have been reports of a couple of large oil spills along the gulf coast as a result of the hurricane, these are not in the city itself.

To me, there are two main problems with the issues addressed in this thread.

One is that it assumes that there is some sort of cover up, yet I can find no evidence to back up this assertion. Water tests have been taken and the results are being released. Keep in mind that a number of these tests can take a couple of days to complete, so that you don’t always get your results right away.

Secondly, is the use (not just in this thread, but in the media in general also) of the catch all term “toxic.” Without information on specific contaminant levels, the shotgun approach to labeling everything as “toxic” is nothing more than scare mongering, or sensationalizing.

The EPA has released some of the data from samples collected September 4 and 6th.

www.epa.gov...

I glanced through the data and frankly I didn’t see anything that was all that bad.

Keep one thing in mind, they are comparing the water results with drinking water standards. Suffice to say, no one is going to be drinking that water.

Furthermore I would be very interested to know what the background levels were like in the river and lake prior to the hurricane.

Originally posted by darkelf

You are talking about drying out a city that is almost never dry anyway. Annual rainfall in NOLA is over 60 inches. Add the fact that most of it is below sea level and must be pumped daily to prevent it from becoming a lake. Also things don't dry very well in that high humidity. All they are doing right now is pumping the standing water out.

So in other words, the rain washes down the city on a regular basis.

Yes there is sewage issues in the water. Yes they will have to clean it up, but they have to do that in every major city that floods anyway. They had to do that in the Mississippi river cities that flooded a decade back. Remember the flood that hit Des Moines?

Before we start complaining about a cover up and that the city will be inhabitable for 10 years, let’s try to get some hard data first, shall we?

I don’t doubt that there will be areas, especially in the industrial sectors, that will have some lingering issues that will have to be dealt with, but I doubt that they will be any worse than the issues that they were dealing with before the hurricane. This in not a pristine wildlife preserve, this is a major shipping port and oil terminal with refineries all over the place, and it’s in Louisiana, a state not known for the quality of it’s environmental protection program.