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

Originally posted by Dallas

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

Dallas

Keep in mind that the floor waters are not drinking water. I'm not sure where NOLA's drinking water comes from, but I am sure that it is treated and tested prior to being pumped into the ciy water system.

That does bring up an intersting issue. Given the possibility that some of the floodwaters will have siphoned back into the drinking water system, the city engineers will have to thouroughly flush and disinfect the system before allowing people to use it. Ultimately, they will only be able to test it so far. It will be up to the individual home owners to ensure thattheir house piping is clean. Also, I would expect a lot of broken mains to start showing up when they restart the city systems.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Just to be clear, we seem to be talking about two separate issues here.

In my view, they are absolutely interelated....

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.

Again, did you read my post?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The EPA's testing can hardly be considered despositive or scientific!

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.

On what scientific basis do you make that assertion? It is well settled that mere runoff contributes to the mobility of toxins. What do you think flood waters do in a city below sea level and with a high water table and having the level of toxins even you admit are aggregated in close proximity?

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.

And despite all of that, the surrounding area houses one of the largest fisheries and serves as a significant wintering ground for migratory birds....

Again, read my post and tell me if you TRUST the EPA?


[edit on 14-9-2005 by loam]

Hmm.. Sure.. there's no coverup....

They'll pump out the water and all of the contaminants will just "Evaporate" into the air or "biodegrade" into the soil, and that won't cause any problems. There's no real problem. Everything will be just fine. No cause for worry.

Right. Sure.

[edit on 14-9-2005 by Mirlin11]

Originally posted by HowardRoark

Originally posted by Dallas

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

Dallas

Keep in mind that the floor waters are not drinking water. I'm not sure where NOLA's drinking water comes from, but I am sure that it is treated and tested prior to being pumped into the ciy water system.

If it comes from groundwater deposits, like most places, they'll need completely new sources of water, which could prove very expensive. Such deposits can't be purified or "purged," or the system reset. The toxins filter into the groundwater and remain there as part of the soil strata for decades to come.

-koji K.

Originally posted by koji_K

Originally posted by HowardRoark

Originally posted by Dallas

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

Dallas

Keep in mind that the floor waters are not drinking water. I'm not sure where NOLA's drinking water comes from, but I am sure that it is treated and tested prior to being pumped into the ciy water system.

If it comes from groundwater deposits, like most places, they'll need completely new sources of water, which could prove very expensive. Such deposits can't be purified or "purged," or the system reset. The toxins filter into the groundwater and remain there as part of the soil strata for decades to come.

-koji K.

It seems that the source is from the Mississippi
pangea.stanford.edu...

Originally posted by HowardRoark
It seems that the source is from the Mississippi
pangea.stanford.edu...

Which they are pumping into, now, as well...

Yeah, that water will be real clean...

I was reading about how they don't even really know how contaminated it is just yet because everything is diluted by all the water. From what I heard they won't really know what a mess it is until the sediment and settled mud etc is tested.

[edit on 15-9-2005 by warpboost]

I just saw this story about the oil spills in New Orleans and how it's almost as much as the Exxon Valdez

www.msnbc.msn.com...


I wonder if this isn't worse than the Valdez because its spread out over numerous sites so it probably effects more area and will be harder to cleanup

Originally posted by warpboost
I just saw this story about the oil spills in New Orleans and how it's almost as much as the Exxon Valdez

www.msnbc.msn.com...


I wonder if this isn't worse than the Valdez because its spread out over numerous sites so it probably effects more area and will be harder to cleanup

Well the good news, according to that article, is that over 60 % of the oil has already been recovered or is contained waiting for recovery.

(it's better than nothing)

There are level 3 bio testing facilities, with animals kept in outside housing. These facilities are in and around the surrounding areas of the City. Noone knows for certain, exactly how many animals perished, or how many vials are missing or stolen, but why would facilities that house live Marburg, Ebola, Avian Flu, and HIV, (to name a few of the fun things) Would be kept in an area 20 feet below sea level. This would fall on par with the Levee Explosion theory, that the levee was blown to provide flooding to the less priveledged areas of the city, allowing the richer to stay safe. Waters become too toxic to drink, bio agents seep into the water, alot of the agents, are absorbed by the skin, leading to plague, thus almost decimating the poorer section of New orleans, allowing the higher class to rebuild, without the eyesore or problem, of getting rid of the poorer folks.

Something to ponder.
Maybe this is why they received such a slow response from FEMA, they needed 4 days of exposure to begin the infection process.

[edit on 9/16/2005 by denial28]

Can anyone tell me how the water gets into the Gulf of Mexico?
I live in Central Florida on the Gulf and I'm very worried about the Gulf water.
Is all of this water being pumped into that large lake and how does it get out?
Is there a large opening into the Gulf?

Originally posted by MagicaRose
Can anyone tell me how the water gets into the Gulf of Mexico?
I live in Central Florida on the Gulf and I'm very worried about the Gulf water.
Is all of this water being pumped into that large lake and how does it get out?
Is there a large opening into the Gulf?

Read this thread. The answer is there...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

From:

www.deq.la.gov...

www.deq.la.gov...

www.deq.la.gov...

www.deq.la.gov...


and some more info on sample data
2theadvocate.com...

The EPA has released some additional sediment sample data

www.epa.gov...


For comparison, please take a look at New York’s background and clean up objectives for metals in soils. Note that this table lists the numbers in parts per million, therefore you have to multiply these numbers by 1000 to equal the parts per billion values reported in the EPA test results.
www.dec.state.ny.us...

If you bother to do this, you will see that the values for the various chemicals detected in the New Orleans sediments are generally at or marginally above the background levels for a typical urban area.

So far this is good news.