Link to site: military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.

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

Highlights:
- joint air and space operations to deal with after-the-fact problems, perhaps the foundation for how to fend off disastrous weather may also be forming.
- degrade the effectiveness of enemy forces. That could come from flooding an opponent’s encampment or airfield to generating downright downpours that disrupt enemy troop comfort levels.
- It is likely the Department of Defense would be the lead agency in any new efforts in severe storm modification.

Leonard David, Senior Space Writer 31 October 2005
The one-two hurricane punch from Katrina and Wilma along with predictions of more severe weather in the future has scientists pondering ways to save lives, protect property and possibly even control the weather.

While efforts to tame storms have so far been clouded by failure, some researchers aren’t willing to give up the fight. And even if changing the weather proves overly challenging, residents and disaster officials can do a better job planning and reacting.

In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.
While some consider the idea farfetched, some military tacticians have already pondered ways to turn weather into a weapon.

Harbinger of things to come?

The U.S. military reaction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that slammed the U.S. Gulf coast might be viewed as a harbinger of things to come. While in this case it was joint air and space operations to deal with after-the-fact problems, perhaps the foundation for how to fend off disastrous weather may also be forming.

Numbers of spaceborne assets were tapped, among them:
• Navigation and timing signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) of satellites;
• The Global Broadcast Service, a one-way, space-based, high-capacity broadcast communication system;
• The Army’s Spectral Operations Resource Center to exploit commercial remote sensing satellite imagery and prepare high-resolution images to civilian and military responders to permit a better understanding of the devastated terrain;
• U.S. Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites that compared "lights at night" images before and after the disaster to provide data on human activity.

Is it far-fetched to see in this response the embryonic stages of an integrated military/civilian weather reaction and control system?

Mandate to continually improve

The use of space-based equipment to assist in clean-up operations -- with a look toward future prospects -- was recently noted by General Lance Lord, Commander, Air Force Space Command at an October 20th Pacific Space Leadership Forum in Hawaii.

"We saw first hand the common need for space after the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean," Lord said. "Natural disasters don’t respect international boundaries. Space capabilities were leveraged immediately after the tsunami to help in the search and rescue effort…but what about before the disaster?"

Lord said that an even better situation is to have predicted the coming disaster and warned those in harm’s way. "No matter what your flag or where you waive it from...the possibility of saving hundreds of thousands of people is a mandate to continually improve," he advised.

The U.S. Air Force is also looking at ways to make satellites and satellite launches cheaper and also reduce the amount of time it takes to launch into space from months to weeks to days and hours, Lord said. Having that capability will increase responsiveness to international needs, he said, such as the ability to send up a satellite to help collect information and enhance communications when dealing with international disasters.

Thunderbolts on demand

What would a military strategist gain in having an "on-switch" to the weather?

Clearly, it offers the ability to degrade the effectiveness of enemy forces. That could come from flooding an opponent’s encampment or airfield to generating downright downpours that disrupt enemy troop comfort levels. On the flipside, sparking a drought that cuts off fresh water can stir up morale problems for warfighting foes.

Even fooling around with fog and clouds can deny or create concealment – whichever weather manipulation does the needed job.

In this regard, nanotechnology could be utilized to create clouds of tiny smart particles. Atmospherically buoyant, these ultra-small computer particles could navigate themselves to block optical sensors. Alternatively, they might be used to provide an atmospheric electrical potential difference -- a way to precisely aim and time lightning strikes over the enemy’s head – thereby concoct thunderbolts on demand.

Perhaps that’s too far out for some. But some blue sky thinkers have already looked into these and other scenarios in "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" – a research paper written by a seven person team of military officers and presented in 1996 as part of a larger study dubbed Air Force 2025.

Global stresses

That report came with requisite disclaimers, such as the views expressed were those of the authors and didn’t reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States government. Furthermore, the report was flagged as containing fictional representations of future situations and scenarios.

On the other hand, Air Force 2025 was a study that complied with a directive from the chief of staff of the Air Force "to examine the concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the dominant air and space force in the future."

"Current technologies that will mature over the next 30 years will offer anyone who has the necessary resources the ability to modify weather patterns and their corresponding effects, at least on the local scale," the authors of the report explained. "Current demographic, economic, and environmental trends will create global stresses that provide the impetus necessary for many countries or groups to turn this weather-modification ability into a capability."

Pulling it all together

The report on weather-altering ideas underscored the capacity to harness such power in the not too distant future.

"Assuming that in 2025 our national security strategy includes weather-modification, its use in our national military strategy will naturally follow. Besides the significant benefits an operational capability would provide, another motivation to pursue weather-modification is to deter and counter potential adversaries," the report stated. "The technology is there, waiting for us to pull it all together," the authors noted.

In 2025, the report summarized, U.S. aerospace forces can "own the weather" by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications.

"Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible. It provides opportunities to impact operations across the full spectrum of conflict and is pertinent to all possible futures," the report concluded.

But if whipping up weather can be part of a warfighter’s tool kit, couldn’t those talents be utilized to retarget or neutralize life, limb and property-destroying storms?

All-weather worries

"It is time to provide funds for application of the scientific method to weather modification and control," said Bernard Eastlund, chief technical officer and founder of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation in San Diego, California.

Eastlund’s background is in plasma physics and commercial applications of microwave plasmas. At a lecture early this month at Penn State Lehigh Campus in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, he outlined new concepts for electromagnetic wave interactions with the atmosphere that, among a range of jobs, could be applied to weather modification research.

"The technology of artificial ionospheric heating could be as important for weather modification research as accelerators have been for particle physics," Eastlund explained.

In September, Eastland filed a patent on a way to create artificial ionized plasma patterns with megawatts of power using inexpensive microwave power sources. This all-weather technique, he noted, can be used to heat specific regions of the atmosphere.

Eastlund’s research is tuned to artificial generation of acoustic and gravitational waves in the atmosphere. The heating of steering winds to help shove around mesocyclones and hurricanes, as well as controlling electrical conductivity of the atmosphere is also on his investigative agenda.

Carefully tailored program plan

Eastlund said that the reduction in severity or impact of severe weather could be demonstrated as part of a carefully tailored program plan.

"In my opinion, the new technology for use of artificial plasma layers in the atmosphere: as heater elements to modify steering winds, as a modifier of electrostatic potential to influence lightning distribution, and for generation of acoustic and gravitational waves, could ultimately provide a core technology for a science of severe weather modification," Eastlund told SPACE.com.

The first experiments of a program, Eastlund emphasized, would be very small, and designed for safety. For example, a sample of air in a jet stream could be heated with a pilot experimental installation. Such experiments would utilize relatively small amounts of power, between one and ten megawatts, he pointed out.

Both ground-based and space weather diagnostic instruments could measure the effect. Computer simulations could compare these results with predicted effects. This process can be iterated until reliable information is obtained on the effects of modifying the wind.

Computer simulations of hurricanes, Eastlund continued, are designed to determine the most important wind fields in hurricane formation. Computer simulations of mesocyclones use steering wind input data to predict severe storm development.

After about 5 years of such research, and further development of weather codes, a pilot experiment to modify the steering winds of a mesocylone might be safely attempted. Such an experiment would probably require 50 to 100 megawatts, Eastlund speculated.

"I estimate this new science of weather modification will take 10 to 20 years to mature to the point where it is useful for controlling the severity and impact of severe weather systems as large as hurricanes," Eastlund explained.

Inadvertent effects?

Another reason for embarking on this new science could be to make sure inadvertent effects of existing projects, such as the heating of the ionosphere and modifications of the polar electrojet, are not having effects on weather, Eastlund stated.

As example, Eastlund pointed to the High frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). This is a major Arctic facility for upper atmospheric and solar-terrestrial research, being built on a Department of Defense-owned site near Gakona, Alaska.

Eastlund wonders if HAARP does, in fact, generate gravity waves. If so, can those waves in turn influence severe weather systems?

Started in 1990, the unclassified HAARP program is jointly managed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research. Researchers at the site make use of a high-power ionospheric research instrument to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere for scientific study, observing and measuring the excited region using a suite of devices.

The fundamental goal of research conducted at the facility is to study and understand natural phenomena occurring in the Earth’s ionosphere and near-space environment. According to the HAARP website, those scientific investigations will have major value in the design of future communication and navigation systems for both military and civilian use.

Messing with Mother Nature

Who best to have their hands on the weather control switches?

The last large hurricane modification experiments -- under Project Stormfury -- were carried out by the U.S. Air Force, Eastlund said. "It is likely the Department of Defense would be the lead agency in any new efforts in severe storm modification."

Additionally, federal laboratories with their extensive computational modeling skills would also play a lead role in the development of a science of weather modification. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would find their respective niches too. The satellite diagnostic capabilities in those agencies would play a strong role, Eastlund suggested.

It appears that only modest amounts of government dollars have been spent on weather modification over the last five years.

"Hurricane Katrina could cost $300 billion by itself," Eastlund said. "In my opinion, it is time for a serious scientific effort in weather modification."

"Global warming appears to be a reality, and records could continue to fall in the hurricane severity sweepstakes," Eastlund said. "When I first suggested the use of space-based assets for the prevention of tornadoes, many people expressed their displeasure with ‘messing with Mother Nature’. I still remember hiding in the closet of our house in Houston as a tornado passed overhead. It is time for serious, controlled research, with the emphasis on safety, for the good of mankind," he concluded.

Link to site: Flood water sampling

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

Highlights:
- EPA is carrying out extensive sampling of standing flood waters in the City of New Orleans.
- EPA is ensuring coordination of data between federal, state, and local agencies and will routinely release data as soon as it is available

Flood water sampling
EPA is carrying out extensive sampling of standing flood waters in the City of New Orleans. The Agency follows a quality assurance process that ensures that the data is thoroughly reviewed and validated. This process is being used for all data received as part of the emergency response. EPA is ensuring coordination of data between federal, state, and local agencies and will routinely release data as soon as it is available.

* Boil water - To kill major water-borne diseases, bring water to a rolling boil for 1 minute. Boil 3 minutes at elevations above 5280 ft (1 mile or 1.6 km).

* What to do about water from household wells after a flood . Do not turn on the pump - danger of electric shock. Do not drink or wash with water from the flooded well. More info. General info about household wells.

* Dehydration (extreme thirst) can be life-threatening in older adults. Make sure older adults have enough good drinking water and are drinking it. Older adults risk dehydration because they may feel thirsty less, because of medications, or due to physical conditions that make it difficult to drink. More information about dehydration risks in older adults.

* EPA and HHS Urge Caution in Areas Exposed to Contaminated Flood Water - guidelines for those in contact with flood water. Flood water test results...

For water and wastewater facilities
* Suggested post-hurricane activities - to help facilities recover from severe weather conditions.
* National Emergency Resource Registry (https://www.swern.gov/) - Register if you have resources to help water utilities recover from Katrina.

Link to site: Early government tests show Gulf waters are clean enough for people to go swimming and eat some seafood, but submerged storm debris means people should still stay away

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

Highlights:
- We didn't have any identifiable releases of large amounts of industrial contamination
- have not had any rainfall since Hurricane Katrina and that we will likely see some spikes of contamination when we begin to get some normal rainfall back here.
- it is too soon to tell whether seafood had been dangerously contaminated.


By Mike Keller, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
Oct. 27--Early government tests show Gulf waters are clean enough for people to go swimming and eat some seafood, but submerged storm debris means people should still stay away, according to officials.

"We didn't have any identifiable releases of large amounts of industrial contamination," said Phil Bass, spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. "But I also want to remind everybody that we basically have not had any rainfall since Hurricane Katrina and that we will likely see some spikes of contamination when we begin to get some normal rainfall back here."

The first group of water-quality tests came back showing certain types of bacteria below government limits for recreation, but officials cautioned it is too soon to tell whether seafood had been dangerously contaminated.

"All 20 monitoring stations tested showed at this time that the water was appropriate for what is referred to as primary contact recreation," said Ben Grumbles, spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency. "While this is encouraging for recreational uses, this data should not be used to assess the safety of consuming raw or undercooked molluscan shellfish such as oysters."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration completed its first round of chemical tests on seafood from Mobile Bay to Louisiana waters.

Steve Murawski, an NOAA spokesman, said that contaminants are "far below" government limits in the 23 shrimp samples they analyzed. He said that NOAA scientists would continue to check seafood until they are confident that no contaminants are creeping into coastal waters and seafood.

"We'll be monitoring because some of the contaminants may take a while to work their way out into the ocean environment," he said.

Government researchers monitoring the health of Gulf waters have been looking closely for chemicals called brominated fire retardants, which are indicators of chemicals washing off of urban areas.

In what seemed to be an attempt to quell potential fears of seafood consumers, Don Kraemer, a spokesman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency responsible for monitoring the safety of commercial seafood, said there were two reasons not to be worried.

"One, because the waters which were impacted from the hurricane remain closed to the harvest of oysters and other molluscan shellfish," he said. "On the other side, of crab, shrimp and fin fish, none of the analytical results to date show contamination at or above levels of concern of any of the contaminants that have been tested."

MDEQ's Bass added: "We're happy to report that some of our oysters and even some of our shrimping is back in operation."

Link to site: Hurricane Katrina proved America is paying a high price for its loss of wetlands, scientists say, and activists are pressing for restoration of swamps and marshes to prevent new catastrophes.

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

Highlights:
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains that wetlands "function as natural sponges that trap and slowly release surface water, rain, snowmelt, groundwater and flood waters."
- The wildlife service notes that 220 million acres of wetlands existed in the lower 48 states in colonial America. That total has declined to about 100 million acres.
- In the spring of 2004, President Bush pledged his administration to a no-net-loss policy and went so far as to commit to annual gains in wetlands habitat. Critics assert he has not honored that pledge and that the Army Corps of Engineers, a key federal agency charged with protecting wetlands, is engaging in practices that are destroying thousands of acres.

BILL STRAUB, Scripps Howard News Service, October 24, 2005
Hurricane Katrina proved America is paying a high price for its loss of wetlands, scientists say, and activists are pressing for restoration of swamps and marshes to prevent new catastrophes.

In a speech on the Senate floor last February, Sen. Mary Landrieu warned lawmakers that disappearing wetlands along the coast of her native Louisiana - vanishing at the rate of 25 square miles a year - would ultimately result in "more severe and frequent flooding than ever before" and cost in the billions of dollars.

"With the loss of barrier islands and wetlands over the next 50 years, New Orleans will lose its wetland buffer that now protects it from many effects of flooding," she said. ""Hurricanes will pose the greatest threat, since New Orleans sits on a sloping continental shelf that makes it extremely vulnerable to storm surges."

Landrieu's words proved eerily prescient. Less than eight months later, Katrina hit the region with Category 5 fury, inundating New Orleans and causing billions of dollars in damages.

Katrina hit the New Orleans region with such force that ruin likely would have resulted regardless. But scientists are almost unanimous in their assessment that vanishing wetlands are having a deleterious impact, creating hazardous conditions that could have been mitigated by their continued existence.

Too often, environmentalists say, communities are draining swamps and marshes to allow for commercial and residential development. "Disappearing wetlands increase the risk of flooding, threaten the survival of migrating birds and endangered species and diminish the environment for outdoor lovers and sportsmen," said Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based interest group.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains that wetlands "function as natural sponges that trap and slowly release surface water, rain, snowmelt, groundwater and flood waters."

"Trees, root mats, and other wetland vegetation also slow the speed of flood waters and distribute them more slowly over the floodplain," the service said in a statement. "This combined water storage and braking action lowers flood heights and reduces erosion. Wetlands within and downstream of urban areas are particularly valuable, counteracting the greatly increased rate and volume of surface-water runoff from pavement and buildings. The holding capacity of wetlands helps control floods and prevents water logging of crops."

Despite their value and even though protections are offered under the Clean Water Act of 1972, wetlands are disappearing at an alarming rate. The wildlife service notes that 220 million acres of wetlands existed in the lower 48 states in colonial America. That total has declined to about 100 million acres.

From the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, the lower 48 lost an average of 458,000 acres of wetland each year. Between the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, the loss rate dropped to about 290,000 acres annually. Today, the annual loss rate is somewhere between 70,000 and 110,000 acres.

In the spring of 2004, President Bush pledged his administration to a no-net-loss policy and went so far as to commit to annual gains in wetlands habitat. Critics assert he has not honored that pledge and that the Army Corps of Engineers, a key federal agency charged with protecting wetlands, is engaging in practices that are destroying thousands of acres.

In a report issued last month, the Environmental Integrity Project said the Army Corps has opened more than 11,000 acres of wetlands in 15 states for development since the spring of 2004. Among the enterprises who benefited was a Wal-Mart shopping center in Texas, a titanium sand mine in Georgia, a peat bog mine in Florida and a highway project in North Dakota.

"This administration is not very good at keeping promises made to the American people," said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for the environmental group Earthjustice. "The president and his appointees promised not to change the Clean Water Act's rules, but they are shirking that responsibility by just ignoring those rules. In turn, they are breaking the promise of the Clean Water Act, which is to protect all of the nation's waters, to make them safe for drinking water, for swimming and fishing. This cannot be done when the Corps leaves waters out of the law's scope."

James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, defended the administration's record, saying a report released by the council in April shows the administration is on target to "restore, preserve and protect at least three million acres of wetlands over the next five years.'' The effort was enhanced, he said, by $40 billion in conservation funding in the 2002 Farm Bill and reauthorization of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.

The administration is looking to develop public-private partnerships to meet its goals.

"Working collaboratively has proven remarkably effective in improving and sustaining America's wetlands," Connaughton said.

However, in two separate reports released last month, the Government Accountability Office found the Army Corps has failed to determine whether developers were offering proper justification for building in wetlands before issuing permits. It also accused the agency of failing to explain why it is not assuming jurisdiction over disputes rising from wetlands development.

"These reports show that the Corps is failing to ensure that Clean Water Act regulations are applied to their full extent and is providing no rationale for its failure to protect many wetlands," said Jim Murphy, water resources counsel for the National Wildlife Federation. "And if this isn't troubling enough, the Corps is making little effort to ensure that permitted impacts to wetlands are mitigated. This all adds up to wetlands losses that are not being accounted for."

The Army Corps officially accepted the criticisms contained in the reports and said it is developing policies to address the problems.

Link to site: the latest pollution data in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina indicated for the first time that the Mississippi Delta was again a safe place to swim.

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

Highlights:
- Sediment left behind should be avoided because of fecal bacteria, chemicals, metals and other contaminants it might contain, officials said Friday.
- EPA has been allowing raw sewage not fully disinfected to flow into the Mississippi River in at least two places because of broken treatment facilities
- all the federal data sampling and test results have been coordinated through the White House's Council on Environmental Quality.


JOHN HEILPRIN, The Associated Press, 10/21/2005 
WASHINGTON (AP) — While casting a nervous eye at Hurricane Wilma, federal and state officials reported Friday that the latest pollution data in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina indicated for the first time that the Mississippi Delta was again a safe place to swim.
"This is encouraging for recreational uses, but the data should not be used for assessing the safety of consuming shellfish," Benjamin Grumbles, head of the Environmental Protection Agency's water office, told reporters.

Environmental and health officials had previously recommended that people avoid contact with floodwaters that have since been pumped into Lake Pontchartrain and should use soap and clean water to decontaminate themselves if contact couldn't be avoided. Sediment left behind should be avoided because of fecal bacteria, chemicals, metals and other contaminants it might contain, officials said Friday.

Water samples from 20 locations in the Gulf of Mexico's river channels and near shorelines were collected aboard The Bold, EPA's sole ship for monitoring ocean and coastal waters. The data from Sept. 27 to Oct. 2 showed the presence of a type of sewage-related bacteria, Enterococcus, but at levels that didn't violate freshwater or marine water standards, the agency said.

EPA was awaiting further analysis for another type of sewage-related bacterium, Clostridium perfringens, which also causes diarrhea, nausea and other stomach illness.

The agency on Friday dispatched officials to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's regional headquarters in Atlanta and EPA's own emergency center in Tallahassee, Fla., to deal with any oil or hazardous material spills from Wilma.

FEMA and other federal and local agencies urged residents in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to watch closely Wilma's path. Some areas of the Florida mainland were ordered evacuated ahead of the powerful, slow-moving hurricane.

"We, like everyone else, have our eyes on the tracking of Hurricane Wilma," Grumbles said.

In New Orleans, EPA has been allowing raw sewage not fully disinfected to flow into the Mississippi River in at least two places because of broken treatment facilities, said Chris Piehler, senior environmental scientist for Louisiana's Department of Environmental Quality.

Grumbles said EPA was "closely monitoring the situation."

There have been no such identifiable releases of sewage contamination in the Gulf of Mexico's waters along Mississippi, said Phil Bass, director of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality's Office of Pollution Control.

"We're still advising, not because of water contamination, but because of debris primarily in our waters, to stay out of the (Mississippi) Sound," Bass said. "We're happy to report that some of our shrimping is back in operation. Our fin fishery appears to be healthy and that's beginning to come back."

Federal officials emphasized they were only commenting on the safety of swimming or boating in Mississippi Delta waters and accidentally swallowing a gulp. They still recommend not drinking the water and expressed caution about consuming undercooked or raw shellfish such as oysters.

The Food and Drug Administration "has no reason to question the safety of commercially available seafood from Mississippi, Louisiana or Alabama," said Donald Kraemer, the acting head of its seafood office. Kraemer said none of the pollution data shows contamination "at or above levels of concern" for crab, shrimp and most fish with fins.

Steve Murawski, chief science adviser to the Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service, said all the federal data sampling and test results have been coordinated through the White House's Council on Environmental Quality.

Murawski noted that all the results were preliminary, since some of the contaminants might take time to work their way through the water, air and land, and into the food chain.

Link to site: We focus on New Orleans because it was so densely populated, but there are other little towns that are worse off.

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

Highlights:
- concluded that exposures are not expected to cause bad effects if proper protection is worn
- Katrina Environmental Research and Restoration Network (KERRN) will be a network of researchers who share data and ideas crossing disciplinary and geographical boundaries to provide models on how to respond to major environmental disasters.

HEATHER MOYER, WASHINGTON, D.C. October 21, 2005
The environmental health impact of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina is serious and communities should be prepared, said speakers at a Institute of Medicine conference Thursday.
We focus on New Orleans because it was so densely populated, but there are other little towns that are worse off.

"Environmental Public Health Impacts of Disasters: Hurricane Katrina" was sponsored by the Roundtable of Environmental Health Sciences, Research and Medicine. Speakers discussed a range of topics, from the challenges Hurricane Katrina created to how communities can be better prepared for such disasters.

In New Orleans, health officials are contending with the chemicals and bacteria being found in floodwater and lingering sediment. Chemicals such as arsenic, lead and petroleum products have been found in tests done by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"The EPA and (Centers for Disease Control) concluded that exposures are not expected to cause bad effects if proper protection is worn, so we've been checking to make sure residents are doing that," said Dr. Kevin Stephens, director of health for the New Orleans Health Department.

Stephens said the city is still learning more about the risks residents and workers face from cleaning up debris and just being in the formerly flooded areas.

"Our local health department has questions about long-term effects - what should we monitor? How should we monitor it? And what should our communication strategies be?" asked Stephens at the conference.

He added that he hopes continued cooperation with the EPA and other federal and state health agencies will assist to making sure residents and workers are safe.

The New Orleans Health Department is also monitoring sickness outbreaks, something Stephens said he was amazed happened rarely considering how many people were kept in such close-quarters. He said there was a respiratory illness outbreak in one city cleaning team two weeks after Katrina, but instituting a cleaning convention within the unit immediately brought down the cases of the illness.

Stephens added that the biggest health problem the agency is finding within the city right now are "unintentional injuries," such as residents falling off roofs and other cleanup mishaps.

Dr. Jimmy Guidry, state health officer and medical director for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, said it is important to give attention to other devastated areas besides New Orleans.

"We focus on New Orleans because it was so densely populated, but there are other little towns that are worse off," he said. "But there's not much left standing in St. Bernard Parish or Plaquemines Parish."

For Guidry, the challenge is rebuilding the health system in the devastated regions of the state where how many health professionals will return is unknown. Major hospitals in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana have been condemned or seriously damaged.

Many of Thursday's speakers brought up other health issues they worry may be ignored as time passes. In Louisiana, some of the debris is slated to be burned because there is so much. "How will that affect people and the environment?" asked Guidry.

Other health issues mentioned included the increase of mosquitoes and the possibility of West Nile Virus, long-term mental health, the increase of vermin that may carry disease, re-certifying restaurants and members of the food industry, drinking water supplies, wastewater plant repairs, mold and how it affects indoor air quality, and making sure recovery workers and residents are protected while cleaning up.

"We're going to have major issues with educating the public about mold risks," Guidry said. "And if workers get hurt or sick on the job, our medical infrastructure isn't there to help them."

Other agencies are making sure workers are properly trained before doing debris removal.

"A common denominator of all disasters is that you have a worker like a first responder or those in consequence management - Katrina is no different," said Max Keifer, associate director of emergency preparedness for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

"We're now worried about the influx of workers to Louisiana and the region who are looking for jobs. They may not be trained and we want to protect them. Some may be asked to do work they are not trained or outfitted for."

A scientist involved with the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the related air quality issues from the World Trade Center collapse also spoke at Thursday's conference. Dr. Paul Lioy of the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine at Rutgers Univeristy had some words of advice for those planning the cleanup of the Gulf Coast.

"In New Orleans and the South you will have dust and it will be made up of all kinds of things," said Lioy. "We're still tearing down buildings (in New York City) because we can't clean them up. This will also be an issue the South will have to deal with."

Related to the dust, Lioy said that knowing its specific make-up is crucial to cleaning it up correctly. "Characterize your dust now, know what's in it and know it well. It's not just one single chemical, it's multiple toxins. And those toxins may not alone impact people, but they could react differently mixed together."

Lioy also advised those present to make sure no one is left out during the cleanup phase and to make sure responders and workers are equipped with respirators. Pointing to an image of Ground Zero cleanup workers with respirators resting around their necks, Lioy cautioned the conference-goers.

"One of the most serious issues after Sept. 11 was that no one wore respirators (during cleanup)," he explained. "You need to make sure that not only government workers and large contractors have them, but that everyone has them and wears them."

Conference speakers also addressed the issue of repopulating and rebuilding the hardest hit areas of New Orleans. Monique Harden, co-director of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, said she worries that the low-income residents of the city will not be included in important discussions about the environmental risks of moving back.

"Communities need to be at the table in the talks about rebuilding," said Harden.

Noting that Hurricane Katrina exposed many failures within the environmental regulatory system, Harden said the EPA needs to explain their tests on the water and sediment.

"They say the environmental data is publicly accessible, but it's not for low-income residents. It's also not easily understood."

Harden also worries about the six EPA superfund sites in the city and other sites now newly contaminated by the floodwater. Harden showed the conference a photo of a vacant lot across from her home where workers were depositing sewage. None wore facemasks or gloves and she was confused as to why the lot - which the photos showed was now oozing sewage material into the street - was suddenly allowed to be a sewage disposal site.

"What we don't need is a blanket waiver of public health laws," said Harden. "We need to develop environmentally sustainable initiatives. What we need is the EPA convening monthly meetings with the community."

For Dr. Sandral Hullett, CEO of Jefferson Health System in Alabama, developing a trust within the community is the only way cleanup and rebuild plans can succeed. Hullet spoke about her work with the 10 poorest counties in Alabama, most of which suffered serious damage from the high winds and tornadoes Katrina spawned.

"You have to have the community be part of the process to be successful and have them not feel used," said Hullet.

Out of the devastation from Katrina can spring new partnerships, said other speakers. When the flooding inundated New Orleans, many major universities lost valuable research facilities. Dr. John McLachlan, a professor of environmental studies at Tulane and Xavier Universities, and some of his fellow researchers are now using his fifth-floor loft apartment in New Orleans as their research facility. Through that, he said, they came up with the idea of a major partnership to benefit everyone after Hurricane Katrina.

The Katrina Environmental Research and Restoration Network (KERRN) will be a network of researchers who share data and ideas crossing disciplinary and geographical boundaries to provide models on how to respond to major environmental disasters. He gave the example of one university already contacting him asking how they can do some research on the water contamination in the Mississippi near New Orleans. McLachlan said he connected that university up with another area university with a boat that is already out doing something similar.

"It is a network of skills and interests, we'll match research needs and skills," said McLachlan. "This will also ensure maximum benefit and avoid duplication of efforts. And it will help us pass on lessons learned to the next disaster."

Link to site: today EPA announced the quality assured test results from water samples collected by the OSV Bold in the Gulf.

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

Highlights:
- EPA's initial assessment is now complete and sample analysis is currently proceeding as planned. Additional results of water, sediment and fish tissue analysis will be released as the data become available.
- The data being released today is available at: http://www.epa.gov/katrina/testresults/water/index.html#surface

Contact: Eryn Witcher, 202-564-4355 / witcher.eryn@epa.gov
(Washington, D.C.-Oct. 21, 2005) In ongoing efforts actively to provide information to the public about activities surrounding Hurricane Katrina recovery, today EPA announced the quality assured test results from water samples collected by the OSV Bold in the Gulf.

"Today's water sampling results are an important part of the large-scale, collaborative effort to monitor the hurricane's impact on water in the Gulf," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for the Office of Water. "Our ship, the OSV Bold, is a floating laboratory that has been used in this cooperative response, providing a vehicle for shared testing and analysis."

EPA announced the first pathogen indicator data collected by the EPA vessel. This data was collected from Sept. 27 through Oct. 2, 2005 at monitoring stations in the river channels and nearshore waters surrounding the Mississippi Delta. The agency monitored 20 areas to determine whether fecal pollution from flooded communities had spread into these waters.

All 20 monitoring stations tested showed that at the time the water was appropriate for primary contact recreation--including swimming. While this is encouraging for recreational uses, this data should not be used to assess the safety of consuming raw or undercooked molluscan shellfish--such as oysters-- because accidental ingestion of water presents different risks than eating raw or undercooked shellfish.

The analyses performed aboard the OSV Bold tested for Enterococcus and Clostridium perfringens. Today's results are from Enterococcus only as the Clostridium analysis requires additional time. At four stations, Enterococcus was detected from 10 to 53.1 per 100 ml --- which is below the marine water standard of 500 per 100 ml and the freshwater standard of 151 per 100 ml.

EPA's initial assessment is now complete and sample analysis is currently proceeding as planned. Additional results of water, sediment and fish tissue analysis will be released as the data become available.

The OSV Bold is a scientific survey vessel 224 feet long and 43 feet wide that collects oceanographic data in waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The Bold initiated monitoring and assessment surveys for EPA in August 2005 and will serve as the principal platform for this multi-agency effort to assess the near-shore environmental and human health impacts of Hurricane Katrina. The data being released today is available at: http://www.epa.gov/katrina/testresults/water/index.html#surface and information about EPA's survey vessel the Bold is available at: http://www.epa.gov/bold

Release date:10/21/2005

Link to site: New Orleans's public health director marveled publicly Thursday over the absence of any disease outbreak in the wake of the strike by Hurricane Katrina

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

Highlights:
- estimated that New Orleans contains enough debris to fill the Superdome 40 times.
- there are the questions of draining all areas of the city, providing drinkable water for the public, controlling disease carriers such as mosquitoes and rats, ensuring a food supply, debris disposal, sewage treatment, indoor air quality, disposal of toxic chemicals and the safety of people working to improve conditions, Guidry said.
- Raw sewage is being dumped into the Mississippi River

RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, The Associated Press, 10/20/2005
WASHINGTON (AP) — New Orleans's public health director marveled publicly Thursday over the absence of any disease outbreak in the wake of the strike by Hurricane Katrina.

"I was just amazed," Dr. Kevin Stephens told an Institute of Medicine workshop on the health impact of natural disasters. Thousands of people crammed into the Superdome with no water, overflowing toilets, heat and stress could have provided ideal conditions for lowering resistance and beginning the spread of an infectious disease, he noted.

Stephens said in the aftermath of the storm he instituted monitoring of emergency care and other medical centers in hopes of quickly detecting outbreaks such as influenza, meningitis, hepatitis, E. coli infections and even tetanus, but there were no major increases.

At one point there was a jump in respiratory infections, he said, which was quickly traced to a virus being spread at one of the emergency medical centers. Sanitation measures were tightened and the outbreak was halted, Stephens said.

On the other hand, communications among authorities was a problem.

"Anything that could go wrong in communications went wrong in Katrina," said Stephens. And as the cleanup progressed, he said, there was an increase in injuries such as chain saw cuts.

Dr. Lynn Goldman, vice chairman of the workshop, said the goal is to learn from what happened there.

The nation is facing a series of threats — terrorism, the spread of diseases such as SARS, West Nile virus and bird flu, as well as natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, said Goldman, a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University.

She praised the work of local emergency officials who struggled to help others even as their own homes and families were affected.

Indeed, Stephens and his family were forced to move in with his parents because of storm damage, he told the IOM meeting. The Institute is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

The work to protect public health is continuing 51 days after the hurricane made landfall, said Dr. Jimmy Guidry, Louisiana's medical director.

With thousands of people evacuated from the city, the question is where to put those coming back, Guidry said. "We are looking at the neighborhood of 100,000 trailers to house people."

In addition there are the questions of draining all areas of the city, providing drinkable water for the public, controlling disease carriers such as mosquitoes and rats, ensuring a food supply, debris disposal, sewage treatment, indoor air quality, disposal of toxic chemicals and the safety of people working to improve conditions, Guidry said.

And, he noted, more storms are possible with Hurricane Wilma currently under way, although it appeared Thursday as a greater threat to Florida.

"Every time one of them is out there in the Gulf my blood pressure goes up a little bit," Guidry said. He estimated that New Orleans contains enough debris to fill the Superdome 40 times.

That means it is too much for landfills and some will have to be burned, he said, which raises questions about air quality.

The volume of debris is so great that it will take months to handle, commented Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson.

Disposal of spoiled food from homes and the city's many restaurants is another problem, Guidry said, estimating that 300,000 refrigerators in the city will need to be replaced or refurbished after weeks without electricity.

Raw sewage is being dumped into the Mississippi River, he added. This is not a good practice but the EPA permitted it to get the sewage out of the city so the treatment plant can be repaired, he said.

After days or weeks under water, mold is a growing problem in many buildings, he added, raising serious health problems from breathing indoor air.

"How do we get back to a sense of normalcy, a sense that we can go on with our lives," Guidry asked.

Link to site: I'm very concerned about the levee systems in New Orleans East,

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

Highlights:
- complaints that restoration of water service has been unfairly delayed in the East,
- They need water in their lines so they can clean up their houses,
- Breaks and myriad leaks in the lines were allowing contaminated water and debris into the system after the storm

Bruce Hamilton, Staff writer, Thursday, October 20, 2005
Disputing what he called "rumors and innuendo," Mayor Ray Nagin on Wednesday vowed to rebuild eastern New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward "as fast as we possibly and humanly can."

The mayor made his pledge a day after he testified on Capitol Hill about his plans for the city's recovery. At that hearing, he told two House Transportation subcommittees that the question of how to protect areas east of the Industrial Canal "has not been answered yet. The rest of the city we can rebuild."

That remark indicated he was uncertain about the degree to which eastern New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward could be rebuilt. But Nagin soundly dismissed any uncertainty Wednesday, saying he had been misquoted. But he again expressed doubt that the eastern portion of the city is adequately protected against flooding. "I'm very concerned about the levee systems in New Orleans East," he said, "which causes us to pause as we start to repopulate."

The mayor spoke Wednesday at the first post-Katrina meeting of the Sewerage & Water Board, of which he is chairman. He also addressed widespread complaints that restoration of water service has been unfairly delayed in the East, saying it has been restored first to areas where the water system had less damage.

Pick up pace, critics say

Before Nagin arrived at the meeting, the developer of Eastover Country Club, the president of New Orleans East Business Association and City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis all addressed the board to decry the area's lack of water.

"New Orleans does not stop at the Industrial Canal," Willard-Lewis said to a smattering of applause from audience members. "What happened as a result of Katrina was an act of God, but what has now happened are actions of man that are not deploying resources in a fair and appropriate manner."

The councilwoman noted water service has been restored in Algiers, the French Quarter, Uptown and elsewhere. "I know that there has been movement," she said. "I say the movement has been at a snail's pace while initially it seemed like you were trying to win the marathon in other parts of the city."

She pleaded for urgency on behalf of her constituents. "They need water in their lines so they can clean up their houses," she said. "It is a crime to starve and to deny what is basic to restoration."

Donald Pate, president of Eastover Development Corp., said the subdivision's 200 residents need water to combat mold immediately. "We desperately need water. Our homes are deteriorating daily. We don't need water to drink at this point in time, but we need water to work with."

Pate said 10 crews are working daily, using truckloads of water from outside the city, to clean up mold-damaged houses.

Sherman Copelin, chairman of the Eastover Property Association and president of the New Orleans East Business Association, asked the water board to "kick it up a notch" to restore water. "You can't have commerce without water," he said. "We can't have commerce Uptown and in Algiers and not have commerce in eastern New Orleans."

'Toxic' issue surfaces

Pate and Copelin, a former state representative, both criticized Sen. Ann Duplessis, D-New Orleans, for remarks attributed to her by a newscaster in an interview Wednesday morning on WWL Radio. Duplessis reportedly warned residents in a private meeting against a toxic environment in eastern New Orleans.

"The Environmental Protection Agency has been in the East, and they have taken samples," Pate said. "And they have told us it's OK to return." Said Copelin, "We happen to know the EPA has been to Eastover. It's not toxic."

Duplessis did not return phone calls Wednesday.

Nagin defended the progress of water restoration, saying those efforts were limited by the hurricane's effects. "Katrina, when she left us, she left us with certain segments of the city that weren't as damaged, and that's the areas we focused on first with the limited resources we had," he said.

"And whether you like it or not, the areas that were least damaged were Algiers, Uptown, the Central Business District, the French Quarter and Treme. And that is the decision point for how we start to bring this city back."

Battling leaks

Breaks and myriad leaks in the lines were allowing contaminated water and debris into the system after the storm, and the city had to make some hard decisions in order to certify drinking water, Nagin said. In eastern New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward, he said, "we had to temporarily shut down some of the water, period."

The mayor said the water board planned, as of Monday, to restore water in eastern New Orleans in 10 days. "We went out and started to pump water in New Orleans East. Guess what happened? We found a significant number of leaks, particularly around the Lakefront Airport," he said. "That forced us to shut the system down again."

Joe Sullivan, the water board's general superintendent, said workers are hunting for leaks and repairing them. "We are continually striving to get water pressure in the area," he said.

Staff member Rudy August said 18 to 24 contractor crews are working daily in addition to water board staff; of 1,300 work orders, nearly 70 percent have been finished, he said.

August said that between 500 and 1,000 more repairs are needed "to really tighten the system up." Workers have identified about 800 defects or leaks on private property, which also hinder restoration, he said. "It's an ongoing challenge, and it may be awhile before we're able to get water to parts of New Orleans East."

Link to site: NSF asks UCF to quickly develop water purification system using nanoparticles to aid disaster victims

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

Highlights:
- developing coated nanoparticles and water purification systems, respectively, to propose a portable method for producing safe drinking water from any source.
- The key to the process is a naturally created nanoparticle that can kill bacteria that foul membranes used as filters to produce drinking water. In catastrophic situations such as Hurricane Katrina or the recent earthquake in Pakistan, the membranes become so fouled by bacteria that they become unusable for water treatment.
- hope to develop an adaptable method for producing quality water in any kind of emergency.

NSF asks UCF to quickly develop water purification system using nanoparticles to aid disaster victims
The National Science Foundation has asked two University of Central Florida researchers to quickly develop a unique water purification system to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters.

The professors were awarded a $10,000 startup grant from NSF this month as part of a rapid response program designed to support research that can directly benefit those affected by Katrina. The researchers will submit their research results to NSF in six months. The agency is also encouraging the scientists to connect the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies directly tied to disaster relief for immediate application of any useable technology.

Professors Sudipta Seal from the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering and James Taylor from Civil and Environmental Engineering combined their expertise in developing coated nanoparticles and water purification systems, respectively, to propose a portable method for producing safe drinking water from any source.

The key to the process is a naturally created nanoparticle that can kill bacteria that foul membranes used as filters to produce drinking water. In catastrophic situations such as Hurricane Katrina or the recent earthquake in Pakistan, the membranes become so fouled by bacteria that they become unusable for water treatment.

"By introducing nanoparticles into a mobile integrated membrane system, we can create potable water from a variety of sources," said Seal, who also works with the Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center.

Taylor, who has conducted water treatment research since 1975, said drinking water could be consistently produced even from wastewater if the fouling bacteria could be killed. Taylor is responsible for more than $10 million in project funding at UCF, including a major desalination effort for Tampa Bay Water and the American Water Works Association Research Foundation.

UCF was able to respond immediately to the need for a water purification system because of the quality research those scholars were already conducting, said M.J. Soileau, vice president for research. Seal and Taylor are part of a team that UCF is assembling to address alternative water sources for Florida, as water issues for the Central Florida region and the state are approaching crisis proportions.

With the seed funding, the researchers hope to develop an adaptable method for producing quality water in any kind of emergency.

Link to site: A plume of green runoff from Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters has spread from the Louisiana coast and across the Gulf of Mexico.

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Highlights:
- The runoff, visible from U.S. weather satellites, contains algae, slightly elevated levels of metals and large amounts of fresh water. Fishermen also have reported seeing oil slicks and occasional debris such as tree branches, 2-by-4s and cattle carcasses.
- Much of the plume has drifted toward the center of the Gulf of Mexico and been diluted,
- concerned that fertilizer and other nutrients in the runoff might intensify a prolonged outbreak of toxic "red tide" algae that has hit patches of the Florida Gulf Coast

Matt Reed, USA TODAY Wed Oct 19,
A plume of green runoff from Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters has spread from the Louisiana coast and across the Gulf of Mexico. One 7-mile-wide band has drifted more than 500 miles toward southwestern Florida, where the Gulf Stream, a powerful ocean current, is likely to dilute it and carry it up the Atlantic Coast.

The runoff, visible from U.S. weather satellites, contains algae, slightly elevated levels of metals and large amounts of fresh water. Fishermen also have reported seeing oil slicks and occasional debris such as tree branches, 2-by-4s and cattle carcasses.

A round of tests by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, taken Sept. 12-16 off Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, found no threats to human health in the water or the fish swimming in it. Results of tests taken Oct. 6 through Sunday haven't been finalized.

Hurricane Katrina struck the Louisiana and Mississippi coast Aug. 29. The next day, flood barriers failed along Lake Pontchartrain, inundating large sections of New Orleans with water 10 feet deep. As Katrina's storm surge ended and New Orleans was pumped dry, polluted water fed into the Gulf.

"What's in that water, I don't know," says Mitch Roffer, a private oceanography consultant who uses satellite images to track fisheries and currents for clients that include fishing outfits and oil companies.

Sport fishermen from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., who cruised the cloudy green water reported poor catch rates and dead fish, Roffer says. Those who worked in clean water outside the plume caught plenty of fish, but many fish had empty or shrunken stomachs.

NOAA reported that 154 fish and crab samples found normal levels of pesticides and industrial chemicals and no traces of E. coli bacteria from human or animal feces.

Much of the plume has drifted toward the center of the Gulf of Mexico and been diluted, Roffer says. Some runoff drifted about 80 miles off southwest Florida. A computer model at the University of South Florida in Tampa projected it would drift into the Atlantic and north past Cape Canaveral and Daytona Beach by today. By Tuesday, nothing had come ashore along the east coast of central Florida.

Plenty of storm debris washed up on the Texas coast, says Greg Gawlikowski, a satellite image analyst who works for Roffer's fishery and current-forecasting service. Some beaches along South Padre Island were strewn with lumber, gas cans, household appliances and other junk, he says.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was concerned that fertilizer and other nutrients in the runoff might intensify a prolonged outbreak of toxic "red tide" algae that has hit patches of the Florida Gulf Coast from Naples north to the Panhandle, spokesman Willy Puz says. The algae kills fish, smells bad and can make beachgoers' eyes and throats sting.

Mike Bomar, manager of Capt. Mike's Parasail in St. Pete Beach, says media coverage about red tide has hurt tourism almost as much as the outbreak itself. St. Pete Beach hasn't experienced fumes or dead fish in nearly a month, he says.

The Alden Resort, a few yards east of Bomar's beach kiosk, continues to receive telephone inquiries about red tide from prospective guests, assistant manager Tony Dilley says.

"It's frustrating because you can't fight perception," Bomar says of the downturn in demand for cabanas, paddleboats and parasail rides. "We probably lost 30% or more this summer."

Contributors: Reed reports daily for Florida Today in Melbourne

Link to site: Individuals and communities will likely be faced with correcting the subsequent contamination of private as well as public water supples

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

Highlights:
- National Environmental Services Center offers numerous free and low-cost products to help individuals and communities learn more about emergency preparedness, emergency response, and potential health effects of water contamination.
- Free from the National Drinking Water Clearinghouse:
- From the National Small Flows Clearinghouse

In light of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of coastal areas of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, restoring clean drinking water to the many destroyed small communities is a job almost beyond comprehension. Although less horrendous, much of the inland areas of these states and others have also been affected by flooding. Individuals and communities will likely be faced with correcting the subsequent contamination of private as well as public water supples. It is also imperative that individuals with contaminated private wells and springs contact their local health departments for more information and assistance.

To aid in this effort, the National Environmental Services Center offers numerous free and low-cost products to help individuals and communities learn more about emergency preparedness, emergency response, and potential health effects of water contamination. When requesting these materials, please give the product number listed before each item.

Free from the National Drinking Water Clearinghouse:
DWFSPE57—Emergency Disinfection of Water Supplies
DWBLOM05—Shock Chlorination of Wells and Springs
DWFSPE204—Water for Emergency Use
DWBLMG69—Response Protocol Toolbox: Planning and
responding to drinking water contamination
threats and incidents
DWPKOM59—Emergency Response Planning Pack (ERPP)
DWBLPE58—Water Testing
DWBLPE97—Water Testing Scams
DWFSPE140—Bacteriological Contamination of Drinking Water
DWBLPE183—Mycrobacteria: Drinking Water Fact Sheet
DWBLPE112—Interpreting Drinking Water Quality Analysis:
What do the numbers mean?
DWCDMG64—Emergency Response Tabletop Exercises for
Drinking Water and Wastewater Systems

From the National Small Flows Clearinghouse:
SFPLNL30—How to keep your Water “well” $0.40
SFPLNL06—Wastewater treatment protects small
community life, health $0.40
GNBKGN12—Community-based environmental protection—
A Resource Book for Protecting Ecosystems and Communities (Book on CD-Rom) $10.00
SFPLNL11—Basic wastewater characteristics $0.40

From the National Environmental Training Center for Small Communities:
TRBLGN25—Emergency Response Planning Resources for
Small Water and Wastewater Utilities $2.55
TRBLGN26—Emergency Response Plan Guidance for Small
and Medium Community Systems $8.00
TRPMCD62—Due Diligence—Small Water System Security $32.00
TRPMCD56—Preparing for the Unexpected: Security for
Small Water Systems $39.80
TRBKMG03—Protecting Your Community’s Assets: A Guide
for Small Wastewater Systems $15.00
TRCDMG05—(CD-Rom Version) $10.00

To order any of these publication, please contact NESC at (800) 624-8301, e-mail info@mail.nesc.wvu.edu, or fax to (304) 293-3161. If you have questions, our technical staff is available to help you with your water and wastewater needs.

Link to site: New Orleans is dumping 26.1 million gallons of raw sewage into the Mississippi River every day,

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

Highlights:
- The sewage is not processed as it is collected from toilets and drains
- river water is sucked up and treated to become drinking water.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted a six-month variance to allow the city to dump sewage into the river

MARK BALLARD, mballard@theadvocate.com Capitol news bureau
New Orleans is dumping 26.1 million gallons of raw sewage into the Mississippi River every day, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

The sewage is not processed as it is collected from toilets and drains. But it is diluted with water before flowing into the river, DEQ Secretary Mike McDaniel said. His staff is monitoring the Mississippi River water and testing the intake valves at Belle Chasse, where river water is sucked up and treated to become drinking water. McDaniel said no dangerous levels of toxins have been found.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted a six-month variance to allow the city to dump sewage into the river because Hurricane Katrina knocked out the sewer system. "We are not able to treat sewage. Our treatment plant was decimated," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said. But as early as next week, he said, two motors could be repaired that would allow for at least some treatment of the sewage. The motors that feed the sewage into the water-treatment plant were flooded with 12 feet of water.

The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans announced Friday that the motors could be repaired as early as next week. Though much of the treatment plant is still inoperable, the hope is that initial processing, such as emulsifying and diluting solids, could be done before the waste is dumped into the river.

The city's sanitary sewer system consists of 1,450 miles pipes ranging in size from 8 inches to 7 feet in diameter. Sewage is lifted and moved by 82 pumping stations throughout the city.

Sewage Pumping Station A is collecting discharge from three smaller stations that gather effluvium from the city's Central Business District, the French Quarter and Uptown neighborhoods. Usually Station A feeds sewage collected from the city into a treatment plant. For the past week, it has been moving raw, unprocessed waste directly into the river near the French Quarter.

Harold Leggett, DEQ's assistant secretary for environmental compliance, said the six other treatment facilities were flooded and require at least four months to repair motors and electrical systems, he said.

"I think probably six months is a more accurate estimate," Leggett said.

About 60,000 people have returned to the Uptown area alone, said state Sen. Derrick Shepherd, D-Marrero, who questioned McDaniel at a legislative committee hearing on environmental issues raised by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The units that serve the neighborhoods of Gentilly, Lakeview and New Orleans East are not repaired and cannot be linked to the A pumping station. No sewer service is available for those parts of the city, so residents cannot flush toilets there.

Link to site: Katrina-churned toxic tar balls, poisonous pollutants and debris washing ashore Brevard County beaches appear unfounded.

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

Highlights:
- protruding pollution plume appears to have largely dissipated.
- There was no strong signature from the satellite indicating algae blooms and such
- eyeing a mass of nutrient-rich water swirling around an eddy about 80 miles offshore from the Texas-Louisiana border.

RICK NEALE, FLORIDA TODAY rneale@flatoday.net
INDIAN HARBOUR BEACH - So far, sickening scenarios of Hurricane Katrina-churned toxic tar balls, poisonous pollutants and debris washing ashore Brevard County beaches appear unfounded.
Scientists worried last week that a tendril of contaminated water, measuring 5 to 7 miles across, could sweep eastward from the Gulf of Mexico. This ribbon of sludge could flow north of Cuba and hit the Gulf Stream, turning northward to befoul Florida's eastern coast.

The protruding pollution plume appears to have largely dissipated. "We know that the water went by the Keys and up the east coast of Florida. But the water that went up there had been significantly diluted from what was there before," said Mitchell Roffer, founder of Roffer's Ocean Fish Forecasting Service.

"There was no strong signature from the satellite indicating algae blooms and such," he said. The Miami oceanographic firm uses satellite imagery, water sampling and fishermen's reports to track the movements of Katrina runoff in the Gulf of Mexico. It appears coastal damages could be confined to areas west of the Panhandle.

More specifically, Roffer is eyeing a mass of nutrient-rich water swirling around an eddy about 80 miles offshore from the Texas-Louisiana border. According to a report received Sunday by ROFFS, beaches along South Padre Island in Texas received an unwelcome batch of waterborne hurricane junk.

"They said they found a bunch of lumber, refrigerators, propane gas canisters, staircases, a boat and a bunch of other debris," said Greg Gawlikowski, satellite image analyst.

Amid the Texas wreckage, Gawlikowski said, was a ring buoy from a boat in Grand Isle, La. -- a 750-mile drive up the coast.

Satellite images notwithstanding, Melbourne Beach resident Tim McGlen believes Katrina debris could be reaching Brevard. He became suspicious Sunday about four miles south of Ocean Avenue.

"The plastic, in addition to all the other stuff, was predominantly water bottle caps -- hundreds of them. Where'd they come from?" McGlen asked. "All the bottled water they've been drinking down there."

McGlen also found six hypodermic needles.

Monday morning, Indialantic resident Pam Lee visited Paradise Beach with her 12-year-old granddaughter, Katelyn Doyle of Kansas City, Mo. Lee noticed increased beach debris over the weekend, but attributed it to the pounding waves.

"We've been out here the last three days, and I haven't seen any poop or anything like we were supposed to," Lee said. "There's been a lot of stuff (on the beach), but the surf's been really rough."

About 100 yards to the south, Howard Heidel of Indialantic fished for pompano. He said he hopes Katrina contaminants stay far from Brevard.

"As far as fishing goes, I'm just out here to relax and have a good time. Catching fish is secondary," Heidel said.

Contact Neale at 242-3638 or rneale@flatoday.net

Link to site: One of the most critically needed supplies on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina was safe drinking water.

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

Highlights:
- Jim Thebaut's Running Dry argues that a shortage of water -- not oil -- looms as the next major crisis.
- The earth's 6 billion people are living on 1 percent of the earth's water.
- ou can't look at poverty without the water crisis, the ecological crisis

BY GEORGIA TASKER, gtasker@herald.com, The Miami Herald,10/17/05
One of the most critically needed supplies on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina was safe drinking water.

Imagine, then, that 1.5 billion people worldwide are facing that same need on a daily basis, not just following a natural disaster. Every day, 14,000 people, 9,000 of them children, die because of lack of water or disease from water pollution. Every 15 seconds a child dies from diarrhea caused by contaminated water.

A powerful 90-minute video called Running Dry by Jim Thebaut documents at this ''global humanitarian crisis'' of staggering proportions. It will be shown Tuesday at the University of Miami.
Jim Thebaut's Running Dry argues that a shortage of water -- not oil -- looms as the next major crisis.

Narrated by actress Jane Seymour, the documentary looks at South Asia, China, India, Africa and even the southwestern United States, where droughts and development are expanding deserts, draining wells and rivers.

The earth's 6 billion people are living on 1 percent of the earth's water. The remainder of the planet's water is saltwater or locked up in icebergs. As human numbers have exploded, water -- not oil -- looms as the most endangered of life-supports.

Thebaut will lead a discussion after the screening of his film, which predicts that in another 15 years, 76 million people could die from polluted water. Born in Berkeley, Calif., Thebaut has degrees in landscape architecture and worked for years as an environmental consultant. His first films were about toxic waste and the importance of landscape planning. Then he read the book Tapping Out by the late Sen. Paul Simon, contacted the Wisconsin senator and launched into the water project.

The United Nations's millennium campaign to reduce poverty and child mortality, called No Excuse 2015, means ''you can't look at poverty without the water crisis, the ecological crisis,'' Thebaut said in a phone interview from the Netherlands last week. ``Our goal is to educate the world to the crisis.''

Many people see the film and 'come up to me and say `I had no idea this was going on,' '' he said.

His immediate goal is to motivate people to change their behavior ''and to look at water as the precious commodity it is,'' he said, ``so that in our personal lives we start to implement conservation programs.''

In the United States, where clean water is taken for granted, a water crisis looms because of overuse and misuse. In the desert city of Las Vegas, for instance, 5,000 new residences are being built every month. Swimming pools and irrigated lawns may become artifacts of a profligate way of life.

South Floridians use an average of 170 gallons every day, far above the national average of 100 gallons per capita. Even the national average is 15 times that available to people in developing countries.

More than a decade ago, the South Florida Water Management District began promoting water conservation through landscape irrigation regulations, reduced-water shower heads and toilets, water conserving landscaping. The aquifer that provides drinking water also provides agricultural water and the Everglades ecosystem water. As people move into the state, competition for that water increases. This year, the state legislature has given the water management district funding to look at alternative water supplies.

For developing countries, even contaminated water is useful. In India, only a third of the 6 million residents get water delivered daily. The rest receive allotments every other day. In South Asia, with one-fifth of the world's population and half of the world's poor, 337 million people are without safe water and 830 million people are without rudimentary sanitation. Sewage runs freely in ditches and rivers.

During the 1950s, the former Soviet Union drained water for cotton crops from the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth largest inland sea. Now half its original size, the Aral counts 24 species of its fish extinct.

In the Shaanxi Province of China, home of Xian and the famous underground terra cotta army, tens of thousands of people are affected by a water-borne disease that results in bowed legs, disfigurement and discolored teeth.

Running Dry is being shown around the country as an educational film sponsored by The Chronicles Group, a nonprofit organization. UM's Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy is sponsoring the Cosford Cinema showing. The film was funded by the American Water Co.

Link to site: assessment of the water quality of the Katrina floodwaters, is good news for those who’ve been exposed directly to the floodwaters

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

Highlights:
- LSU researchers caution that the same floodwaters that were pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain contain high levels of some toxic metals, especially copper and zinc, and could pose a long-term danger to the area’s aquatic life
- 38 floodwater samples from widespread sections of New Orleans, primarily in the area of the city known as the "East Bank," where the main human contact with the floodwaters occurred. The samples, which included both surface waters and bottom samples, were taken within five to nine days after flooding occurred. Additional samples were also obtained from the 17th Street drainage canal, after pumping of the floodwater began, to evaluate the flood’s impact on Lake Pontchartrain, the receiving body for the pumped floodwaters.
- found high levels of bacteria, most likely from fecal contamination resulting from sewage. Levels were within the range of typical storm water runoff in the city, the scientists said. They also detected high levels of lead, arsenic and chromium and noted that levels of these toxic metals were also similar to those typically found in the area’s storm water. In general, these particular findings were similar to those obtained by the Environmental Protection Agency in their initial assessment
- Gasoline was also a significant component of the floodwaters, as measured by elevated levels of three of its components: benzene, toluene and ethylbenzene.
- Compounds found in common household chemicals were also detected in the floodwaters, Pardue said. The waters contained chemical compounds from aerosol paints, insecticides, caulking compounds, rubber adhesives and other common substances, but at levels that typically do not create concern for human health.
- While serious toxicity to human life was largely avoided, the floodwater may pose a chemical risk to aquatic life in the area,


The American Chemical Society    October 14, 2005
The floodwaters that inundated New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina were similar in content to the city’s normal storm water and were not as toxic as previously thought, according to a study by researchers at Louisiana State University. Their study, the first peer-reviewed scientific assessment of the water quality of the Katrina floodwaters, is good news for those who’ve been exposed directly to the floodwaters, the scientists said.

But the LSU researchers caution that the same floodwaters that were pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain contain high levels of some toxic metals, especially copper and zinc, and could pose a long-term danger to the area’s aquatic life, which are more sensitive to the metals than humans. Their findings appeared in the Oct. 11 online issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science & Technology.

"What we had in New Orleans was basically a year’s worth of storm water flowing through the city in only a few days," said study leader John Pardue, Ph.D., an environmental engineer and director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at LSU in Baton Rouge. "We still don’t think the floodwaters were safe, but it could have been a lot worse. It was not the chemical catastrophe some had expected."

Some experts had predicted that the floodwaters from Katrina could potentially destroy chemical plants and refineries in the area, releasing a deadly brew containing toxic levels of benzene, hydrochloric acid and chlorine. Instead, high levels of bacteria and viruses were the biggest human threat, not exposure to chemicals, Pardue and his associates said.

The researchers obtained 38 floodwater samples from widespread sections of New Orleans, primarily in the area of the city known as the "East Bank," where the main human contact with the floodwaters occurred. The samples, which included both surface waters and bottom samples, were taken within five to nine days after flooding occurred. Additional samples were also obtained from the 17th Street drainage canal, after pumping of the floodwater began, to evaluate the flood’s impact on Lake Pontchartrain, the receiving body for the pumped floodwaters.

The researchers found high levels of bacteria, most likely from fecal contamination resulting from sewage. Levels were within the range of typical storm water runoff in the city, the scientists said. They also detected high levels of lead, arsenic and chromium and noted that levels of these toxic metals were also similar to those typically found in the area’s storm water. In general, these particular findings were similar to those obtained by the Environmental Protection Agency in their initial assessment of the floodwaters, the researchers said.

Gasoline was also a significant component of the floodwaters, as measured by elevated levels of three of its components: benzene, toluene and ethylbenzene. These compounds were somewhat elevated in comparison to typical storm water runoff, the researchers said. The chemicals most likely came from cars and storage tanks submerged in the floodwaters, they added.

Compounds found in common household chemicals were also detected in the floodwaters, Pardue said. The waters contained chemical compounds from aerosol paints, insecticides, caulking compounds, rubber adhesives and other common substances, but at levels that typically do not create concern for human health.

If the floodwaters had occurred in another location near more industrial sites in the city and if the wind damage or water surge had been more severe, then the resultant floodwaters could have been a more serious toxic threat, Pardue said. "Instead, the city filled slowly, like a bathtub, and the water velocities and forces on the buildings, including chemical storage facilities, were relatively benign." The large volume of floodwater also diluted the potency of many of the chemicals, he added.

While serious toxicity to human life was largely avoided, the floodwater may pose a chemical risk to aquatic life in the area, Pardue said. He believes that low oxygen levels in the water that is being pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain could result in fish kills. He also said that heavy metals being discharged into the lake, particularly copper and zinc, can be toxic to fish and other marine life and may bioaccumulate and contaminate seafood collected from the region. More studies are needed to assess the long-term impact of the flood on aquatic life, Pardue said.

Funding for this study was provided by the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute and the LSU Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes

Link to site: The 30-foot-wide 17th Street Canal, the scene changes from one of bustling streets lined with populated restaurants and gas stations displaying "help wanted" signs, to one of deserted, water-logged houses, cars and scattered motor boats washed up on dead lawns.

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

Highlights:
- water was declared drinkable last Thursday with the exception of the Lower 9th Ward and New Orleans East,
- categorized coliform as an indicator organism for other potential dangers, such as E. coli and other fecal associated bacteria and viruses. He said samples have been taken two to four times a week and have totaled several hundred since the hurricane.

The Daily Texan, Naomi King 10/12/2005
Driving across the Jefferson-Orleans parish border from west to east on Veterans Boulevard, over the 30-foot-wide 17th Street Canal, the scene changes from one of bustling streets lined with populated restaurants and gas stations displaying "help wanted" signs, to one of deserted, water-logged houses, cars and scattered motor boats washed up on dead lawns.

Art Depodesta, co-owner at Cooter Brown's Tavern & Oyster Bar in Uptown New Orleans, which is south of the canal, said he's frustrated with how Jefferson seems to have more resources at their disposal compared to Orleans Parish.

Although electricity is still out for 47 percent of customers in Orleans Parish as of Monday, water was declared drinkable last Thursday with the exception of the Lower 9th Ward and New Orleans East, according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals's Office of Public Health. C.J. Guenzel, a resident of Uptown New Orleans who returned to the city this past weekend, said he ran the water for 15 minutes before taking a shower. He said he didn't notice any unusual smells or coloring, but he still avoided drinking it.

Meanwhile, Jefferson Parish, located immediately west of Orleans Parish, has had potable water for about four weeks, said Wayne Kolfskey, a scientist for the Jefferson Parish Water Department.

"I can estimate, the boil order on the West Bank [of Jefferson Parish], which had a lot less damage, was lifted on Sept. 8," said Kolfskey, adding that a coliform, or bacterial, sampling for that area took place. "The East Bank [of Jefferson Parish] took another week."

In Metairie, Jefferson Parish, the Italian Pie pizzeria on Veterans Boulevard opened on Oct. 4 and currently serves water from the faucet. A sister Italian Pie on South Rampart Street in the central business district opened yesterday, but Katy Chan, an employee of the pizzeria, said they will serve bottled water to customers.

The 17th Street Canal levee system that divides the two parishes broke on the Orleans side, causing flood waters to rapidly rise in the city the day after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the region. And because of this levee break, the main difference in the reestablishment of drinking water is that New Orleans started off in a much worse situation than Jefferson, said Doug Vincent, chief engineer for the state's Office of Public Health.

"If [the levee break] had been on the other side, the tables would have been turned," Vincent said. "They may be adjacent, but they're distinctly different."

In addition to being an older system than Jefferson's, the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board's pipes sustained more leaks and breaks and had more flooding of pipes and facilities, Vincent said. Even vehicles and equipment normally used to assess leaks and take samples were incapacitated by flood damage.

"It's only been recently that they've been able to get in and assess damage," Vincent said.

Around the second week in September, the Sewerage and Water Board's water treatment plants began pumping water through the system, Vincent said. As this began, the certified laboratory also began assessing the water system's pressure, chlorine levels, and sample results from coliform analysis. Vincent categorized coliform as an indicator organism for other potential dangers, such as E. coli and other fecal associated bacteria and viruses. He said samples have been taken two to four times a week and have totaled several hundred since the hurricane.

Link to site: easy to see what led to the catastrophe Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans

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

Highlights:
- New Orleans should not be rebuilt in its present location -- a lowland bowl situated between a lake and a river channel where this largest of America's rivers forms its delta
- what can be done in rebuilding New Orleans to make it a better, more sustainable place?
- the following ten-point plan for moving this dialog ahead

Alex Wilson, October 2005
It is easy to see what led to the catastrophe Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans: a city of a half-million people at an average elevation of six feet (2 m) below sea level; wetlands that have been disappearing for decades for lack of replacement silt from the Mississippi River's annual flooding; a city that has been sinking as its silt soils compress; levees that are designed to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes in an age when global climate change appears to be spawning more catastrophic storms; and years of inadequate funding to maintain even the existing Category-3-rated levees that were built to protect the Crescent City.

In the aftermath of the devastating late-August storm, as rescue teams search for survivors and carry out the grim task of recovering the dead, discussion is well underway about what to do next in heavily damaged New Orleans -- and nearby cities including Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi. New Orleans is the first large American city to be devastated by a catastrophic event since a mammoth earthquake and subsequent fires destroyed much of San Francisco in 1906, leaving three-quarters of its population homeless, and before that the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 destroyed a third of that city. From the San Francisco earthquake we learned to build structures that were more earthquake-resistant, and we instituted seismic building codes. From Chicago's fire we learned to replace wood-frame structures with masonry and steel, and we instituted rigorous fire codes. What will Katrina teach us?

In many respects, New Orleans should not be rebuilt in its present location -- a lowland bowl situated between a lake and a river channel where this largest of America's rivers forms its delta. There are very good reasons for accepting the reality that the combination of subsiding land, rising sea levels, and the effect of shipping channels in funneling storm surges into New Orleans makes long-term survival of the city either very doubtful or highly expensive. Serious consideration should be given to the idea of relocating the city to stable land, either somewhat inland from the coast or farther from the delta where it can be better protected. But there’s almost no chance of that happening. New Orleans will be rebuilt where it is. Our nation has learned a lot in its 200-plus years, but we’re neither that smart nor that bold.

So what can be done in rebuilding New Orleans to make it a better, more sustainable place? A great deal. The opportunities are exceeded only by the creativity that exists in the sustainable design community today. We have an opportunity with New Orleans to put into practice -- in a far-reaching and highly visible manner -- a vision infused by the collective wisdom of the green building movement. If common sense, intelligence, and forethought can prevail in the ensuing debates about the future of this great city, we will end up with a model that can be emulated around the world. Our nation can rebound from the shame of our hapless response to Katrina by demonstrating to the world a commitment to sustainable development.

In this spirit, we offer the following ten-point plan for moving this dialog ahead. These suggestions are directed specifically at New Orleans, though many of the ideas apply as well to other coastal areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

1. Institute a Sustainable New Orleans planning task force. This task force should be comprised of 20 to 30 of the best minds in sustainable development, urban planning, and green building, along with at least an equal number of community leaders of New Orleans and the surrounding region. Participation and buy-in by residents is critical to the long-term success of any sustainability initiative in a city or region, and that seems particularly the case in New Orleans, where too many have been disenfranchised for too long. This planning process should generate neighborhood, community, city, and regional plans that address such issues as housing, employment, government, transit, open space, healthcare, education, water, sewer, energy, and telecommunications. This task force should be funded at a level that will permit these outside visionaries and local participants to take leave of many of their other responsibilities for an intensive six- to twelve-month period, and the initiative should be enriched with the best support staff of computer modelers, ecologists, geologists, building scientists, and engineers that money can buy. This task force should be established as quickly as possible.

2. Pursue coastal and floodplain restoration as the number-one priority in rebuilding New Orleans. As has been widely reported, it doesn’t make economic sense to invest in rebuilding New Orleans without also addressing the underlying hydrologic problems that will continue to threaten this area. Sediment deposition needs to be restored in the Mississippi River Delta, both to replenish wetlands in the delta that are being lost to erosion and to counteract the subsidence of land that is occurring in the region. We need to harness nature’s restorative powers to support human efforts to create a habitable coastal zone -- rather than continuing to work in opposition to the forces of nature.

3. Immediately establish Sustainable New Orleans enterprise-zone businesses to salvage and warehouse building materials from the destruction of New Orleans. The materials so salvaged should be cleaned and used in the rebuilding of the city. These businesses should be cooperatively owned by the people of New Orleans and should provide employment to those in the city who most need it -- in the process, establishing models for the sorts of businesses that can ultimately build a vibrant, strong economy for New Orleans. Such start-up businesses can empower residents and help them emerge from the cycle of poverty and hardship that have for too long afflicted the city. Organized deconstruction of the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of buildings that are deemed unlivable should be undertaken. Temporary housing, food, and infrastructure will be needed to support this enterprise; the housing can start as tent barracks if necessary. If we can provide mobile living quarters and infrastructure for 150,000 ground troops in Iraq 8,000 miles (13,000 km) away, we should be able to do the same in Louisiana, an hour’s flight from Atlanta.

4. Rebuild a levee system around the city that the water engineers of Holland will envy. The levees should incorporate redundancy and be designed to fully withstand a Category 5 hurricane and a storm surge exceeding that predicted by the most extreme computer models. Where possible, the levee system should be integrated into a perimeter park for the city that combines protective functions with recreational amenities that will help New Orleans lure its dispersed residents back to the city and attract the new companies and employment that the city so desperately needs to sustain itself in the long term.

5. Create Sustainable New Orleans overlay zoning for the city to ensure that the goals of sustainability, safety, and urban vitality will be followed in the city’s redevelopment. This zoning code should emerge from the comprehensive planning process outlined in the first recommendation. It should provide for mixed uses (retail, commercial, and residential) in urban cores, public transportation, bicycle and pedestrian pathways, high levels of energy efficiency, reliance on natural cooling strategies and solar power systems in buildings that can maintain comfort and provide critical electricity during power outages, and durable building systems based on a platform of building science. While there is an urgency to move ahead with the rebuilding of New Orleans, doing it right -- in a way that will maintain and strengthen the character of the city -- is paramount. The end result should not be a gentrified New Orleans, but a better, more sustainable version of the old New Orleans -- a city that supports all segments of its society while protecting its environment and ensuring its long-term future.

6. Retain and restore those buildings that can be salvaged. Due to damage from contaminated water, extensive measures will be required to deal with mold. Gut-rehab will be required for many of the estimated 80% of the city’s 200,000 homes that have been damaged and, of course, many homes will not be salvageable. Building codes should address resistance to non-catastrophic flood damage -- for example, the most flood-prone lower floors of houses should have no paper-faced drywall, no ductwork, no air handlers, no wall-to-wall carpeting, and no electrical service boxes. Retaining the character of New Orleans, which is defined in part by its vernacular architecture and its diversity, should be a high priority.

7. Mandate or incentivize green building. Along with ensuring that certain minimum practices are followed in the rebuilding of New Orleans, the city, state, and federal government, as well as insurance companies and banks, should require, or offer incentives to encourage the implementation of, more comprehensive green building practices. Tax credits, zero-interest loans, density bonuses, grants to support the greenest redevelopment efforts, and other incentives should be offered to the people and businesses of New Orleans to support this greener vision of the city. Affordable housing should be built at least to the Enterprise Foundation Green Communities standards. Public buildings should be required to achieve LEED Gold standards. The U.S. Green Building Council should encourage green construction by waiving or discounting the registration and certification fees for all private building projects going through LEED certification -- discussions about doing this are already underway.

8. Work with ecologists and fisheries biologists to create more sustainable fisheries for the Gulf Coast. The Louisiana coast produces more seafood than any U.S. location outside of Alaska; as elsewhere, these fisheries are in decline. The terrible pollution that resulted from Katrina’s floodwaters will doubtless further damage these fisheries -- and likely extend the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, which currently covers about 7,000 square miles (18,000 km2) -- an area about the size of New Jersey. This issue must be addressed if the culture of New Orleans is to survive.

9. Clean up the new brownfields of New Orleans. Pollutant-laden sediment and all manner of toxins will greet the city once it is drained of its floodwater. The most ecologically responsible means should be used to detoxify New Orleans, and an ongoing testing program should be implemented to ensure that New Orleans’s water is safe to drink, its playgrounds are safe to play on, and its seafood is safe to eat. Indeed, this is an opportunity to put into practice, on a large scale, such leading-edge practices as bioremediation, phytoremediation, and ecological restoration.

10. Work with industry to clean up the factories along the Gulf Coast. There need not be a "Cancer Alley" along the Gulf Coast, but it will take a concerted effort by industry, environmentalists, and regulators -- and a lot of money -- to bring about the necessary change. In creating a sustainable economy and ensuring that residents can live healthy lives, however, this blight simply has to be addressed. Let’s learn from the toxic sludge and silt left by Katrina and create industrial processes that will not leave a toxic legacy for our children and grandchildren. The long-term plan for industry along the Gulf Coast should address both a reduction of toxics and opportunities for synergies in material and resource flows -- concepts of industrial ecology.

These are not easy tasks. Most involve hard, concerted effort and huge financial outlays. But these measures -- and others that would doubtless emerge through the process laid out here -- are critically important if New Orleans and the surrounding environs are to emerge from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in better shape than before. New Orleans can emerge as a model for sustainable development, charting a course that other cities around the country and world can follow. Let's not look back at the rebuilding of New Orleans as a lost opportunity; let's work together for a future that the city -- and all of America -- can be proud of.

Link to site: Soil tests indicate that a soft, spongy layer of swamp peat underneath the 17th Street Canal floodwall was the weak point that caused soil to move and the wall to breach during Hurricane Katrina

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

Highlights:
- the same peat layer also runs under the London Avenue Canal breaches and probably was instrumental in those collapses as well.
- a design or construction flaw is to blame for the collapses, and for the flooding of much of central New Orleans.
- Signs of trouble appear in graphs in the corps' soil data showing the "shear strength" of the soil,

John McQuaid, Washington, October 15, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Soil tests indicate that a soft, spongy layer of swamp peat underneath the 17th Street Canal floodwall was the weak point that caused soil to move and the wall to breach during Hurricane Katrina, an engineer who has studied the data says.

"The thing that is remarkable here is the very low strength of the soils around the bottom of the sheet pile" base of the floodwall, said Robert Bea, a geotechnical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, who examined the test results. Bea is a member of the National Science Foundation team that is studying the levee system's performance during Katrina.

Bea said other data shows the same peat layer also runs under the London Avenue Canal breaches and probably was instrumental in those collapses as well.

Investigators are focusing on the 17th Street and London Avenue canal levee walls because, unlike other parts of the system, they apparently were not topped by Katrina's storm surge. That could mean a design or construction flaw is to blame for the collapses, and for the flooding of much of central New Orleans.

Army Corps of Engineers officials say they must determine whether human error played a role in the breaches. If it did, they say, they may have to rebuild the canal walls immediately so they don't pose an additional risk during next year's hurricane season.

Investigators from the corps, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Science Foundation have spent the past two weeks examining the floodwalls and other parts of the levee system. At the two drainage canal breaches, they say the culprit appears to be the layer of peat around or not far beneath the base of the walls.

Graphs show problem
The Corps of Engineers has not yet released the results of soil borings in the breached areas to the outside investigators. But the corps included some soil boring data for the 17th Street Canal breach this week in a contract for temporary repairs posted on its Web site. The Times-Picayune asked Bea to examine the results.

The canal walls consist of a concrete cap on a steel sheet pile base, driven 17 ½ feet deep at 17th Street and 16 feet deep at London Avenue, corps design documents show. Bea said the soil boring data shows the peat layer starts about 15 feet to 30 feet beneath the surface and ranges from about 5 feet to 20 feet thick.

Signs of trouble appear in graphs in the corps' soil data showing the "shear strength" of the soil, its ability to resist deformation and lateral motion. In one boring, at 27 feet, the soil strength is near the bottom of the scale, about 0.02 tons per square foot. Eight feet deeper, the strength is 0.25 tons per square foot, more than 10 times greater. At 70 feet, the strength even greater: 0.6 tons per square foot.

The data also show the soil at the peat level has a high water concentration. Put together, those data indicate it would be very vulnerable to the stresses of a large flood, Bea said.

At 17th Street, the soil moved laterally, pushing entire wall sections with it. Bea and other engineers say that as Katrina's storm surge filled the canal, water pressure rose in the soil underneath the wall and in the peat layer. Water moved through the soil underneath the base of the wall. When the rising pressure and moving water overcame the soil's strength, it suddenly shifted, taking surrounding material -- and the wall -- with it.

"Think of a layer cake. In the middle I've got my icing. All of a sudden, I push on the top of my piece of cake, and what it's moving on is this weak, slick icing. The whole thing moves," said Thomas Zimmie, a civil engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who is on the National Science Foundation team and surveyed the levees this week.

Swampy soil

The Lakefront area used to be a swamp, and was filled over the decades as development advanced northward toward Lake Pontchartrain. But the soft swamp and river soils -- layers of mud, peat, sand and silt -- remain under the surface and can pose problems for those trying to anchor structures in them. The normal solution, engineers say, is to drill piles as deep as possible so that they go all the way through weak layers and are more firmly anchored.

The contractor who built the 17th Street Canal reported problems drilling the sheet pilings in the soil. Segments of the wall leaned slightly when the concrete was poured, according to a legal ruling in a contract dispute over the matter. An administrative law judge ruled that was because of the unusual bracing system used to build the structure rather than unexpected soil conditions.

Bea said that while the investigators have theorized the corps missed the peat layer in soil tests before the wall was built, the data they now have shows the peat would be hard to miss.

"The soil profile that we've got in front of us is showing that peat layer is large in extent, not narrow. They are mapping it between multiple borings. My suspicion, or fear, that they had missed it between two borings is not justifiable. It looks like it's about a thousand feet wide. That used to be a swamp. We built levees and cut canals in it, but never went in there and took out the peat."

Link to site: Down the bayou, fifth-grade students from Little Caillou Elementary were busy testing water from Bayou Little Caillou to check that waterway’s quality.

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

Highlights:
- students also were taking part in World Water Monitoring Day, an annual event designed to signify the importance of becoming involved with water conservation on a local, national and international scale.
- Currently six schools participate in LUMCON’s Bayouside Classroom. The others are South Terrebonne High, Caldwell Middle, Evergreen Junior High and Montegut Middle. All the students, except for those who attend Little Caillou Elementary, are in honors-level science classes. Those students who participate in the curriculum are rewarded with a field trip to LUMCON’s Cocodrie facility during the school year.
- The Bayouside Classroom curriculum requires students to check water quality in their area once a month and record what they observe. The data students collected Thursday included the water’s pH balance, temperature and the amounts of dissolved oxygen and salt. The information will be entered into a Web-site database, which is used by LUMCON scientists as a teaching resource.

MIKA EDWARDS, The Courier, 10/14/05
HOUMA -- With gloves on her hands and goggles over her eyes, 12-year-old Laura Harrington tried to determine the amount of oxygen in the sample of water she scooped from Bayou Terrebonne.

"I think it’s really cool because you get to get out of class and test water pollution," the seventh-grader from Houma Junior High said.

Down the bayou, fifth-grade students from Little Caillou Elementary were busy testing water from Bayou Little Caillou to check that waterway’s quality.

Student Nikki LeBeouf was busy measuring the clarity of the bayou that sits directly across the street from her school.

"I wish we could do this every day," she said. "It’s cool."

Harrington, LeBeouf and their fellow students converged on the two bayous Thursday to put their science lessons to use.

The students participated in Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium’s Bayouside Classroom, a yearlong research-based outdoor curriculum in which students have the chance to study the estuaries and watersheds outside their front doors.

The students also were taking part in World Water Monitoring Day, an annual event designed to signify the importance of becoming involved with water conservation on a local, national and international scale.

Findings from the students’ samples will be posted on LUMCON’s Web site and be used by real scientists monitoring environmental water quality around Terrebonne Parish.

"They don’t get to just see what scientists do, but they are scientists," said Chris Finelli, associate professor at LUMCON.

World Water Monitoring Day, which is Tuesday, began in 2002. This year organizers expect 64 countries to participate by checking the quality of their water in an effort to help aid research and contribute to a global water-quality database.

In an effort to help celebrate the upcoming event, students studying the outdoors were joined by Roberta Savage, executive director of America’s Clean Water Foundation, and Karen Gautreaux, deputy secretary of the state Department of Environmental Quality.

In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the two officials wanted to visit Terrebonne Parish where waterways abound.

"We decided to come down here because this place relies on the water," Gautreaux said. "This is an area that saw some impact, and we thought it would be good to draw attention to this activity."

Savage, who traveled from Washington D.C., said he was impressed by how seriously local school administrators take water-quality education.

"The fact that the principals in the area have been willing to go forward with this in the face of everything is phenomenal," she said.

Currently six schools participate in LUMCON’s Bayouside Classroom. The others are South Terrebonne High, Caldwell Middle, Evergreen Junior High and Montegut Middle. All the students, except for those who attend Little Caillou Elementary, are in honors-level science classes. Those students who participate in the curriculum are rewarded with a field trip to LUMCON’s Cocodrie facility during the school year.

"We knew it was not physically possible to bus all of the students in the parish to LUMCON. There are just not enough days," said Paul Johnson, Terrebonne’s science-curriculum specialist.

The Bayouside Classroom curriculum requires students to check water quality in their area once a month and record what they observe. The data students collected Thursday included the water’s pH balance, temperature and the amounts of dissolved oxygen and salt. The information will be entered into a Web-site database, which is used by LUMCON scientists as a teaching resource.

Simonne Lanigan, a fifth-grade teacher at Little Caillou Elementary, has been participating in Bayouside Classroom since the program’s inception five years ago.

"It’s awesome. The kids love it," she said. "It’s great for them to do hands-on science. This affects them and their lives."

David Fox, a marine educator with LUMCON, was impressed with the students’ enthusiasm and their eagerness to understand the importance of water quality.

"They were overwhelmingly excited," he said. "I think they understand better than any other kids in the state what this is about."

Courier staff writer Mika Edwards can be reached at 857-2202 or mika.edwards@houmatoday.com.

Link to site: the EnviroMapper - a new tool on its website to display test results from floodwater and sediment sampling in areas of Louisiana impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

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

Highlights:
- combines interactive maps and aerial photography to help zoom into sites or areas of interest.
- Data from EPA and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality sampling sites can be searched by zip code, address, facility, watershed, or latitude/longitude.
- "By Facility" option provides access to sampling data directly adjacent to or nearby specific manufacturing and chemical facilities.

WASHINGTON, DC, October 14, 2005 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is offering the EnviroMapper - a new tool on its website to display test results from floodwater and sediment sampling in areas of Louisiana impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Air monitoring and ambient water data will be added as they become available. The EnviroMapper for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita combines interactive maps and aerial photography to help zoom into sites or areas of interest. Data from other states will be added as it becomes available.

Data from EPA and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality sampling sites can be searched by zip code, address, facility, watershed, or latitude/longitude.

In addition, the "By Facility" option provides access to sampling data directly adjacent to or nearby specific manufacturing and chemical facilities. Some views allow you to select or de-select layers of information such as street names or bodies of water. The earliest data available on this Web tool is from September 3, 2005.

EPA emergency response personnel are working in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state and local agencies to help assess the damage, test health and environmental conditions, and coordinate cleanup from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In emergency situations such as this, the EPA serves as the lead agency for the cleanup of hazardous materials, including oil and gasoline.

In coordination with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, EPA personnel performed chemical sampling of New Orleans flood waters for over 100 priority pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs), total metals, pesticides, herbicides, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

The data have been reviewed and validated through a quality assurance process to ensure scientific accuracy.

The data were compared to EPA's drinking water maximum contaminant levels and action levels or to health guidance values calculated by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), an agency within the Centers for Disease Control.

ATSDR minimum risk levels (MRLs) exist for some chemicals and levels measured were compared to MRLs, when available. For hazardous substances for which there are no MRLs, hte ATSDR developed exposure models based on current available toxicity information.

Flood water sampling data for biological pathogens from September 3 on are being posted as they become available.

To date, E. coli levels remain greatly elevated and are much higher than EPA’s recommended levels for contact. Based on sampling results, emergency responders and the public should avoid direct contact with standing water when possible.

Sediment, for the purposes of the hurricane response sampling effort, is being defined as residuals deposited by receding flood waters which may include historical sediment from nearby water bodies, soil from yards, road and construction debris, and other material.

Flooded New Orleans homeowner Michael Caswell tries to save a few items amidst the toxic debris. (Photo by Marvin Nauman courtesy FEMA)
Preliminary results indicate that some sediment may be contaminated with bacteria and fuel oils. Human health risks may exist from contact with sediment deposited from receding flood waters. As sediments begin to dry, EPA will perform air sampling to monitor potential inhalation risks and will also assess long-term exposure scenarios.

E. coli was detected in sediment samples but no standards exist for determining human health risks from E. coli in soil or sediment

The EPA worked closely with the ATSDR to determine sediment exposure scenarios. MRLs exist for some chemicals and levels measured were compared to MRLs when available. For hazardous substances for which there is no MRL, the ageny developed exposure models based on current available toxicity information.

MRLs are available at http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/mrls.html.

Find the EnviroMapper at: http://www.epa.gov/enviro/katrina/

The results of a private sampling effort released Thursday show that sediment samples collected from three neighborhoods contained arsenic, benzo(a)pyrene and petroleum hydrocarbons at levels exceeding EPA and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality standards.

On September 16, 2005, Subra Company was assisted by Altamont Environmental with sediment and surface water sampling in five residential areas in New Orleans, Chalmette and Meraux that were impacted by flood waters from Hurricane Katrina. The sampling was conducted to assess potential organic and inorganic contamination of those residential areas.

Regulatory Criteria were exceeded at the following sample locations:
• Intersection of North Claiborne Avenue and St. Roch Avenue in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans
• Near the Intersection of Almonaster Boulevard and Liberty Terrace near the Agriculture Street Landfill Superfund Site in New Orleans East
• Near the intersection of Morrison Road and Foch Road in New Orleans East
After evaluating the data Subra Company President Wilma Subra said, "The community members should not have been allowed to return to the areas where they could come in contact with the contaminated sediments."

"Community members have been allowed to return to the sampled residential areas to check on and clean up their homes. The community members were not provided with information about the contamination nor provided with protective equipment to minimize their exposure to the toxic chemicals in the sediment," Subra said.

"The cumulative impacts of the large number of toxic chemicals in the sediment pose a risk to community members and response personnel working in the area without protective equipment," she said.

Subra urged the EPA to require that cleanup levels be met before community members are allowed to return to the contaminated areas.

The sampling project was performed by Subra Company and The Louisiana Environmental Action Network and Altamont Environmental and was sponsored by Mitchell Kapor Foundation.

The full Subra report is available at www.LEANWEB.org/Katrina

Link to site: Hurricane Katrina sent a powerful message on the importance of wetlands.

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

Highlights:
- study after study showed that the loss of wetlands to development increased the risk of flooding in coastal areas.
- The 47-page report can be basically reduced to a few words: The corps isn't doing a very good job of making sure there is no net loss of wetlands.
- It is a particularly disappointing conclusion for a president who has echoed the pledge of his father -- the first President Bush -that there should be "no net loss" of wetlands in the United States. President George W. Bush vowed last year that wetland areas would be increased under his administration.

Hurricane Katrina sent a powerful message on the importance of wetlands. Even before Katrina's arrival, study after study showed that the loss of wetlands to development increased the risk of flooding in coastal areas.

On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, issued a report on the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency -- the two agencies that have jurisdiction over much of the nation's wetlands.

The 47-page report can be basically reduced to a few words: The corps isn't doing a very good job of making sure there is no net loss of wetlands.

"The corps is generally not asserting jurisdiction over isolated, intrastate, nonnavigable waters using its existing authority," the study concluded.

It is a particularly disappointing conclusion for a president who has echoed the pledge of his father -- the first President Bush -that there should be "no net loss" of wetlands in the United States. President George W. Bush vowed last year that wetland areas would be increased under his administration.

The report noted that although corps' officials said that the nonet-loss program is "a key component of this program, the corps has consistently neglected to ensure that the mitigation it has required as a condition of obtaining a permit has been completed." Instead, the corps sees the processing of permit applications as its priority.

Nor are things being done much differently than in previous decades, said the report: "In 1988 and 1993, we reported that the corps was placing little emphasis on its compliance efforts, including compensatory mitigation, and little has changed. The corps continues to provide limited oversight of compensatory mitigation, largely relying on the good faith of permittees to comply with compensatory mitigation requirements."

Navis Bermudez, a New Orleans native who handles national wetlands issues for the Sierra Club, told Reuters news service that the GAO's report "confirms the administration is secretly pursuing a policy that favors developers and other industrial interests."

While dredging and filling and discharging into the "waters of the United States" is prohibited by the Clean Water Act without a permit from the corps, some of those waters are disputed. In 2001, the Supreme Court issued a decision saying the corps could not regulate isolated water bodies simply because they were used by migratory birds.

But the GAO report noted that under the Bush administration, the EPA and the corps scaled back its jurisdiction much further than required by the court decision.

The reduction of the corps' jurisdiction over wetlands was proposed in January 2003 by the Bush administration as part of a rulemaking change to the Clean Water Act. The public commenting period showed strong opposition to the change. Of the 135,000 comments, the vast majority favored federal protection for small streams, ponds and wetlands.

Environmental agencies from 39 states opposed the change; only those of three states supported them. Congress also weighed in with 218 members signing a letter to Bush urging him to leave the rules alone.

At the end of 2003, the administration said it had heard the voices of environmentalists, conservationists and hunters. The rulemaking change had been abandoned.

But several environmental groups noted that the GAO report showed that the administration had accomplished what it wanted without the rule change. "This administration is not very good at keeping promises made to the American people," said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice. "The president and his appointees promised not to change the Clean Water Act's rules, but they are shirking that responsibility by just ignoring those rules. In turn, they are breaking the promise of the Clean Water Act, which is to protect all of the nation's waters, to make them safe for drinking water, for swimming and fishing. This cannot be done when the corps leaves waters out of the law's scope."

The GAO said if the corps doesn't take its duties "more seriously, it will not know if thousands of acres of compensatory mitigation have been performed and will be unable to ensure that the (wetlands mitigation) program is contributing to the national goal of no net loss of wetlands."

The corps was given 30 days to respond to the report before GAO released it. Corps officials said they "generally concur" and are working to bring about reporting changes "so that full compliance with the Clean Water Act is encouraged, with the goal of increasing the effectiveness, efficiency and responsiveness" of the corps' program.

After so many years of neglect, a change would be welcome.

Link to site: Using the Map

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

Highlights:
- This map displays the States impacted by the Hurricane Katrina (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama). These States were also impacted by Hurricane Rita.
- offering maps and aerial photos that can be used to locate EPA and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality sampling sites.
- There are five ways to find the area you want:

Using the Map
This map displays the States impacted by the Hurricane Katrina (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama). These States were also impacted by Hurricane Rita. However, sampling of flood water and sediment occurred only in Louisiana in the Parishes of Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and St. Tammany. To view all of the sampling results, search by Louisiana. To view a smaller subsection of the results search by one of the Parishes listed above or by locations within one of these Parishes.

There are five geographically-based selection options to help you zoom into areas of interest. Each option essentially does the same thing, offering maps and aerial photos that can be used to locate EPA and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality sampling sites. In addition, the "By Facility" option has the potential to zoom to a point closer to or exactly on individual EPA regulated facilities. Some views allow you to select or de-select layers of information such as street names, water bodies, etc.
There are five ways to find the area you want:
1 By Zip, City, County, State: Enter your zip code or the nearest city or county for selected state and click the "Zoom To" button to go to interactive map of your general area.

2 By Address: Enter the complete address of the structure and then click the "Zoom To" button to go to interactive map of your structure.

3 By Facility: Enter the Facility Name or Identification Number and then select a database. Next click the "Zoom To" button to go to interactive map of your facility.

4 By Watershed: This may require you to click on the hyper linked titles and go to the corresponding USGS page in order to obtain the necessary information.

5 By Latitude/Longitude: You will need to enter coordinates in either Decimal Degrees (DD) or Degrees Minutes Seconds (DMS) format. Click "Zoom To" to go to the set of coordinates that were entered.


Once you've entered the search criteria for any of the options, click the "Zoom To" button.

Link to site: President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have used emergency powers to waive some federal regulations and have proposed other changes in what they say is an effort to cut red tape and speed relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

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

Highlights:
- Democrats and watchdog groups complain that some waivers are attempts to roll back federal protections and advance the Republican political agenda.
- The Environmental Protection Agency extended a waiver until Oct. 25 allowing the use of polluting, higher-sulfur fuel to alleviate gas shortages nationwide. Sen. James Inhofe (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., and others have proposed legislation that would lift limits on the amount of air and water pollution emitted by refineries, motor vehicles and other sources.
- "The hurricane is being used as a pretext to attack health and environmental standards," says Frank O'Donnell, president of the watchdog group Clean Air Watch.

By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY Thu Oct 13, 6:35 AM ET
President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have used emergency powers to waive some federal regulations and have proposed other changes in what they say is an effort to cut red tape and speed relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Democrats and watchdog groups complain that some waivers are attempts to roll back federal protections and advance the Republican political agenda. A look at some of the actions:

• Affirmative action. The Labor Department waived for three months rules requiring some companies to file hiring plans for minorities, women and disabled workers. The waiver, which can be extended, applies to first-time federal contractors hired on reconstruction projects. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean is among those who have attacked the move at a time when the storm bared deep racial and economic disparities.

• College grants. President Bush signed a law Sept. 21 waiving requirements for college students to pay back their federal Pell Grants if they have withdrawn from school because of major disasters. It covers as many as 100,000 college students displaced by Katrina as well as those affected by Hurricane Rita. The law removes financial penalties for late payments.

• Environmental protections. The Environmental Protection Agency extended a waiver until Oct. 25 allowing the use of polluting, higher-sulfur fuel to alleviate gas shortages nationwide. Sen. James Inhofe (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., and others have proposed legislation that would lift limits on the amount of air and water pollution emitted by refineries, motor vehicles and other sources. "The hurricane is being used as a pretext to attack health and environmental standards," says Frank O'Donnell, president of the watchdog group Clean Air Watch.

• Federal contracts. The Transportation Department issued a rule to allow no-bid contracts until Dec. 1 on restoration projects. Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and others have called for an independent probe into how the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies have awarded contracts. FEMA has said it will reopen four large no-bid contracts signed just after the storm.

• Government credit cards. The General Services Administration raised the limit on government-issued credit cards to $250,000 for hurricane-related spending. The change enraged Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and other critics, forcing the administration to return the limit to $2,500, or $15,000 in an emergency.

• Minimum wage. Bush suspended the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in parts of the four states most affected by Katrina. The law requires workers on federal construction projects to receive the prevailing or average minimum wage in the area. Bush and other Republicans have opposed the law, saying it raises contract costs. The AFL-CIO and other labor groups say it will lower wages and make it tougher for union workers to be hired.

• School vouchers. The Department of Education has proposed offering displaced students emergency school vouchers of $7,500 that could be used at public or private schools, even if students didn't attend a private school before Katrina. Teachers unions and Democrats such as Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts oppose the plan, saying Congress has repeatedly rejected vouchers because they drain scarce tax dollars from public schools.

• Taxes. The Internal Revenue Service granted relief to residents in the affected areas, giving them until Oct. 31 to pay taxes without incurring penalties or interest.

• Transportation rules. The Transportation Department temporarily waived safety rules limiting work hours for truck drivers and airline pilots who carry goods related to relief efforts. Safety regulations also were waived for the hurricane-related transport of hazardous materials in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Link to site: Water and sediment samples, collected two weeks ago off Panama City by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Department of Environmental Protection, revealed little environmental impact from Hurricane Katrina in that area

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Highlights:
- Hurricane Rita's path affected surface currents in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico and likely mixed the post-Katrina plume water substantially, which would essentially dilute concentrations of soluble contaminants
- samples from seven stations along a 30-mile transect from nearshore seaward to depths up to 49 meters. At each location, scientists took water samples at the surface and bottom. They also collected sediment samples, except from the nearshore site.
Panhandle, Florida - Water and sediment samples, collected two weeks ago off Panama City by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Department of Environmental Protection, revealed little environmental impact from Hurricane Katrina in that area.

There was no indication that Mississippi River water had moved alongshore into the Florida Panhandle.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also is assessing the oceanography and water quality of the Gulf of Mexico.

The federal agency recently completed a sampling transect from the Dry Tortugas to the Florida Panhandle, and more measurements and water sampling will take place in the northern Gulf Oct. 6-16.

The federal agency's south Florida program will modify its regular field study to sample the southeastern Gulf thoroughly a few days later.

A series of oceanographic drifters -- floating devices that collect temperature, speed and direction information -- already are deployed in the Gulf for this purpose and to improve the hurricane forecast estimates.

More are planned for the coming weeks.

In conjunction with satellite data, models and the data collected by partner agencies, these data will yield more accurate assessments of downstream risks to Florida.

More recently, Hurricane Rita's path affected surface currents in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico and likely mixed the post-Katrina plume water substantially, which would essentially dilute concentrations of soluble contaminants.

State agencies sampled the Panama City area, looking for signs of initial storm water damage to coastal Gulf ecosystems from the Mississippi River and elsewhere in Mississippi and Louisiana.

They collected samples from seven stations along a 30-mile transect from nearshore seaward to depths up to 49 meters. At each location, scientists took water samples at the surface and bottom. They also collected sediment samples, except from the nearshore site.

Link to site: the US Army Corps of Engineers guilty of failing to protect wetlands, headwaters and other important waters.

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

Highlights:
- The GAO report says the administration essentially changed the rules after announcing it would not do so by simply ignoring existing law.
- by storing floodwater, wetlands provide a variety of other benefits: they filter pollutants from our drinking water, and provide habitat for fish, shellfish and wildlife.

FlyFish News Service, 2005-10-13

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has released a report finding that the US Army Corps of Engineers guilty of failing to protect wetlands, headwaters and other important waters. The report found that although the Army Corps is required under the Clean Water Act to protect these waters, the agency is permitting their destruction without explaining why it is not following the law, recording the acreage being destroyed or evaluating the natural functions that are lost.

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we know that our nation needs to be increasing - not weakening - protections for waterways that can prevent flooding and provide clean water," said Navis Bermudez, Sierra Club Clean Water Campaign Representative. "The GAO's report confirms that the administration is secretly pursuing a policy that favors developers and other industry interests. The administration's policy needs to be withdrawn and protections extended to the full extent of the law."

In January 2003, the administration proposed rule making to weaken the Clean Water Act's requirements defining "waters of the United States." The administration later abandoned this rule making and promised key constituents that it would not pursue that course of action again. The GAO report says the administration essentially changed the rules after announcing it would not do so by simply ignoring existing law.

"The President and his appointees promised not to change the Clean Water Act's rules, but they are shirking that responsibility by just ignoring those rules,"says Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice. "In turn, they are breaking the promise of the Clean Water Act, which is to protect all of the nation's waters, to make them safe for drinking water, for swimming and fishing. This cannot be done when the Corps leaves waters out of the law's scope."

The wetlands are extremely important for our communities' health and safety. For example, when wetlands are destroyed or filled, they are often replaced by impermeable paving or structures that increase water runoff and can contribute to increased flooding. In addition to protecting homes by storing floodwater, wetlands provide a variety of other benefits: they filter pollutants from our drinking water, and provide habitat for fish, shellfish and wildlife.

Link to site: Chemicals in New Orleans floodwater from residential neighborhoods posed little risk to people but may raise a long-term hazard to wildlife in Lake Pontchartrain

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Highlights:
- Virtually all the floodwater that once covered New Orleans has been pumped into Lake Pontchartrain,
- As for the impact of the pumped water on the lake, Pardue said it didn't introduce any new chemicals but provided a large dose in a short time.
- Copper, zinc, cadmium and lead found in the floodwater could build up in the lake sediment and pose long-term hazards for wildlife.

MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer, October 11, 2005
Chemicals in New Orleans floodwater from residential neighborhoods posed little risk to people but may raise a long-term hazard to wildlife in Lake Pontchartrain, a new study reported Tuesday.

In general, water samples taken soon after the flood caused by Hurricane Katrina found that the water resembled normal rain runoff in its chemical makeup, said the study's lead author, John Pardue. "We don't feel anything we've seen will point to any kind of a problem on the chemical side" for human exposure, said Pardue, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at Louisiana State University. Still, people returning to their homes should protect themselves from germs that may be left behind in the sludge, he said.

The study, funded by the institute, found high levels of fecal bacteria in the water, just as previously published testing by the federal Environmental Protection Agency did. Normal rainwater in the area has high levels too because of leaky sewers, but Katrina flooding was different because of its sheer volume, Pardue said.

The study didn't sample water from industrial areas, and researchers cautioned that their results can't be used to assess non-residential areas. Their findings were published online Tuesday by the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Virtually all the floodwater that once covered New Orleans has been pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, and Pardue said he and his colleagues are now analyzing the sediment it left behind.

As for the impact of the pumped water on the lake, Pardue said it didn't introduce any new chemicals but provided a large dose in a short time. He noted that all rainwater that falls in New Orleans is eventually pumped into the lake.

"What this really represented was a year or two's worth of rain being pumped out in a very short time," he said.

What's more, Pardue said that chemicals left behind in the sediment will eventually find their way to the lake as the sediment is cleaned up and rain washes it into the canals that feed Pontchartrain.

Copper, zinc, cadmium and lead found in the floodwater could build up in the lake sediment and pose long-term hazards for wildlife. The study can't evaluate that, Pardue said, but the results suggest officials should keep an eye out for trouble.

Pardue noted that the state Department of Environmental Quality is studying the problem and said he's satisfied with their efforts.

Link to site: Experts and residents express frustration with EPA’s bumbling response.

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

Highlights:
- Based on no reported data, these stories nevertheless seemed reasonable;
- Samples collected from various depths of the water column were later measured for several parameters, including turbidity, pH, and concentrations of organics, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, and metals. Surface waters were depleted of oxygen, whereas lead, arsenic, and, in some cases, chromium exceeded drinking-water standards. Pardue reports that the values were normal for storm water, as were the levels of fecal coliform.
- Experts say that EPA posted confusing and irrelevant information on a website few could access or understand.
- “If this was a waste site, EPA would require a cleanup to a certain level before they let anyone go back in,”

PAUL D. THACKER, Science News October 11, 2005
Experts and residents express frustration with EPA’s bumbling response.
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana coast, flooding the city of New Orleans, journalists began reporting on a “toxic soup” of chemicals and dangerous microbes bathing the city. Based on no reported data, these stories nevertheless seemed reasonable; the city’s sewer system had flooded, and thousands of cars, houses, and chemical storage tanks lay beneath water, which in part of the city reached more than 3 meters in depth. In addition, 24 Superfund sites are in the affected area, and the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard have tallied more than 400 oil and hazardous chemical spills.

Pardue’s study looked at water taken from street intersections close to the levee breach and near the Superdome, where thousands of residents sheltered from the hurricane.

However, research posted to ES&T’s Research ASAP website (es0518631) finds that the water that drowned New Orleans was no more toxic than typical floodwater washing down an urban street after a hard rain. Researchers expressed surprise at the findings but warned that it is still unknown whether the muck left behind is toxic.
“We don’t see the very elevated levels of toxics that would make you think of this water as toxic waste,” says the study’s lead author, John Pardue, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at Louisiana State University (LSU). “What was so unique about this event was that we had such a large volume of water and so many people wading around in it for extended periods,” he says.
Danny Reible, chair of environmental health engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, says the study presents the first comprehensive data that he has seen on the floodwaters. “The bottom line is that it’s not a chemical environmental disaster, although you can’t rule out areas that might be impacted from local chemical spills,” he says.
Five days after the hurricane hit land on August 29, Pardue’s team boated into New Orleans with police protection and collected water samples from street intersections in the Lakeview neighborhood, near the levee break, and in Mid-City, close to the Superdome. Four days later, on September 7, he collected more water in Tulane–Gravier, a neighborhood just blocks from the Superdome, where thousands of residents sought refuge from Katrina.
Samples collected from various depths of the water column were later measured for several parameters, including turbidity, pH, and concentrations of organics, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, and metals. Surface waters were depleted of oxygen, whereas lead, arsenic, and, in some cases, chromium exceeded drinking-water standards. Pardue reports that the values were normal for storm water, as were the levels of fecal coliform.
The LSU researchers also failed to detect extremely high levels of benzene and other carcinogens found in gasoline, although coauthor Louis Thibodeaux, a professor of chemical engineering at LSU, says that he expected to see higher levels. However, he calculates in the paper that most of these chemicals quickly evaporate.
“All of us around the world watched those people on television wading through oily water, but the benzene and many volatiles were gone,” says Thibodeaux. He adds that oil spreads out across water in a layer only millimeters thick, which tricks people into believing that a huge quantity of petroleum has contaminated the water. “It only takes a few drops to make sheen on the water surface,” he adds.
However, Thibodeaux says that many of the chemicals that did not evaporate may be bound to particles deposited in the mud and grime left behind.
Pardue raises similar concerns. “People are absolutely crazy to be going back into their homes,” he says. Because mold is an increasing problem in the houses left standing and sediments are still essentially unexamined, Pardue says that he is not certain the city is safe to inhabit.

Where are you, EPA?
The LSU findings are particularly important because experts are charging that EPA is failing to provide adequate, timely information that can be understood by the public. After people had been trudging through the water for more than a week, EPA began posting data from water samples on a website. This action raised an obvious question about how people stranded in New Orleans, many of whom are poor and without electricity, were supposed to access the information.
And data that EPA made available were often confusing, even to those with technical expertise in water chemistry. “They should certainly be capable of providing some context for this information,” says Pardue.

EPA
Experts say that EPA posted confusing and irrelevant information on a website few could access or understand.

“All EPA did was put the information on the web without any information of what it meant.” says Mark Schleifstein, an environment reporter with the New Orleans Times–Picayune. “Information afterwards was in the context of certain standards, but it was uncertain why those standards were chosen.” Schleifstein later filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act to force EPA to provide details of chemical leaks into the water.
Pardue says that he had initially planned to release his data to Schleifstein and other reporters but decided to go through a peer-review process after seeing that EPA was performing so poorly and providing no context other than drinking-water standards. “That really doesn’t have any kind of relevance,” he says.
When contacted by ES&T about Pardue’s research, EPA would only respond with an emailed statement from an unnamed EPA scientist: “The findings in the article are consistent with what we have been finding in our sampling and what we have been saying about the conditions in New Orleans.”
On September 29, a month after the hurricane hit land, Marcus Peacock, EPA’s deputy administrator, told the U.S. Congress, “I don’t think you can say from what’s been assessed so far that there will be long-term effects.” Peacock added that contaminants may cause localized effects in areas close to spills.
However, Peacock offered little help when asked whether EPA was taking charge to ensure that citizens are safe. “That is up to local health officials and the city’s office to determine whether or not a particular room or neighborhood is safe for someone to go back into,” he said.
Mayor William Rutledge of Pontotoc, Miss., along with others, saw the problem differently. Referring to EPA, Rutledge testified, “The problem has been communication—getting out the word and stepping up to the plate and deciding that it’s safe. We don’t think [EPA] has been fulfilling that obligation.”

Further research
All the water that entered New Orleans was later pumped into nearby Lake Pontchartrain, a shallow, brackish lake with a surface area of more than 640 square miles. The lake is regularly used for recreation and commercial crabbing and is a catch basin for New Orleans’ storm water runoff. Pardue says that although the concentrations of metals in the water pumped into the lake were normal for floodwater, the lake has absorbed the equivalent of many years of runoff in only a few weeks.
Concentrations of zinc and copper, Pardue says, may pose a problem for fish that have less tolerance for these metals than humans. “So the metals going back into the lake are at much more toxic levels than we report for humans,” he says.
Because more than 100,000 houses were flooded, Pardue says that he is now beginning to look for other chemicals that might not normally be detected in mud left behind after a flood. He is also working with horticulturists to see whether this muck, which contains salt and other chemicals, may kill off the city’s plants and trees.
“If this was a waste site, EPA would require a cleanup to a certain level before they let anyone go back in,” says Wilma Subra, president of Subra Co., Inc. To address the concerns of local residents, Subra is conducting her own tests of the sediments. She advises residents to not enter the city unless they wear a respirator, boots, and gloves. She notes that Wal-Marts within 100 miles have sold out of such equipment.
As for the city and state officials, she says, “All they know is that their people want to go home. They’re looking for EPA to establish criteria that are safe for people, and EPA is not doing that.”

Link to site: NOAA completed additional analyses of fish, water and sediment samples collected from coastal and offshore marine waters

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Highlights:
- The 154 fish and crab samples harbored no E. coli (Escherlchia coli), a bacteria associated with human or animal fecal contamination
- Analyses of water samples for indicators of human sewage or agricultural runoff found levels that are below the Environmental Protection Agency's safety limits for bathing beaches
- Sediment analyses found that three of eight offshore marine sediment samples contained greater than 15 E. coli cells per gram and one contained about 36 Enterococcus cells per gram

NOAA Magazine Oct. 11, 2005 — NOAA completed additional analyses of fish, water and sediment samples collected from coastal and offshore marine waters of the Gulf of Mexico two weeks after hurricane Katrina, September 12-16. The latest tests were conducted to determine the level of fish, water and sediment exposure to bacteria and to determine the level of exposure to pesticides and other contaminants, such as PCBs and DDTs. Last week, NOAA tests of these same fish found no oil contamination.

The 154 fish and crab samples harbored no E. coli (Escherlchia coli), a bacteria associated with human or animal fecal contamination. Additional testing on shrimp samples taken from Mississippi Sound is ongoing.

Analyses of water samples for indicators of human sewage or agricultural runoff found levels that are below the Environmental Protection Agency's safety limits for bathing beaches. These limits constitute the most stringent government standard for recreational waters.

Fish muscle tissue analyzed for pesticides and other industrial chemicals, such as PCBs and DDTs show very low levels that are likely not related to hurricane runoff. The levels of PCBs ranged from 2.5 - 15 parts per billion and the levels of DDTs ranged from 0.8 - 2.2 parts per billion. The PCB levels found in these samples are far below the Food and Drug Administration's safety standards for commercial seafood and are similar to levels detected in fish in non-urbanized areas. (FDA's PCB limit is 2000 ppb, and their DDT limit is 5000 ppb).

Nevertheless, the public may wish to consult their state or local health agencies or the EPA's more stringent guidance on consumption frequency for non-commercial seafood when contaminants are present. This advice is particularly relevant for recreational and subsistence fishers that repeatedly harvest seafood from the same area. Analyses show no detectable level of brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) in most fish samples.

Sediment analyses found that three of eight offshore marine sediment samples contained greater than 15 E. coli cells per gram and one contained about 36 Enterococcus cells per gram. Like E. coli, Enterococcus is a bacteria normally found in feces of people and many animals. While testing positive for the presence of these bacteria, the levels are considered low. However, no data or standards currently exist regarding the public health risk of these two bacteria found in marine sediments.

NOAA announced on September 29 that the first tests showed no elevated exposure to hydrocarbon contaminants, which are common in marine life after exposure to oil spills. Agency scientists collected this first round of samples from aboard the NOAA research vessel Nancy Foster September 12-16. (Click NOAA image for larger view of the areas where the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster collected samples as of Sept. 12-16, 2005. Click here for high resolution version. Please credit “NOAA.”)

The vessel sailed from Pensacola, Fla., along the coastlines of Alabama and Mississippi, and then around the southern tip of Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River and back.

During the cruise, oceanographers, toxicologists and microbiologists collected water, fish and sediment samples to determine whether hurricane Katrina released elevated levels of viruses, bacteria and toxic materials in the ocean. NOAA will continue to collect and test samples over the next two months to monitor for changes in contaminant and bacteria levels. The second round of samples was collected last week and testing is currently underway. Sampling has been extended to the coastal and offshore areas affected by Hurricane Rita.

NOAA's environmental impact research is part of a government-wide effort to keep the American people safe and to help stabilize the region's economy in the aftermath of the Gulf hurricanes. The area is known for its valuable seafood production and coastal way of life.

NOAA also is conducting a comprehensive analysis of fishing infrastructure damage caused by the hurricanes. The agency has teams surveying the region's fishing fleets, seafood processing plants, fish markets and bait shops. The survey will take months to complete, although NOAA will release preliminary information as it becomes available.

The NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to protecting and preserving the nation's living marine resources and their habitats through scientific research, management and enforcement. The NOAA Fisheries Service provides effective stewardship of these resources for the benefit of the nation, supporting coastal communities that depend upon them, and helping to provide safe and healthy seafood to consumers and recreational opportunities for the American public.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA Hurricane Katrina Environmental Impacts

NOAA Fisheries Service

Link to site: Katrina's contaminated floodwaters contain toxins that pose a long-term danger to fish in Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain, according to a study of samples.

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

Highlights:
- copper, zinc and arsenic sampled from waters pumped into the lake were 20 times the levels known to harm sea trout, shrimp and other fish life living in the lake,
- This was two years' worth of contamination that was pumped out in a week's time
- Water pumped back into the lake from the city contained fish-killing metal concentrations and high levels of bacteria that had consumed most of the oxygen content, said the study

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Katrina's contaminated floodwaters contain toxins that pose a long-term danger to fish in Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain, according to a study of samples. Levels of copper, zinc and arsenic sampled from waters pumped into the lake were 20 times the levels known to harm sea trout, shrimp and other fish life living in the lake, said John Pardue, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at Louisiana State University, who led the study.

``This was two years' worth of contamination that was pumped out in a week's time,'' he said today in a telephone interview from his office in Baton Rouge. ``The question is whether the marine life there can assimilate the contamination without loss of fish species.''

Lake Pontchartrain swamped 80 percent of New Orleans after Katrina's storm surge hit about three miles from the city, submerging more than 160,000 homes for weeks. Water pumped back into the lake from the city contained fish-killing metal concentrations and high levels of bacteria that had consumed most of the oxygen content, said the study, published today in the online version of Environmental Science & Technology.

Fish may have fled those oxygen-poor waters and thus escaped poisoning by zinc and copper that can damage fish organs, Pardue said. The high levels will recur when sludge removed from homes are washed into the lake during rains, he said.

``People are treating this material like you might treat snow,'' he said. ``They're shoveling it out and taking it to the curb.'' Rain and other marine disturbances may also stir up metal particles from Lake Pontchartrain's bottom, threatening fish again and again, Pardue said.

New Orleans' flooded areas include more than 60 chemical plants, oil refineries and petroleum storage facilities, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency records. The cleanup costs may far exceed the $62 billion in direct aid approved by Congress so far, Philip Clapp, head of the Washington-based National Environmental Trust, said Sept. 16.

The study sampled water being pumped out of New Orleans and a variety of locations starting on Sept. 3, five days after Katrina hit the city. Copper levels were as high as 209 parts per billion, about 20 times the level known to be toxic to fish. Zinc concentrations were as high as 1667 parts per billion, or more than ten times the accepted fish-killing level, the study said.

Not Toxic to People

Those levels aren't toxic to humans, who can tolerate levels of up to 1300 ppb of copper and 5000 ppb of zinc, Pardue said. People should still wear gloves and masks to protect themselves as they clean away flood debris, as it may contain high levels of flame retardant chemicals -- called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDE's -- whose health effects are still being studied, he said.

``These may mimic the effects of estrogen,'' the female hormone, Pardue said. ``We don't know completely what the health effects would be in humans, and we're starting to see more and more accumulation in the bloodstream and food of people living in the West.''

The study's results may also be used to predict the effects of the storm on manatees and other marine mammals living in the lake, Pardue said.

Link to site:

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Highlights:
- the EPA and Corps have been following a Bush administration policy directive that jeopardizes Clean Water Act protections by telling agency staff to stop protecting many streams, wetlands, lakes, and other waters unless they first get permission from Washington, D.C. officials.
- The wetlands, streams and other waters that are being destroyed because the Corps is not protecting them are extremely important for our communities’ health and safety.
- Losses of wetlands in many areas of the U.S. are unprecedented, yet the Corps is allowing many of the remaining wetlands to be destroyed in violation of its Clean Water Act obligations
Sierra Club, October 11, 2005
Evidence Shows Corps of Engineers Lacked Justification for Not Protecting Wetlands, Streams

The General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report today finding that the US Army Corps of Engineers is failing to protect wetlands, headwaters and other important waters. The report found that although the Army Corps is required under the Clean Water Act to protect these waters, the agency is permitting their destruction without explaining why it is not following the law, recording the acreage being destroyed or evaluating the natural functions that are lost.

Since January 2003, the EPA and Corps have been following a Bush administration policy directive that jeopardizes Clean Water Act protections by telling agency staff to stop protecting many streams, wetlands, lakes, and other waters unless they first get permission from Washington, D.C. officials. The EPA and Corps claim that the policy is based, at least in part, on a 2001 Supreme Court decision, Solid Waste Agencies of Northern Cook County v. the Army Corps of Engineers (or "SWANCC"), but the terms of the directive go far beyond the holding of that case and jeopardize millions of acres, thousands of miles of streams, and all the rivers, lakes and coastal waters downstream. What the GAO study found is that the US Army Corps of Engineers is not using its legal authority to protect those waters and wetlands that it can still protect after the SWANCC decision.

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we know that our nation needs to be increasing - not weakening - protections for waterways that can prevent flooding and provide clean water," said Navis Bermudez, Sierra Club Clean Water Campaign Representative. "The GAO’s report confirms that the administration is secretly pursuing a policy that favors developers and other industry interests. The administration’s policy needs to be withdrawn and protections extended to the full extent of the law."

In January 2003, the administration proposed rulemaking to weaken the Clean Water Act’s requirements defining "waters of the United States." The administration later abandoned this rulemaking and promised key constituents that it would not pursue that course of action again. The GAO report shows that the administration essentially changed the rules after announcing it would not do so by simply ignoring existing law.

"This administration is not very good at keeping promises made to the American people," said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice. "The President and his appointees promised not to change the Clean Water Act's rules, but they are shirking that responsibility by just ignoring those rules. In turn, they are breaking the promise of the Clean Water Act, which is to protect all of the nation's waters, to make them safe for drinking water, for swimming and fishing. This cannot be done when the Corps leaves waters out of the law's scope."

The wetlands, streams and other waters that are being destroyed because the Corps is not protecting them are extremely important for our communities’ health and safety. For example, when wetlands are destroyed or filled, they are often replaced by impermeable paving or structures that increase water runoff and can contribute to increased flooding. In addition to protecting homes by storing floodwater, wetlands provide a variety of other benefits: they filter pollutants from our drinking water, and provide habitat for fish, shellfish and wildlife. Wetlands are crucial for clean water, serving as a natural filter absorbing water-borne pollutants and damaging contaminants before the water enters our rivers, lakes and streams.

"Losses of wetlands in many areas of the U.S. are unprecedented, yet the Corps is allowing many of the remaining wetlands to be destroyed in violation of its Clean Water Act obligations without even bothering to figure out why," said Christy Leavitt, Clean Water Advocate for U.S. PIRG.

Link to report http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05870.pdf

Link to site: pollution washing into the sea after Hurricane Katrina's deadly landfall more than a month ago are untrue, so far, according to two government agencies.

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

Highlights:
- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found little evidence Katrina produced an environmental catastrophe in the gulf.
- Taking surface and near-bottom water samples, as well as sediment from the seafloor, the conservation commission found expected levels of, among other pollutants, mercury, pesticides and nutrients such as phosphorous.
- Scientists also reported little or no debris in the water, though it remains a hazard to watch for

Mladen Rudman, Northwest Florida Daily News October 11, 2005
DESTIN, Fla. — Rumors the Gulf of Mexico and its critters have been harmed by pollution washing into the sea after Hurricane Katrina's deadly landfall more than a month ago are untrue, so far, according to two government agencies.

Monitoring continues, but scientists at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found little evidence Katrina produced an environmental catastrophe in the gulf.

Conservation commission researchers, among others, sampled water at seven spots off Panama City in mid-September. "We found out, at that point and time, the water was normal," said conservation commission spokesman and biologist Willie Puz. He added the agency hopes to take part with NOAA in upcoming research trips.

Taking surface and near-bottom water samples, as well as sediment from the seafloor, the conservation commission found expected levels of, among other pollutants, mercury, pesticides and nutrients such as phosphorous. The samplings happened about two weeks after Katrina's Aug. 29 landfall at points west.

"We were looking at water currents at that time and it looked like the currents were moving along the North Florida coast," Puz explained.

NOAA plans to release results of tests checking for dangerous contaminants DDT and PCBs, as well as troublesome bacteria such as E. coli, shortly. It used 13 sampling sites from south of Pensacola to the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana.

The federal agency has already posted results of its first Katrina gulf survey, which focused on oil compounds.

Sampling bile from Atlantic croakers and a juvenile bigeye tuna, NOAA researchers concluded the fish showed no "elevated exposure" to oil or petroleum pollution.

Scientists also reported little or no debris in the water, though it remains a hazard to watch for, a Destin charter boat crewman indicated.

Pescador III went out about three days after Katrina passed and has fished plenty since.

"There's been lumber and stuff like that," said Inan Smith, first mate aboard the boat. "Big pilings that you could barely see."

Other floating obstacles included trash cans and a capsized boat.

"We saw debris out there," Smith continued. "It came off, mostly, beach houses ... You just had to watch where you were going."

To see more of the Northwest Florida Daily News -- including its homes, jobs, cars and other classified listings -- or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nwfdailynews.com.

Link to site: Fishery disaster declarations for the Louisiana coast following hurricanes Katrina and Rita could result in federal help to rebuild the state’s seafood industry.

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Highlights:
- U.S. secretary of commerce announced a fishery failure in Louisiana and Texas
- damages to the seafood industry at more than $1 billion from Hurricane Katrina.
- a “virtual fishery shutdown” in Louisiana and other states due to major flooding, damage to fishing boats and fishing ports, waterways clogged with debris and closed processing plants.
Laura McKnight, NYT Regional Newspapers, October 10. 2005
HOUMA -- Fishery disaster declarations for the Louisiana coast following hurricanes Katrina and Rita could result in federal help to rebuild the state’s seafood industry.

The U.S. secretary of commerce announced a fishery failure in Louisiana and Texas following Hurricane Rita, and the same for Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and parts of Florida after Hurricane Katrina. The department declares a “fishery failure” when a natural disaster significantly harms an area’s fishing industry, shutting it down for a period of time, said Susan Buchanan with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service public affairs.

The declaration sends Congress a message that the fishing industry in that region received major damages, and the commerce department believes federal aid would be appropriate, Buchanan said.

Hurricane-recovery bills working their way through the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives include measures to direct federal money to Louisiana to rebuild seafood-industry infrastructure.

Preliminary estimates by Louisiana economists place damages to the seafood industry at more than $1 billion from Hurricane Katrina.

Terrebonne and Lafourche fishing industries have an annual economic impact of millions of dollars, said David Bourgeois, a local fisheries agent with the LSU AgCenter.

In Lafourche, the wildlife and fisheries industry makes an annual $32 million impact, Bourgeois said, with shrimp contributing about $15 million, crabbing $5 million, finfish $4.5 million, and oysters $2 million.

In Terrebonne, the industry creates an annual $70 million impact. Shrimping makes an impact of about $27 million, oyster fishing $8 million, crabbing $8 million and commercial finfish $6 million.

The hurricanes hit the southern-most communities hardest, damaging many fishermen’s homes, as well as seafood processors and docks. The state’s oyster beds remain shut down. Shrimpers and other fishermen just started venturing back on the water, and docks just began re-opening late last week.

The federal government declared a fishery failure for Louisiana after Hurricane Rita due to major flooding and fishery-infrastructure damage.

“Hurricane Rita has added to the difficulties of fishing communities in Louisiana and Texas,” Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a news release.

Gutierrez declared a fishery failure in the Gulf of Mexico Sept. 9, following Hurricane Katrina, in response to a “virtual fishery shutdown” in Louisiana and other states due to major flooding, damage to fishing boats and fishing ports, waterways clogged with debris and closed processing plants.

Though the extent of the damage to Gulf fishing industries is not yet known, fishing in the region was essentially halted after the Aug. 29 storm.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies are still assessing Hurricane Katrina’s impacts to the actual seafood, said Buchanan, and started more tests after Hurricane Rita. Preliminary test results show no contamination of seafood or water from oil, the agency’s main concern, said Buchanan. Results from other tests are pending, she said.

Link to site: Hurricane Katrina battered six of the nation's most seriously polluted hazardous waste sites. Now the effects of Hurricane Rita on five other "Superfund" sites are causing even more concern.

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Highlights:
- State and federal authorities still haven't finished analyzing test results from sites flooded by the hurricanes.
- Inspectors who visited the sites after the storms saw either minor damage or none at all
- But environmental experts worry that floodwaters have seeped into contaminated soils, potentially spreading toxic chemicals over a wide area or depositing them in streams and aquifers used for drinking water.
- Only the most heavily poisoned real estate earns a place on the EPA's Superfund high-priority list, which today includes more than 1,000 sites.
Traci Watson, USA TODAY Mon Oct 10, 2005
Hurricane Katrina battered six of the nation's most seriously polluted hazardous waste sites. Now the effects of Hurricane Rita on five other "Superfund" sites are causing even more concern.
State and federal authorities still haven't finished analyzing test results from sites flooded by the hurricanes. Some waste sites that Katrina roared through on Aug. 29 were hit again, often harder, by Rita about a month later.

Inspectors who visited the sites after the storms saw either minor damage or none at all, says Thomas Dunn, acting chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's solid waste division. But environmental experts worry that floodwaters have seeped into contaminated soils, potentially spreading toxic chemicals over a wide area or depositing them in streams and aquifers used for drinking water.

At many sites, "with this flooding there's the potential for ... groundwater to be contaminated and waste to be disrupted to the point that an additional remedy would be needed," says Wilma Subra, head of an environmental consulting firm in New Iberia, La.

Only the most heavily poisoned real estate earns a place on the EPA's Superfund high-priority list, which today includes more than 1,000 sites. Properties on the list are eligible for federal cleanup funds and usually require several years and millions of dollars to fix.

The region struck by the two storms is one of America's most industrialized and polluted zones, dubbed "Cancer Alley" for the variety of cancer-causing chemicals produced and emitted by local facilities. Oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico helped spawn a boom in refineries and chemical plants along the coasts of Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi.

Many of the Superfund sites suffering damage from Katrina and Rita are tied to the petroleum or chemical industries. They include dumping grounds for byproducts of well drilling, maintenance yards for barges and storage depots for oil. Some have been cleaned up and removed from the Superfund list, though they are still monitored.

Among the most common chemicals once found at the sites:

•Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are found in coal, creosote and tar. These chemicals can impair immune systems and cause cancer in lab animals.

•Barium, an ingredient in lubricants for drilling rigs. It can damage the heart, liver and kidney.

•Benzene, widely used in the chemical industry to make plastics and other materials. It causes cancer and damages bone marrow.

The EPA often decides that it would be unnecessary or too expensive to haul away every last bit of toxic sludge and sediment from a Superfund site. In such cases, the waste is often partially treated and then buried beneath a "cap" of clean soil or other materials.

Such caps were in place at a number of the Superfund sites damaged by Katrina and Rita. That has led to worries that floodwaters may have eaten through to create an outlet for the buried materials.

A disrupted cap will provide some protection but may need to be shored up, says environmental consultant Dan Mueller, a board member of the Air & Waste Management Association.

"A cap is designed to keep rainwater from infiltrating whatever material you're protecting," he says. "Certainly they're not designed for catastrophic flooding."

The Agriculture Street Landfill in New Orleans, for example, was inundated for weeks by floodwaters unleashed by Katrina. The site served as a dumping ground for garbage and construction debris starting in 1910 and took in the detritus from Hurricane Betsy's pummeling of New Orleans in 1965.

But the site also includes a school and a neighborhood housing 1,000 people, all built on top of contaminated soil capped with a thick layer - 5 feet in some places - of clean dirt. Activists worry that the cap may have been compromised.

Remaining contaminants "could've spread to other neighborhoods ... and it could've spread contaminants right into living quarters," says Darryl Malek Wiley, the Sierra Club's New Orleans representative. "I would hope that they finally just relocate people out of the area."

Subra has visited more than a half-dozen of the Louisiana sites - she declines to say how she gained access - and says she saw evidence of disturbed caps at three. One of them was Gulf Coast Vacuum Services in Vermilion Parish, which was hard hit by Rita.

"People drink from wells all the way around the site," Subra says. "We'll need EPA to go in and evaluate the cap, evaluate the status of the waste and evaluate the wells around it."

Link to site: Lack of warnings likened to 9/11 air safety notices

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Highlights:
- The Bush administration was accused Thursday by senators in both parties of minimizing health hazards
- Samples of floodwater and sediment in the Gulf Region have shown high levels of bacteria, fecal contamination, metals, fuel oils, arsenic and lead.
- Though EPA officials have warned of serious health hazards from the region's floodwaters and sediment, they haven't taken a position
Lack of warnings likened to 9/11 air safety notices
JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration was accused Thursday by senators in both parties of minimizing health hazards from the toxic soup left by Hurricane Katrina, just as they said it did with air pollution in New York from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

More than a month after the storm, Environmental Protection Agency officials said 1 million people lack clean drinking water in New Orleans. About 70 million tons of hazardous waste remains on the Gulf Coast.

Samples of floodwater and sediment in the Gulf Region have shown high levels of bacteria, fecal contamination, metals, fuel oils, arsenic and lead. Air monitoring has shown high levels of ethylene and glycol. EPA said the results are "snapshots" that can quickly change.

Though EPA officials have warned of serious health hazards from the region's floodwaters and sediment, they haven't taken a position on New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin's aggressive push to reopen the city.

"EPA may not be providing people with the clear information they need," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "EPA should be clear about the actual risks when people return to the affected areas for more than one day."

A week ago, on a visit to the Gulf Coast, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson stopped short of judging Nagin's plan to allow certain New Orleans residents and business people home. Johnson said it created numerous potential health concerns, and the agency is "very concerned about the opening of those parts of the city."

Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee also were skeptical of post-Katrina work being done by EPA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. The committee's chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., expressed skepticism about the two-page government handouts on environmental and public health risks that EPA helped compile.

"It bothers me a little bit," Inhofe said. "How many people are going to see the report?"

EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock said thousands of copies are being delivered door-to-door, at relief centers and other public places.

Peacock did acknowledge "room for improvement" in handling the Katrina cleanup and recovery. Agency workers first helped save 800 people's lives, then shifted to contaminant monitoring before focusing on long-range cleanups. "We've been through a sprint, and now we're staging a marathon," he said.

Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., called the government's response to Katrina "apparent chaos."

Some recalled the Bush administration's response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when the White House directed EPA officials to minimize the health risk posed by the cloud of smoke from the World Trade Center collapse.

Within 10 days of the attacks, EPA issued five news releases reassuring the public about air quality without testing for contaminants such as PCBs and dioxin.

It was only nine months later — after workers cleaning up the debris and residents of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn exhibited respiratory ailments — that EPA could point to any scientific evidence, saying then that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels.

Link to site: safe drinking water has been restored to New Orleans' east bank, west of the Industrial Canal.

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Highlights:
- the official regulatory agency for the state of Louisiana, certified the water quality
- safe water use on the West Bank following Hurricane Katrina.
Source: Mayor's Office
NEW ORLEANS — Mayor C. Ray Nagin today announced that safe drinking water has been restored to New Orleans' east bank, west of the Industrial Canal.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, the official regulatory agency for the state of Louisiana, certified the water quality, the Mayor's Office said in a release.

This complements the safe water use on the West Bank following Hurricane Katrina. Today's news of safe water use is a strong push for the Mayor's vision to bring New Orleans back.

Link to site: NOAA Office of Response and Restoration will be on the scene for a year or more responding

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Highlights:
- more than a thousand pollution reports have been received along the coastal waters of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
- positioning NOAA-trained "Scientific Support Teams" in each of the joint federal-state agency command posts
- how to deal with numerous sunken or grounded vessels which may be carrying potential pollutants

NOAA Magazine, NOAA Home Page Oct. 6, 2005 — Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have passed, but the NOAA Office of Response and Restoration will be on the scene for a year or more responding to the challenges faced in cleaning up the hazardous chemical and oil spills generated by the storms' destructive powers. "In terms of over-all impact, these two hurricanes have created the largest incidents to which NOAA has ever responded," notes David Kennedy, director of the NOAA Office of Response and Restoration.

As a consequence of Katrina and Rita, more than a thousand pollution reports have been received along the coastal waters of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. This includes five designated as major (spills greater than 100,000 gallons) and five classified as medium (spills between 10,000 and 50,000 gallons). Prioritizing oil spills in the region is vital. It is likely that the long-term affects to the heavily populated Gulf Coast will be tremendous.

NOAA, along with the EPA, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard, has been working, since the passage of the hurricanes, to assist in coordinating response and restoration efforts by positioning NOAA-trained "Scientific Support Teams" in each of the joint federal-state agency command posts established in Alexandria and Baton Rouge Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Austin and Houston, Texas.

The NOAA teams, including staff from the NOAA's Office of Coast Survey and the National Geodetic Survey, provide a broad range of scientific and technical expertise and data. This information has been useful to the U.S. Coast Guard in making determinations of where and when to open navigational passageways to both emergency and commercial traffic.

Even before Katrina hit land, NOAA employees were preparing for its effects. NOAA's Scientific Support Coordinators provided critical infrastructure assessments, discussed possible points of impact and began pre-storm staging of critical personnel in the region. (Click NOAA image for larger view of oil slick seen from a NOAA helicopter in Breton Sound, La., after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Click here for high resolution version. Please credit “NOAA.”)

In addition to personnel expertise, NOAA has been applying the latest technology in assisting officials making critical determinations on when responders can enter potentially dangerous areas. Through coordinated use of remote sensing and aerial photography, NOAA field teams have been able to produce maps of flooded areas as well as situation maps of pollution incidents and salvage operations.

One of the innovative technologies being applied is combining LIDAR (airborne laser used to measure topography) and satellite imagery to create maps of flooding in New Orleans. NOAA is assisting in tracking the progress in removing water from the flooded areas, as well as identifying location of contaminant spills and condition of critical energy industry infrastructure through various mapping techniques.

NOAA is conducting a systematic review of the petroleum facilities from the Galveston area on the west to as far east as Pensacola, Fla. Nearly 25 percent of the nation's oil and gas resources come from the region. NOAA's scientific support teams will be advising the U.S. Coast Guard on ways to control and clean up spills throughout the region, and ensuring that additional damage to the environment does not occur during the clean-up.

Among the other challenges facing responders is how to deal with numerous sunken or grounded vessels which may be carrying potential pollutants. Priority will be given to salvage efforts dealing with those posing the greatest pollution and navigational threats. (Click NOAA image for larger view of boats washed ashore in Bayou La Batre, Ala., after Hurricane Katrina roared across the U.S. Gulf Coast. Click here for high resolution version. Please credit “NOAA.”)

NOAA efforts reflect a federal response aimed at restoring the economic lifeline of the region. A NOAA-sponsored National Ocean Economics Program study, using 2003 Bureau of Labor statistics, shows that in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama 59 percent of the employment in the natural resource and mining sector, which includes oil and gas production, comes from the 80 counties most severely impacted by the storm.

"The NOAA commitment to the region will be long-lasting," notes William Conner, chief of the NOAA Hazardous Materials Response Division. "We have people in the impact zone and around the country working seven days a week to support and evaluate hazardous material spills."

Once spills are identified, prioritized and clean-up begins, NOAA's second response component begins as the NOAA Damage Assessment and Restoration Program, created after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, begins its work.

The program provides permanent expertise within NOAA to assess and restore natural resources injured by oil and hazardous substance releases as well as physical impacts, such as ship groundings.

DARP brings a multidisciplinary team of biologists, economists, attorneys, and policy analysts to work with other designated federal and state co-trustees to assess and quantify injuries; develop and evaluate restoration alternatives and implement restoration projects.

"The scope of the damage in the area is enormous," says Pat Montanio, chief of the NOAA Damage Assessment Center. "NOAA and its fellow trustees will need to assess both the short-term and long-term impacts to the sensitive ecosystems along this valuable coastline. As that process moves forward, we will make the determinations necessary, with both state and public input and guidance, on how best to proceed in restoring this environment with projects that will benefit both their communities and the natural resources of the region."

The Office of Response and Restoration is part of the NOAA Ocean Service, which is dedicated to exploring, understanding, conserving and restoring the nation's coasts and oceans. The NOAA Ocean Service balances environmental protection with economic prosperity in fulfilling its mission of promoting safe navigation, supporting coastal communities, sustaining coastal habitats and mitigating coastal hazards.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources.

Link to site: Bush administration accused of covering up health dangers after Katrina

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Highlights:
- 1 million people lack clean drinking water around New Orleans.
- Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee also were skeptical of post-Katrina work being done by EPA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers.
- recalled the Bush administration’s response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when the White House directed EPA officials to minimize the health risk posed by the cloud of smoke from the World Trade Center collapse
- Within 10 days of those attacks, EPA issued five news releases reassuring the public about air quality without testing for contaminants such as PCBs and dioxin. It was only nine months later — after respiratory ailments began showing up in workers cleaning up the debris and residents of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn — that EPA could point to any scientific evidence, saying then that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels.


Ap Associated press, Oct. 6, 2005
Bush administration accused of covering up health dangers after Katrina
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration was accused Thursday by senators in both parties of minimizing health hazards from the toxic soup left by Hurricane Katrina, just as they said it did with air pollution in New York from the Sept. 11 attacks.

More than a month after the storm, compounded by Hurricane Rita, Environmental Protection Agency officials said 1 million people lack clean drinking water around New Orleans. Some 70 million tons of hazardous waste remain on the Gulf Coast.

While EPA officials have warned of serious health hazards from bacteria, chemicals and metals in the region’s floodwaters and sediment, they haven’t taken a position on New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s aggressive push to reopen the city.

“EPA may not be providing people with the clear information they need,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. “EPA should be clear about the actual risks when people return to the affected areas for more than one day.”

Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee also were skeptical of post-Katrina work being done by EPA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers.

“The people of New Orleans need to feel safe, need to feel like there’s a plan,” said Sen. David Vitter, R-La.

High levels of toxins
The committee’s chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., expressed skepticism about the two-page government handouts on environmental and public health risks that EPA helped compile.

“It bothers me a little bit,” Inhofe said. “How many people are going to see the report?”

EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock said thousands of copies are being delivered door-to-door, at relief centers and other public places.

But Peacock acknowledged “room for improvement” in handling the Katrina cleanup and recovery. Agency workers first helped save 800 people’s lives, he said, shifted to contaminant monitoring and then began focusing on long-range cleanups.

“We’ve been through a sprint, and now we’re staging a marathon,” he said. EPA is now assessing 54 Superfund toxic waste sites in the paths of Katrina and Rita. So far, Peacock said, there have been no signs of chemicals released or ruptures in the waste containers.

Samples of floodwater and sediment in the Gulf Region have shown high levels of bacteria, fecal contamination, metals, fuel oils, arsenic and lead. Air monitoring has shown high levels of ethylene and glycol. EPA said the results are “snapshots” that can quickly change.

Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., called the government’s response to Katrina “apparent chaos.”

Both he and Boxer recalled the Bush administration’s response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when the White House directed EPA officials to minimize the health risk posed by the cloud of smoke from the World Trade Center collapse. Within 10 days of those attacks, EPA issued five news releases reassuring the public about air quality without testing for contaminants such as PCBs and dioxin. It was only nine months later — after respiratory ailments began showing up in workers cleaning up the debris and residents of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn — that EPA could point to any scientific evidence, saying then that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels.

“I hope that we’re not seeing history repeat itself,” said Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.

Link to site: Tests showing that the water isn't as toxic as was once feared

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Highlights:
- water samples were taken in the canals before they were actually pumped into Lake Pontchartrain,
- After 48 hours in the water, all of the fish survived. Only one of the 12 invertebrate test samples had more than a 50 percent mortality rate when exposed to a solution of 39 percent flood water,
- more recent testing came back with better results

AMY WOLD and MIKE DUNNE, Advocate staff writers
More testing on the flood water being pumped out of New Orleans seems to confirm earlier tests showing that the water isn't as toxic as was once feared, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

On Tuesday, DEQ released results of recent biotoxicity tests done in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. These tests involve placing aquatic invertebrates and fish in floodwater samples being pumped from New Orleans. The water samples were taken in the canals before they were actually pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, Chris Piehler, a senior environmental scientist at DEQ, said.

After 48 hours in the water, all of the fish survived. Only one of the 12 invertebrate test samples had more than a 50 percent mortality rate when exposed to a solution of 39 percent flood water, Piehler said.

Two additional samples showed a 50 percent mortality rate with a water sample that was 100 percent flood water, he said.

However, more recent testing came back with better results. "The ones we found problems with previously have been retested and came back OK," Piehler said.

These tests are part of ongoing sampling of the water in Lake Pontchartrain, including parts of the north shore and the south shore, which is closer to where the pump water is being placed.

On Tuesday, DEQ also announced plans for future testing of Lake Pontchartrain waters and aquatic life.

DEQ and other agencies will sample fish from Lake Pontchartrain to make sure contamination in the water and sediment pumped from flooded sections of the city have not make aquatic life inedible, Piehler said.

It may be two to three weeks before those tests results come back.

So far, chemical contamination has not been a widespread problem, he said.

There are some toxic hot spots, such as near Murphy Oil in Meraux, where a tank spilled, coating about 1,000 homes with oil-contaminated water and sediments, Piehler said.

In some spots, including Claiborne Avenue and Audubon Boulevard in New Orleans, pesticides were found in the sediment samples. Many of the pesticides found, such as chlordane, Dieldrin and DDT, are banned.

Piehler said pesticides at those levels are not a concern unless someone ingests them "for long periods of time."

But he said it's notable that the pesticides were found even though they have been banned.

Water in the area continues to test high for coliform bacteria, which indicates the presence of sewage or animal fecal matter.

Residents returning home should use "good hygiene" when exposed to the mud and water left behind the hurricanes.

"Don't get it on you, and if you do, just wash off very carefully," Piehler said.

Those cleaning up need to take plenty of clean drinking water, he added. Much of the water available in the once-flooded areas is still unsafe to drink, he said.

Link to site: Teams collected sediment samples at 10 locations in St. Bernard Parish and six locations in lower Plaquemines Parish

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Highlights:
- Bacteriological analyses of individual private well water supplies in the Livingston area and drinking water from public water systems in Kinder have begun
- Flood water was sampled
- inspect area drinking water systems

Household hazardous waste collection efforts continue in three parishes (St. Tammany, Jefferson, Lafourche Parishes).  Additional programs are planned for Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes as soon as staging locations can be identified and approved by local officials.   Currently, 13 additional Parishes including Beauregard, Cameron, Vermillion, Calcasieu, Jefferson Davis, Iberia, Lafayette, Assumption, Terrebonne, Acadia, St. Mary, St. James, and St. Charles are scheduled to create household collection programs.

Teams collected sediment samples at 10 locations in St. Bernard Parish and six locations in lower Plaquemines Parish. Bacteriological analyses of individual private well water supplies in the Livingston area and drinking water from public water systems in Kinder have begun and will continue for several weeks. Teams collected five outfall water samples and recorded water quality readings at pump stations in Plaquemines Parish.

Flood water was sampled in the lower 9th Ward in Orleans Parish and Orleans Parish canals as part of our on-going water quality assessment program.  EPA and Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals continue to inspect area drinking water systems.  Of the 1,591 public water supply systems damaged by hurricanes in Louisiana: 1,151 are operating without a boil water advisory; 186 are operating under boil water advisories; 82 are not operating, 13 remain closed, and additional information is needed from 159 systems.

EPA and LDEQ completed 38 inspections of sites in southwest Louisiana.  Teams inspected 14 facilities, including wastewater treatment plants, in Tangipahoa and Lafourche parishes.  Underground storage tank teams conducted reconnaissance at 32 facilities.

Link to site: Fish samples collected from coastal and offshore marine waters of the Gulf of Mexico two weeks after Hurricane Katrina show no elevated exposure to contaminants related to oil

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Highlights:
- NOAA will continue to collect and test samples over the next two months to monitor for changes due to releases of contaminants and as water is once again pumped out of the streets of New Orleans after floods caused by Hurricane Rita.
- Results from the first limited round of tests show that the water quality and fish in the Gulf of Mexico do not now indicate an elevated presence of hydrocarbons due to oil.
- collect samples from shallower waters of the Mississippi Sound and into Lake Pontchartrain


Sept. 29, 2005 — Fish samples collected from coastal and offshore marine waters of the Gulf of Mexico two weeks after Hurricane Katrina show no elevated exposure to contaminants related to oil, announced NOAA. These results are just one part of contaminant testing of Gulf water and fish currently underway at NOAA. Additional results on potential exposure to bacteria, pesticides and other toxic chemicals will be available within days, and additional testing on shrimp samples from Mississippi Sound is ongoing.

NOAA will continue to collect and test samples over the next two months to monitor for changes due to releases of contaminants and as water is once again pumped out of the streets of New Orleans after floods caused by Hurricane Rita.
"As people in the Gulf region begin to rebuild their lives and return to work, NOAA will continue to monitor the effects of the hurricanes on seafood and coastal water safety," said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "Results from the first limited round of tests show that the water quality and fish in the Gulf of Mexico do not now indicate an elevated presence of hydrocarbons due to oil. We expect to have results from pesticide and chemical tests in the coming days."

NOAA's environmental impact research is part of a government-wide effort to keep the American people safe and to help stabilize the region's economy in the aftermath of the Gulf hurricanes. The area is known for its valuable seafood production and coastal way of life.

Agency scientists conducted the research cruise aboard the NOAA research vessel Nancy Foster September 13 to 16. The vessel sailed from Pensacola, Fla., along the coastlines of Alabama and Mississippi, and then around the southern tip of Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River and back. During the cruise, oceanographers, toxicologists and microbiologists collected water, fish and sediment samples to determine whether Hurricane Katrina resulted in elevated levels of contaminants in the ocean.

"We will continue to monitor the environment and fish and shellfish to assure the public that the seafood supply is healthy," said Bill Hogarth, director of NOAA Fisheries Service.

The samples were flown to one of NOAA's premier toxicology labs in Seattle, Wash., as soon as the ship returned to port in Pensacola on Friday, Sept. 16. Last week, the samples were prepared and tested for a variety of chemical contaminants, such as polycyclic aromatic compounds, which are typically absorbed by marine life in areas impacted by oil spills. The samples also were tested for a number of harmful bacteria, and the results of those tests will be made available as soon as the analyses are complete.

NOAA also has contracted with the owner of the Patricia Jean, a commercial shrimp vessel, to collect samples from shallower waters of the Mississippi Sound and into Lake Pontchartrain. NOAA scientists aboard the Patricia Jean will continue to collect water, fish and sediment samples. Both the Patricia Jean and the Nancy Foster are in the Gulf of Mexico conducting follow-up surveys this week.

NOAA also is conducting a comprehensive analysis of fishing infrastructure damage caused by the hurricanes. The agency has teams surveying the region's fishing fleets, seafood processing plants, fish markets and bait shops. The survey will take months to complete, although NOAA will release preliminary information as it becomes available.

NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to protecting and preserving our nation's living marine resources and their habitats through scientific research, management and enforcement. NOAA Fisheries Service provides effective stewardship of these resources for the benefit of the nation, supporting coastal communities that depend upon them, and helping to provide safe and healthy seafood to consumers and recreational opportunities for the American public.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources.

Link to site: Nothing to match the alarming predictions that the floodwater could alter the habitat of the lake permanently and damage the fisheries that depend on it

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Highlights:
- there is no "toxic soup" in Lake Pontchartrain.
- most damage so far seemed to come from the hurricane itself, rather than from the floodwaters being pumped out of New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, October 3, 2005 (ENS) - Pumps set up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been working 24/7 for weeks to remove the flood waters from New Orleans' streets left in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Now the job is close to completion.

....
Initial water samples from 24 sites in Lake Pontchartrain show higher-than-normal bacteria after Hurricane Katrina, but nothing to match the alarming predictions that the floodwater could alter the habitat of the lake permanently and damage the fisheries that depend on it, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality said.

Carlton Dufrechou, director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, said there is no "toxic soup" in Lake Pontchartrain. The lake can recover from the damage caused by bacteria, toxins, pesticides and metals being pumped out of the city into the lake, state environmental officials said last week at a briefing on the lake's status.

Al Hindrichs, water quality coordinator for the Louisiana Environmental Quality Department, said most damage so far seemed to come from the hurricane itself, rather than from the floodwaters being pumped out of New Orleans. The biggest hits to the lake seem confined to the shore areas, officials said. Fish kills were found on the north shore because of low oxygen levels, not toxins or oils, Hindrichs said.

The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau points hopefully to those who are optimistic that most of New Orleans could be "safely resettled in a few months."

Crews from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been conducting sampling continued on flood, outfall, and surface water, and sediment in the New Orleans area.

EPA's soil and sediment sampling in affected areas along the Gulf Coast is scheduled to begin today. EPA's ocean water testing vessel, the Bold, is surveying the waters of the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico in the plume of the Mississippi River.

There are 15 Superfund sites in the hurricane Katrina-affected area of Louisiana, six in Alabama and three in Mississippi. Initial assessments have been conducted on these sites. The EPA is still in the assessment phase, and will continue to monitor all the impacted Superfund sites. Water and sediment samples have been collected at the Agriculture Street site.

Many drinking water facilities have been damaged by the storms. The EPA says in Louisiana, there are a total of 1,591 drinking water facilities that served approximately five million people. As of Friday, EPA crews have determined that 378 of these facilities are operational, 80 are operating on a boil water notice, 32 are not operating. Further information is being gathered on 1,101 of the facilties, but the EPA says most of these are in unaffected areas.

In Mississippi, there are a total of 1,368 drinking water facilities that served some 3.2 million people. EPA has determined that 1,253 of these facilities are operational, 79 are operating on a boil water notice and 36 are inoperable. It should be noted that operational facilities may still be in need of repair or reconstruction. EPA's Water program is continuing to assess all drinking water plants in the affected area.

In the Louisiana affected area, there are a total of 173 public owned wastewater treatment Works. As of Thursday, the EPA determined that 140 of these facilities are operational and 33 facilities are either not operating or their status is unknown.

In the Mississippi affected area, there are a total of 118 public wastewater facilities. The EPA has determined that 114 of these facilities are operational and four are either not operating or their status is unknown.

In the Alabama affected area, seven facilities are operating and one is not operating. It should be noted that operational facilities may still be in need of repair or reconstruction. EPA's Water program continues to assess wastewater treatment plants in the affected area.

In the heart of the populated, 300,000-acre Louisiana rice growing and milling industry, the Mermentau River Basin is being drained of Hurricane Rita floodwater through two locks, one on either side of the basin.

Fallen superhero lies in the muck of New Orleans' Ninth Ward. (Photo by Patricia Brach courtesy FEMA)
As of Friday, EPA has collected over 50,000 household hazardous waste and orphan containers throughout the affected region. Collection sites are in place in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. EPA personnel are offering technical assistance in the disposal of hazardous waste and other debris left behind by the storm.

The draft Debris Removal Plans for Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, are in final review. The plans will enable federal agencies and the states to comprehensively manage large scale and complex debris.

In Baton Rouge today, Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco plans to meet with local and parish officials from South Louisiana to discuss how the federal government can help local governments get back on their feet after the hurricanes.

Governor Blanco and local officials will discuss amending the Stafford Act to allow the federal government to pay the salaries of critical public safety and other local government employees.

Governor Blanco has said that without federal assistance to pay for restoring critical public services, including law enforcement and public safety, the restoration of many local governments cannot begin.

"Part of getting our communities and our businesses up and running again is having our local governments providing basic services. Every community must have police and fire protection, sewage and water service," said the governor.

"That’s why I’ve asked President [George W.] Bush and congressional leaders to change the rules of the Stafford Act. We need to allow federal aid money to cover more than overtime for public employees.

"Our cities and parishes need to make payroll. They must pay the men and women who provide those basic services," Blanco said. "Changing the Stafford Act will allow them to provide those basic services."

Link to site: The toxic brew of chemicals and human waste in the New Orleans floodwaters will have to be pumped into the Mississippi River or Lake Pontchartrain

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Highlights:
- State and federal agencies have just begun water quality testing
- Gasoline, diesel, anti-freeze, bleach, human waste, acids, alcohols and a host of other substances must be washed out of homes, factories, refineries, hospitals and other buildings.
- "We're not happy about it. But for the sake of civilization and lives, probably the best thing to do is pump the water out,"

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) -- The toxic brew of chemicals and human waste in the New Orleans floodwaters will have to be pumped into the Mississippi River or Lake Pontchartrain, raising the specter of an environmental disaster on the heels of Hurricane Katrina, experts say.

The dire need to rid the drowned city of water could trigger fish kills and poison the delicate wetlands near New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi. (Full story)

State and federal agencies have just begun water quality testing but environmental experts say the vile, stagnant chemical soup that sits in the streets of the city will contain traces of everything imaginable.

"Go home and identify all the chemicals in your house. It's a very long list," said Ivor van Heerden, head of a Louisiana State University center that studies the public health impacts of hurricanes.

"And that's just in a home. Imagine what's in an industrial plant," he said. "Or a sewage plant."

Gasoline, diesel, anti-freeze, bleach, human waste, acids, alcohols and a host of other substances must be washed out of homes, factories, refineries, hospitals and other buildings.

In Metairie, east of New Orleans, the floodwater is tea-colored, murky and smells of burnt sulfur. A thin film of oil is visible in the water.

Those who have waded into it say they could see only about 1 to 2 inches into the depths and that there was significant debris on and below the surface.

Experts said the longer water sat in the streets, the greater the chance gasoline and chemical tanks -- as well as common containers holding anything from bleach to shampoo -- would rupture.

Officials have said it may take up to 80 days to clear the water from New Orleans and surrounding parishes.

Van Heerden and Rodney Mallett, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, say there do not appear to be any choices other than to pump the water into Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, a key maritime spawning ground.

"I don't see how we could treat all that water," Mallett said.

The result could be an second wave of disaster for southern Louisiana, said Harold Zeliger, a Florida-based chemical toxicologist and water quality consultant.

"In effect, it's going to kill everything in those waters," he said.

How much water New Orleans holds is open to question.

Van Heerden estimates it is billions of gallons. LSU researchers will use satellite imagery and computer modeling to get a better fix on the quantity.

Bio-remediation -- cleaning up the water -- would require the time and expense of constructing huge storage facilities, considered an impossibility, especially with the public clamor to get the water out quickly.

Mallett said the Department of Environmental Quality was in the unfortunate position of being responsible for protecting the environment in a situation where that did not seem possible.

"We're not happy about it. But for the sake of civilization and lives, probably the best thing to do is pump the water out," he said.

The water will leave behind more trouble -- a city filled with mold, some of it toxic, the experts said. After other floods, researchers found many buildings had to be stripped back to concrete, or razed.

"If you have a building half full of water, everything above the water is growing mold. When it dries out, the rest grows mold," Zeliger said. "Most of the buildings will have to be destroyed."

Link to site: A bit of good news: The Gulf Coast hasn't seen epidemics of disease.

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Highlights:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Public Health Service and Environmental Protection Agency, rushed experts to the region. They apparently did better coordinating with state and local colleagues than did the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
- Six people died from bacterial infections associated with floodwaters, 30 people got staph infections, rescue workers suffered serious skin infections from floodwater exposure, one infant got whooping cough and many evacuees contracted a digestive illness.
- it's time to pause and tell the public health agencies: Good job.


The ruckus over what went wrong after Hurricane Katrina has overshadowed a bit of good news: The Gulf Coast hasn't seen epidemics of disease.

After the monster storm, conditions in New Orleans were ripe for infectious illnesses spawned by floodwaters, broken sewers and polluted drinking water. Cholera and typhoid only topped a long list of potential horrors. For a time, the floodwaters held E. coli bacteria levels 10 times what's considered safe.

Federal agencies, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Public Health Service and Environmental Protection Agency, rushed experts to the region. They apparently did better coordinating with state and local colleagues than did the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

A key concern was that rescue workers and residents who couldn't leave were at risk from exposure to floodwaters and disease-carrying insects. Some 200,000 evacuees also were sent to 750 shelters in 18 states, creating opportunities for diseases to spread. Health workers were particularly keen on finding tuberculosis patients and ensuring that they got proper medicines.

In an interview with Voice of America, CDC chief Julie Gerberding compared the post-Katrina public health response to international efforts launched after the Indian Ocean tsunami. Health professionals "got in early, they set up the systems to try to prevent these infectious diseases and ultimately were remarkably successful," she explained. "That's what we're trying to do here in this country in the context of the shelters and certainly in the city of New Orleans."

The post-Katrina record so far: Six people died from bacterial infections associated with floodwaters, 30 people got staph infections, rescue workers suffered serious skin infections from floodwater exposure, one infant got whooping cough and many evacuees contracted a digestive illness.

That toll is orders of magnitude less than it might have been. There were fears the public might be exposed to dangerous disease if Katrina damaged biological research labs in the area, but that didn't happen. (Voters might ask why such labs are allowed in a city so vulnerable to natural disasters.)

Health agencies can't relax, as diseases that take time to enter human populations, like West Nile virus, could yet appear. Many New Orleans homes now have mold, which has been linked to several ailments. Experts are studying what toxic chemicals got into the water or soil.

Nevertheless, it's time to pause and tell the public health agencies: Good job.

Link to site: The neighborhoods of St. Bernard Parish reek of oil.

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Highlights:
- An estimated 190,000 barrels, or nearly 8 million gallons of oil spilled into Louisiana's waterways — and into some of its neighborhoods.
- A pair of storage tanks at a Bass Enterprises South facility ruptured, spilling 3.78 million gallons of crude in nearby Plaquemines Parish.


Jennifer Brooks, Gannett News Service
CHALMETTE, La. — The neighborhoods of St. Bernard Parish reek of oil. More than a month after Hurricane Katrina, environmental workers are still struggling to clean up the 50 oil spills along the Gulf Coast. An estimated 190,000 barrels, or nearly 8 million gallons of oil spilled into Louisiana's waterways — and into some of its neighborhoods. For blocks in every direction around the Murphy Oil Corp. facility in Meraux, houses — as many as a thousand of them, according to environmental officials — are marked by dark brown oily bands, where the receding floodwaters mixed with 1.4 million gallons of oil that spilled from a holding tank and into suburban streets and canals.

"It's all oil. You're never going to get that clean," said Sheppard Bowman, who worked at Murphy and lived just a five-minute walk away in Chalmette.

During the storm surge that hit the low-lying parish southeast of New Orleans, water rose to the rafters of the family's one-bedroom bungalow home. Everything below knee level was soaked in oil — thick, viscous, smelly oil that stings the skin and clings to every surface it touches.

It was the last straw for Bowman, his wife Cheryl and their children Eugene, 8, and Emily, 6. The couple pulled a few treasures that had stayed dry in the attic and loaded their truck, ready to settle permanently in Pensacola, Fla., where they had evacuated and where the children are already settled in school.

"We're going to go ahead and start life again," Cheryl Bowman said. "The water wouldn't have been so bad, but the oil is too much."

The oil company took out full-page ads in local newspapers last week, pledging $5 million to help St. Bernard Parish recover from the spill. Some 648,396 gallons of oil have been recovered already and the company's cleanup crews were out Saturday, deploying skimmers in the neighborhood canals, trying to recover even more.

The Bowman's street, Jacob Drive, was covered with sand to prevent cars from skidding on the oil. Cars and trucks had been tossed around yards like tinker toys by the flood surge. The sidewalks were buried beneath a thick crackle-glaze of oil and silt. The grass was dead and the trees were dying.

Down the street, Ray Abney sat in his driveway and cried over the grave he'd just dug for his cat. He'd been clearing debris from his home for three days before coming across the cat, which had been left behind in the rush when his ex-wife evacuated their children. Through the open door of his home, an American flag was peeling slowly away from the mold-covered walls, above a mirror engraved with the greeting, "Home Sweet Home."

"The oil, it just gets into everything," said Abney, a bartender who has no idea what he will do or where he will go next. His collections of rare coins and paper money and his family's genealogy records were all soaked with water and oil.

The Murphy spill wasn't the largest in the state. A pair of storage tanks at a Bass Enterprises South facility ruptured, spilling 3.78 million gallons of crude in nearby Plaquemines Parish.

On Thursday, the Coast Guard reported that most of the spills have been contained and the cleanup efforts are well underway. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality are in the process of collecting and testing soil and water samples from the contaminated areas.

Until test results come in, Richard Greene, EPA administrator for Louisiana, advised the public to take precautions before they came in contact with the polluted soil and residue. Residents have been advised to cover exposed skin and wear heavy boots, gloves and breathing masks before entering their homes.

"It's a matter of common sense in most cases," he said. "If the soil is black, brown and oily, it's petroleum sediment and you should avoid making contact with it."

Link to site: Environmental damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita is unparalleled

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

Highlights:
- Nature is resilient, and most scientists agree that the Louisiana coast will recover
- the Valdez spill was easier to deal with, cleanup and environmental officials say, because it came from a single source and largely stayed in one place.
- One-hundred forty oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were damaged by Katrina

Beth Daley, Boston Globe October 03, 2005
NEW ORLEANS — The environmental damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita is unparalleled in its scope and variety, scientists say, with massive oil spills blanketing marshes, sediment smothering vast fishing grounds, and millions of gallons of raw sewage scattered in New Orleans and along the 400-mile Louisiana coast.

The catastrophe extends from the heart of the Big Easy, where streets, sidewalks, and floors are coated with a thick mud mixed with human waste, to the fringe of protective marshland, sugarcane fields, and citrus groves along the Gulf Coast that are beginning to die from the sea's salty surge. Thousands of acres seem to have been swallowed forever by the ocean.

"This is an unprecedented event in terms of devastation and scale," said Harry Roberts, director of the Louisiana State University's Coastal Studies Institute. He says it will take time to fully evaluate the storms' impact. "It's not like a spill on a river or a beach; you have small channels, canals, towns, levees. Everything here is complicated . . . and it's not a simple environment to assess damage in."

The scope of the cleanup ahead is most evident when seen from a plane. In a three-hour flight, a Globe reporter documented scores of examples of environmental damage from New Orleans 60 miles south: A shrimp boat, one of more than 100 observed tossed on roads and earthen levees, leaking a thin rainbow film of oil into the marsh. Two large white oil-storage tanks, one partially crumpled like a soda can, leaning precariously over the Mississippi River with remnants of its black goo smeared on a nearby beach. Boxcars, barges, and car ferries -- their contents oozing -- piled in canals and along the riverbank. Acres of marsh grass, beaten down by 100-mile-per-hour-plus winds and poisoned by salt water, turning brown.

Nature is resilient, and most scientists agree that the Louisiana coast will recover, as it has after past hurricanes. Oil will evaporate, toxic compounds will be diluted, and fish will return. But it could take several years or longer, and by then fishermen, hunters, and farmers could be ruined, as duck hunting falls off because of the loss of wetlands, crawfish farms fail because of saltwater in ponds, and high salinity in the soil turns rice and cane fields barren. Finding new uses for the land could take years.

"It will always come back to some stable system; we'll have shrimp and oysters again . . . but the shock effect of the change and recovery time could be great," said Paul Coreil, vice chancellor for the Louisiana State University Agriculture Center.

The most immediate concern is more than 8 million gallons of spilled oil in Louisiana -- a total that could grow significantly in coming days as Coast Guard officials continue to survey the spills. Just one Murphy Oil Corp. tank spilled 1.5 million gallons that mixed with sea water and washed into marshes, canals, sewers, and swimming pools over a square mile of the community of Chalmette, southeast of New Orleans. The Exxon Valdez -- until now considered the nation's worst environmental disaster -- poured 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.

Despite the bigger volume, the Valdez spill was easier to deal with, cleanup and environmental officials say, because it came from a single source and largely stayed in one place. In Louisiana, oil has been found seeping from pipes, tanks, and other containers at more than 48 locations. Floodwaters allowed some of it to mix with the contents of underground gas storage tanks and the hazardous contents of thousands of homes and schools, including asbestos, paint thinner, and bleach, complicating the cleanup.

Near the oil spill in Chalmette, a thick sludge coats a cul-de-sac and the tread marks of cars that tried to escape its clutches are visible from 1,500 feet in the air. Katrina's storm surge picked up the Murphy Oil tank and pushed it 30 feet, buckling it and opening a leak. The neighborhood resembles a war zone from Katrina, with roofs blown off and sheds resting on their sides. Through it all, the sheen of oil snakes into canals and a marsh. Federal officials have classified the neighborhood as a "hot zone" -- making it off-limits as they try to scrub oil from sewage pipes and mailboxes, and decide whether the neighborhood is salvageable.

So far, cleanup workers have siphoned or removed more than 2.5 million gallons of oil from marshes, canals, and land that spilled in the biggest leaks. Most of the oil, however, has evaporated or was carried out to the Gulf on Katrina's and Rita's retreating storm surge where it was broken up and diluted, and will eventually biodegrade. Given the circumstances, cleanup officials say, it was far better for the oil to go to sea than to get caught in sensitive marshland.

"It could have been much worse," said Charlie Henry, lead scientific adviser for the Katrina and Rita response for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Response and Restoration. Fewer than 100 birds have been recovered with oil on them, according to a US Fish and Wildlife official, but assessments are not complete.

One-hundred forty oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were damaged by Katrina -- 43 severely, including some that floated away or sank. While oily sheens were reported in the Gulf after Katrina, the amount of oil from platforms and pipelines appears to be negligible, federal officials say. While rigs and pipelines have been reported damaged during Rita -- and some small amounts of oil spills -- no final numbers exist yet.

Many Louisiana fisheries, which produce 15 percent of US seafood and 50 percent of the nation's oysters, are believed to be devastated. Katrina dumped a thick layer of sediment east of the Mississippi Delta that probably smothered oyster beds, and Rita did the same in the western part of the state. Brown and white shrimp that spawn offshore and move inland to live in marshes have had much of their habitat destroyed. Officials say they believe the worst is yet to come: Decaying organic matter that is being stirred up or washed into lakes and the Gulf will probably cause oxygen levels in the water to drop, killing off fish.

In New Orleans, the mess could take years to scrub clean. Federal and state teams are fanning out across the city, looking to identify and plug up thousands of "orphan" 55-gallon drums and barrels that floated out of industrial facilities. The barrels, many with labels peeled off by wind and weather, litter banks of canals and warehouse sites. Worries about breathing in particles released from the muck on the streets eased with Rita's dousing, but as a dry-out occurs, federal officials are sampling air again while residents complain of coughing. More than 22 million tons of debris will have to be disposed of and workers are combing through streets trying to separate hazardous waste from regular debris.

"I'm a glass-is-half-full kind of person, and there is significant environmental impact," said Coast Guard Captain Frank Paskewich, the commander of the New Orleans District who is overseeing the oil spill cleanup. But he said many of the polluted areas have been contained, making them easier to scrub clean. "I am optimistic we are going to mitigate it."

To see more of The Boston Globe, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.boston.com/globe.

Link to site: sampling water, sediments, and fish/shrimp/crab populations. Samples are examined for toxic contaminants, metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides, and pathogens. (e.g. bacteria, viruses)

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

Highlights:
- cruise to sample water, fish/shrimp and sediments from northwest Florida across the northern Gulf of Mexico.
- sample in Mississippi Sound and farther offshore to obtain biological samples for toxics/pathogens.
- sampling for distribution and abundance of fish and shellfish and there will be piggybacking and further directed sampling for toxics and nutrients.

NOAA Ship Nancy Foster 9/13-9/16 2005.
Deployed seaward of barrier islands sampling water, sediments, and fish/shrimp/crab populations. Samples are examined for toxic contaminants, metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides, and pathogens. (e.g. bacteria, viruses)Results/Progress:
• Sep 28, 2005 - NOAA Ship NANCY FOSTER will depart Tampa FL on Wednesday, 28 September
for a cruise to sample water, fish/shrimp and sediments from northwest Florida across the northern Gulf of Mexico. The cruise will last seven days and provide continued monitoring for the presence of toxics and pathogens.
• Sep 16, 2005 - NOAA ship NANCY FOSTER returned to Pensacola FL on 9/16, and offloaded samples and scientific party. Samples for toxic chemicals and pathogens were sent to NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) Seattle for analysis. Samples include 66 Atlantic croaker which will be a sentinel species because of its broad distribution in the region. Some results may be available as soon as Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) and review are complete. Nutrients from water samples are being processed at Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Miami, including CTD, nutrient, plankton and sea water flow-through data.
F/V Patricia Jean 9/13-9/19 2005.
Deployed in Mobile Bay, Mississippi Sound, and Lake Borgne for toxicological studies. Water, sediments, and shrimp samples will be tested for toxic contaminants, metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides, and pathogens.

Results/Progress:
• Sep 26, 2005 - The FV PATRICIA JEAN will depart on/about 9/26 to sample in Mississippi Sound and farther offshore to obtain biological samples for toxics/pathogens. The vessel will also deploy drifters to assist OAR/AOML hydrodynamic modeling. Vessel will sample for 7 days. These cruises are now planned to occur biweekly for the next two months to provide temporal changes in toxics/pathogens.
• Sep 19, 2005 - Chartered FV PATRICIA JEAN returned to Bon Secour, AL on 9/19, offloading scientific samples. The vessel took 70 composite (multiple animal) shrimp samples, sediments and other observations. A description of the sampling locations and some ancillary observations is attached. Samples sent to NWFSC for toxics and pathogens analysis. Sample results will be available under a similar policy with NANCY FOSTER results.

Sep 22, 2005 - The NSF Vessel CAPE HATTERAS is conducting a cruise beginning on/about 9/22 and proceeding from Miami, up the west coast of FL to Louisiana. This short cruise will obtain water samples for Atrazine for NOAA Charleston lab. The cruise will also deploy automated drifters within the loop current to assist in circulation modeling studies.

Sep 26, 2005 - The EPA ship BOLD will initiate a cruise on about 9/26 as a partnership between EPA/NOAA and FDA to occupy e-map sample locations that were last sampled two years ago and to sample for various constituents in the Northern Gulf. This cruise will have an interagency team of scientists looking at broadscale contamination issues. Additional efforts by this collaboration will look to re-occupy “Status and Trends” locations.

NOAA ship GORDON GUNTER will depart Pascagoula, MS for its fall bottom trawl survey 10/9-11/15. This survey will provide broad scale sampling for distribution and abundance of fish and shellfish and there will be piggybacking and further directed sampling for toxics and nutrients.

Link to site: Selling bottled water alongside pricey cups of coffee, well, you can probably stop wondering.

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

Highlights:
- $0.05 will be donated toward Starbucks' goal of contributing $10 million over the next five years to help alleviate the world water crisis.
- the company is offering nickels when you could give dollars instead -- if you got your water from home. As long as you close your eyes to the staggering environmental costs of America's growing obsession with bottled water.
- Over the past 10 years, the brand barons have made bottled water a lifestyle statement and a fashion accessory
- consider kicking the bottled water habit. Get a safe, reusable container and start filling it at home. You may even want to redirect the money you'll save to good causes. Like helping to bring clean water to developing countries.

JAMES PROTZMAN, Chapel Hill News
When a slick new company arrives on the scene with lofty promises of social responsibility, you have to wonder whether there might be a catch. But when that company is in the business of selling bottled water alongside pricey cups of coffee, well, you can probably stop wondering.

As a world-peace kind of guy, I admit I was drawn in by their pitch: "By purchasing Ethos(TM) Water, customers can join a growing community of individuals who are committed to make a difference. For each bottle purchased, $0.05 will be donated toward Starbucks' goal of contributing $10 million over the next five years to help alleviate the world water crisis."

See what I mean? It sounds pretty good, doesn't it? As long as you don't really stop to think. As long as you ignore the fact that the company is offering nickels when you could give dollars instead -- if you got your water from home. As long as you close your eyes to the staggering environmental costs of America's growing obsession with bottled water.

Sure, bottled water can have real value. Just look at the aftermath of Katrina. Or in communities where drinking water is contaminated by chemical pollutants or bacteria. But those situations come nowhere near explaining how bottled water has developed into a $10 billion craze in the United States alone.

The sad fact is, we've been seduced into wanting one more thing we don't need, through aggressive advertising by consumer products companies. Over the past 10 years, the brand barons have made bottled water a lifestyle statement and a fashion accessory, rivaling Nikes and iPods. Why else would anyone pay a thousand times more for a product that can be purchased at home simply by turning on the faucet?

Here in Orange County, nearly 16 million plastic water bottles will be dumped into our landfill this year, despite one of the most effective recycling programs in the nation. That's a million pounds of buried plastic that will last for hundreds of years, shortening the life of our landfill with each and every bottle we dump. And that's just the tip of the environmental iceberg. Don't forget the enormous amount of energy required to produce plastic bottles, which are themselves made from oil and natural gas.

We are blessed in Orange County to have delicious public water delivered by a well-managed organization called OWASA. The water piped into your home is tested more thoroughly and consistently than virtually any bottled water you can buy. And it tastes great. I've done my own taste tests and found I can't tell the difference between OWASA tap water and the bottled water sold in grocery stores. Try it yourself and see.

And once you do, consider kicking the bottled water habit. Get a safe, reusable container and start filling it at home. You may even want to redirect the money you'll save to good causes. Like helping to bring clean water to developing countries.
When future generations look back on the 21st century in America, they will find much to fault. From the disastrous Bush dynasty to our criminal negligence around public health and safety, we are a people who often place looking good and celebrity over common good and equity. And like cigarettes and SUVs, the business of bottled water will be revealed for what it really is -- a marketing scam.

Link to site: Residents will have to put up with a green or brown tint to their tap water for about another week.

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

Highlights:
- it might not look appetizing, the water is safe to drink,
- The discoloration is caused by the increased tannic acid
- they were flushing the system because of the discolored water.

JEFFREY ZERINGUE, Staff Writer Daily Comet
THIBODAUX -- Residents will have to put up with a green or brown tint to their tap water for about another week.
Although it might not look appetizing, the water is safe to drink, Thibodaux Public Works Director Kermit Kraemer said Friday.

The discoloration is caused by the increased tannic acid in Bayou Lafourche from leaf debris, a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, he said.

"If you’ve noticed, the water in the bayou is stained," Kraemer said.

Storm debris storm gets into the drainage systems, which flow into Bayou Lafourche, he said. The water gets discolored from the leaves and is taken in for normal processing.

"We cannot get all of the color out of the water in our normal clarification and filtration process," Kramer said.

The discoloration is most noticeable in North Thibodaux, which is from where most of the more-than-60 calls to the water plant have come, because it is so close to the water plant.

One caller, Gail Keller of North 11th Street, said the discoloration cannot be seen if water is running and draining right away, such as when washing hands. But when she filled her tub Wednesday, it was noticeable.

"I said, ëWhat is that in our water?’ " Keller said. "We’ve been through storms. We’ve been through rain. ... We’ve never seen this before."

Keller said she was concerned about the green water because of health reasons.

"As I filled my white kitchen sink, it was green," said North Sixth Street resident Gwen Adams.

She said city chemist Joe Van Mark tested the discolored water at her home, said it was not a health problem and was OK to drink.

She also said city officials told her they were flushing the system because of the discolored water.

"To me, I don’t know if that was precautionary or a systemwide problem," Adams said.

The system is being flushed to try to move the water through the system faster and dilute the tinted water with water already in the city’s towers, Kraemer said.

"It gets diluted the farther it gets from the plant," Kraemer said.

The public-works director said that because the water is still within EPA guidelines for drinkable water, the city does not have to report it to the federal agency.

"I can’t tell you what it tastes like because I’m not drinking it," said Brian Bergeron, North 13th Street resident.

Kraemer said it would take about a week for the Mississippi River water to dilute the water drained into Bayou Lafourche, which will clear the water. In the meantime, the city will add a little more chlorine and add activated charcoal to the process, which could help a little, he said.

Link to site: Assists small communities by providing training and training-related information and referral services in the areas of wastewater, drinking water, and solid waste

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

Highlights:
- offers numerous free and low-cost products to help individuals and communities learn
- When requesting these materials, please give the product number listed before each item.


NETCSC Assists small communities by providing training and training-related information and referral services in the areas of wastewater, drinking water, and solid waste

NESC Offers Flood, Disaster Related Products
In light of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of coastal areas of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, restoring clean drinking water to the many destroyed small communities is a job almost beyond comprehension. Although less horrendous, much of the inland areas of these states and others have also been affected by flooding. Individuals and communities will likely be faced with correcting the subsequent contamination of private as well as public water supples. It is also imperative that individuals with contaminated private wells and springs contact their local health departments for more information and assistance.

To aid in this effort, the National Environmental Services Center offers numerous free and low-cost products to help individuals and communities learn more about emergency preparedness, emergency response, and potential health effects of water contamination. When requesting these materials, please give the product number listed before each item.

Free from the National Drinking Water Clearinghouse:
DWFSPE57—Emergency Disinfection of Water Supplies
DWBLOM05—Shock Chlorination of Wells and Springs
DWFSPE204—Water for Emergency Use
DWBLMG69—Response Protocol Toolbox: Planning and
responding to drinking water contamination
threats and incidents
DWPKOM59—Emergency Response Planning Pack (ERPP)
DWBLPE58—Water Testing
DWBLPE97—Water Testing Scams
DWFSPE140—Bacteriological Contamination of Drinking Water
DWBLPE183—Mycrobacteria: Drinking Water Fact Sheet
DWBLPE112—Interpreting Drinking Water Quality Analysis:
What do the numbers mean?
DWCDMG64—Emergency Response Tabletop Exercises for
Drinking Water and Wastewater Systems

From the National Small Flows Clearinghouse:
SFPLNL30—How to keep your Water “well” $0.40
SFPLNL06—Wastewater treatment protects small
community life, health $0.40
GNBKGN12—Community-based environmental protection—
A Resource Book for Protecting Ecosystems and Communities (Book on CD-Rom) $10.00
SFPLNL11—Basic wastewater characteristics $0.40

From the National Environmental Training Center for Small Communities:
TRBLGN25—Emergency Response Planning Resources for
Small Water and Wastewater Utilities $2.55
TRBLGN26—Emergency Response Plan Guidance for Small
and Medium Community Systems $8.00
TRPMCD62—Due Diligence—Small Water System Security $32.00
TRPMCD56—Preparing for the Unexpected: Security for
Small Water Systems $39.80
TRBKMG03—Protecting Your Community’s Assets: A Guide
for Small Wastewater Systems $15.00
TRCDMG05—(CD-Rom Version) $10.00

To order any of these publication, please contact NESC at (800) 624-8301, e-mail info@mail.nesc.wvu.edu, or fax to (304) 293-3161. If you have questions, our technical staff is available to help you with your water and wastewater needs.

Link to site: Facilities that provide 2.3 million people with drinking water and that treat wastewater for 1.8 million people are still inoperable

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

Highlights:
- 20 percent of drinking water systems and 10 percent of wastewater facilities remain out of commission.
- "It's not the sexiest hearing, but I think it's one of the most important hearings," said Committee Chair Joe Barton, R-Texas.
- "We don't need someone to tell us we must comply, but rather we need the help and know-how to fix the problem."


Brian P. Nanos, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
Sep. 30--WASHINGTON -- One month after Hurricane Katrina struck Mississippi, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that facilities that provide 2.3 million people with drinking water and that treat wastewater for 1.8 million people are still inoperable, a top EPA official said Thursday.

Marcus Peacock told a House subcommittee investigating the environmental impacts of the hurricane that about 20 percent of drinking water systems and 10 percent of wastewater facilities remain out of commission. He said the EPA has placed mobile labs in Mississippi and Louisiana to provide water testing.

"It's not the sexiest hearing, but I think it's one of the most important hearings," said Committee Chair Joe Barton, R-Texas.

Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre submitted written testimony with Pontotoc Mayor William Rutledge, but did not appear before the committee.

Testifying via teleconference on behalf of the National Rural Water Association, Rutledge cited Bay St. Louis as an example of the effects Katrina had on Coast communities.

Rutledge said the water system in Bay St. Louis is back up and working. However, local city officials are still telling people to boil their drinking water because they believe the system to be fragile and prone to leaks, he said.

Rutledge called on the committee to get Congress to provide technical assistance and equipment. He said environmental regulation would be neither required nor appropriate.

"Communities know the water is not safe long before it is declared not in compliance, and no one wants to restore safe water more than the local officials," he said. "We don't need someone to tell us we must comply, but rather we need the help and know-how to fix the problem."

Link to site: The first samples of fish taken from the Gulf of Mexico two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck showed no exposure to spilled oil,

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

Highlights:
- Water and sediment samples taken off the Florida Panhandle, meanwhile, also showed little effect from Katrina,
- about 8 million gallons of oil were released by the storm - onshore and offshore Louisiana, including pipelines and drilling platforms.
- The long-term environmental harm from Katrina and Rita may take years to measure.
- Other hurricane-related issues NOAA will consider include loss of wetlands and the effects of saltwater intrusion and oil pollution in those areas


GARRY MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer September 30. 2005
The first samples of fish taken from the Gulf of Mexico two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck showed no exposure to spilled oil, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.

Water and sediment samples taken off the Florida Panhandle, meanwhile, also showed little effect from Katrina, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.

NOAA scientists aboard a ship conducted the fish testing on a voyage from Pensacola, Fla., to an area southwest of New Orleans. Additional testing for exposure to other contaminants continues.

Some oily sheens were reported in the gulf after Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Russ Tippets in Baton Rouge said about 8 million gallons of oil were released by the storm - onshore and offshore Louisiana, including pipelines and drilling platforms.

He said a lot of it was contained at the storage facilities. Almost 2 million gallons evaporated, he said, but about a million gallons could not be recovered.

Tippets said no spills have been reported as a result of Hurricane Rita's hit on Texas and southwest Louisiana.

The Florida study done off Panama City Beach indicated that Mississippi River water had not moved into the gulf in that area, about 100 miles east of the Florida-Alabama state line.

Conservation Commission officials said in a news release that Hurricane Rita affected surface currents in the southeast gulf, probably diluting contaminated water flowing out of the Mississippi after Katrina.

More NOAA tests are planned as the toxic floodwaters pumped out of New Orleans seep into the waterways that drain into the gulf. The long-term environmental harm from Katrina and Rita may take years to measure.
But Ted Cleveland, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Houston, said the long-term harm is "probably less than we're all concerned about because it was a single impulse into the system."

While he hasn't examined NOAA's data, Cleveland still expects any chemicals in the Katrina floodwaters will be diluted in larger waterways around New Orleans.

"Once you dilute the chemicals, it's not going to be detectable. Now right where the pumps are discharging over the levees, I wouldn't want to be an oyster or crawfish right there," he said.

A continuous discharge of chemicals, he said, could be harmful, comparing it to a person drinking too much alcohol.

NOAA also tested gulf waters and marine life, including shrimp, for potential exposure to bacteria, pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Those results will be released later. Shrimp samples were taken from the Mississippi Sound, the area between the barrier islands and mainland.

On the NOAA voyage, oceanographers, toxicologists and microbiologists collected water, fish, and sediment samples to determine whether Katrina resulted in elevated levels of contaminants in the waterways.

Dr. Steve Murawski, director of scientific programs and chief science adviser at NOAA, said Friday he's encouraged by the first fish test results, but there are still a lot of "very small spills originating from the many, many (storm-damaged) vessels on the Mississippi coast."

He said a majority of Katrina spills were in and around the Mississippi River, so NOAA's strategy is to concentrate on that region.

Other hurricane-related issues NOAA will consider include loss of wetlands and the effects of saltwater intrusion and oil pollution in those areas, Murawski said in a telephone interview.

He said Rita didn't cause as much damage as Katrina.

Analyzing the damage to the fishing industry, NOAA teams also are surveying fishing fleets, seafood processing plants, fish markets and bait shops. The survey will take months to complete, although NOAA will release preliminary information as it becomes available.

Link to site: Beneath the celebratory tone, potential environmental hazards swell in silence.

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

Highlights:
- it is too early to determine exactly what health risks returning residents will face.
- no one seems to know, or be willing to say, how careful is careful enough when dealing with the filth that now blankets the homes awaiting tens of thousands
- returning residents might find their homes caked in sewage, mold and other toxic substances after weeks of immersion in putrid floodwaters.
- Environmental groups question the integrity of the data, noting that many of the contaminants sampled for were suspiciously "not found."


Michelle Chen
City officials urging residents to repopulate select parts of New Orleans know little about the storm’s ecological impact, leading critics to question the sensibility and motives of the effort.

Sep 30 - Beverly Wright just wants to go home. The New Orleans college professor has not been back since Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast last month. Like tens of thousands of others, she is anxious to salvage what is left of her life there – the family pictures, a child’s christening dress.

But as the founder of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Wright has evacuated to Capitol Hill, to advocate for tighter government oversight as New Orleans barrels down a road to recovery that is still being hastily paved.

"While they’re talking about rushing to get things rebuilt," she said, "it would all be for naught if in 10 to 20 years people are sick and dying."

Both the White House and the New Orleans mayor’s office have heralded a rebirth of the city. Recovery seems imminent, if for now ill-defined, as Mayor Ray Nagin pushes to repopulate some neighborhoods, and corporations snatch up contracts for rebuilding projects.

But beneath the celebratory tone, potential environmental hazards swell in silence. To activists, evidence of pollution, in a historical context of what they consider institutionalized racism, suggests that even after the city is pumped dry, long-term health risks will dampen visions of renewal.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s limited outdoor sampling throughout the impacted area has uncovered E. coli bacteria and industrial toxins like lead and fuel oil. But according to EPA officials, the contamination is generally below what they consider severely harmful levels, and it is too early to determine exactly what health risks returning residents will face.

Tom Natan, research director with the advocacy organization National Environmental Trust, said a rigorous, comprehensive environmental health assessment would be "extremely costly and time-consuming." Since authorities are trying to press forward with economic recovery, he said, "there may be a tendency to just say, ‘Okay, go back, be careful.’"

The problem, say environmental groups, is that no one seems to know, or be willing to say, how careful is careful enough when dealing with the filth that now blankets the homes awaiting tens of thousands of New Orleanians.

According to a September 29 situation report, the plan for incremental repopulation first allows business owners and residents to reenter the French Quarter, the Central Business District, Uptown New Orleans, and the minimally damaged Algiers area. By October 5, residents and business owners will be able to enter all parts of the city except the battered Lower Ninth Ward.

But returning residents might find their homes caked in sewage, mold and other toxic substances after weeks of immersion in putrid floodwaters. And they will have to cope with compromised public services and a weakened emergency response system.

While federal agencies pass the buck to local counterparts, environmental groups say all levels of government are united in sloughing the responsibility onto individuals.
According to the Mayor’s office, although the city just revamped its 9-1-1 emergency system, only about 110 inpatient hospital beds are available. Many fire stations are not fully operational, and in the most impacted areas, though one of the only uses of the undrinkable water is fighting fires, problems with low water pressure could make it difficult to actually extinguish a blaze.

In Katrina’s aftermath, the EPA has explained its environmental data with qualified safety assessments tempered by grim health warnings.

The EPA’s analysis of the initial sediment samples lists potential health impacts of exposure to fuel oils, which it found at elevated levels. Harm from short-term inhalation exposure includes nausea, increased blood pressure and poor coordination. Prolonged contact with fuel vapors "may cause kidney damage and lower the blood’s ability to clot."

But the agency has not provided detailed information on risk levels for returning residents, stating only that it "will perform air sampling to monitor potential inhalation risks and will also assess long-term exposure scenarios."

Environmental groups question the integrity of the data, noting that many of the contaminants sampled for were suspiciously "not found." For instance, one key fuel component, the known carcinogen benzene, did not show up in the latest published data, even though EPA officials have publicly stated that petroleum has constituted a significant portion of some samples.

"When they say they didn’t find it, does that mean they couldn’t detect it," Natan asked, "or that they know it’s not there?" He explained that such data discrepancies might reflect not the true environmental situation, but rather the limited sensitivity of the equipment used.

As the recovery process lurches forward, the EPA acknowledges that it is still in the first phases of the environmental assessment process, which mainly serve to gauge the nature of the contamination and determine the need for further testing.

But at this rate, said Natan, by the time a comprehensive plan emerges, "a lot of the potential hazard might be gone" – not necessarily because the problem has been eliminated, he stressed, but because it has already done its damage, dissipating into the air and entering people’s bodies.

Darryl Malek-Wiley, a New Orleans resident and environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club, said the EPA’s sampling has ignored the most common environment returnees will encounter. "There’s not been any systematic testing of inside houses to let people know what risks they’re going to be facing," he said.

Among community representatives and small business owners, there is pressure not to lag behind in revitalizing the city, as neighboring white parishes kick off their rebuilding efforts.
Environmentalists fear a reprise of past EPA disaster responses that drew criticism for placing political goals of "recovery" above people’s health. In a letter to the White House last week, Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) recalled that after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City, residents and workers were given premature safety assurances, resulting in widespread health and respiratory problems from toxins at the World Trade Center site.

"Clearly," he wrote, "people should not return to the Gulf Coast until EPA does its job. After 9/11, we let people rush back into contaminated areas. It is imperative that we learn from those mistakes."
A Word of Caution But Not Much Help

Environmentalists say that a lack of coordination and accountability across all agencies involved in the response is impeding public health efforts.

"Nobody is taking responsibility for making a decision about when it is actually clean enough for residents to return," Natan said.

In theory, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s National Response Plan for catastrophes, that responsibility should be shared by state, local and federal agencies, which should defer to one another’s health and safety expertise. Yet, critics see more deflection than deference in the joint response.

Bernadette Burden,a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control, said that health authorities at various levels have collaborated on developing public education materials. She stated that overall, federal agencies are "in full support of the mayor of New Orleans’ plan to repopulate" and are encouraging residents to take the health advice of local authorities.

But according to Wright, who has met with the mayor and community representatives in Baton Rouge, New Orleans leaders are looking to federal authorities for guidance -- and finding little.

"What our mayor needs, and what our city council and state legislature need," she said, "are really good facts about the environmental contaminants and the conditions that exist now, in terms of toxics, and when, and if, we will be able to return."
Entering at Their Own Risk

While federal agencies pass the buck to local counterparts, environmental groups say that all levels of government are united in sloughing the responsibility for cleanup onto individuals.

The mayor’s guidelines for returning home advise people that they are entering at their own risk, and that they "must supply [their] own protective equipment," including filter masks and eye gear to protect against airborne mold.

The EPA advisory on post-hurricane home remediation cautions people not to handle asbestos or lead-containing debris themselves and to "seek the assistance of public health authorities" or "specially trained contractors, if available."

But the agency also provides ample do-it-yourself options: if people must handle the hazardous debris, they should "at a minimum" wear gloves, goggles and face masks. If they cannot remove pregnant women and children from the hazardous environment, they should "at least completely seal off the work area." Aside from listing informational websites and a hotline, the directive contains no advice on applying for relief funds and other direct government assistance.

Marjorie Clarke, an environmental scientist with the City University of New York, predicted that many residents will see no choice but to risk their health to clean their homes. Despite the government’s responsibility to protect people during disaster recovery, she said, "telling people to come in and take care of whatever needs to be taken care of themselves… is basically encouraging people to have exposures to toxic materials."
Environmental Concerns Evoke Burdens of History

The environmental politics of the recovery effort are layered with contrasting interests within the community.

Norris McDonald, president of the African American Environmentalist Association, said that right now, local officials fear the dilution of their black constituencies more than they fear environmental threats. For upcoming elections, he said, "they’d still need those black citizens back. That’s a lot of votes."

Beverly Wright noted that among community representatives and small business owners she has met with, there is pressure not to lag behind in revitalizing the city, as neighboring white parishes kick off their rebuilding efforts. "We see all those people going home… who don’t look like us for the most part, who lost less than what we lost," she said. "So, there is that political reality, then there’s an emotional reality."

At the heart of this tension, environmentalists are trying to link social needs with long-term environmental issues as part of the same struggle. Wright said that while she understands the eagerness to rebuild, "we have to find a way to do it that’s clean, safe and economically and politically feasible."

Activists hope to prevent the comeback of New Orleans from becoming a relapse into a legacy of inequality. Katrina’s fatal deluge, they say, was just a drop in the bucket of systematic environmental abuse. According to an analysis of government data by the advocacy organization Environmental Defense, Orleans Parish, which is over 60 percent black, has more than ten times as many federally designated toxic release sites per square mile as Louisiana as a whole.

Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, said that in protecting these already-embattled communities from future harm, "we have to make sure that Katrina does not push them deeper into poverty and deeper into environmental health problems."

Local advocates see their city perched on the cusp of learning history’s lesson and repeating its mistakes. The Agriculture Street Landfill site in New Orleans, flooded by Katrina and also born of another great hurricane, has come to symbolize the cycle of environmental devastation coloring the city’s past and future. During the recovery that followed Hurricane Betsy in 1965, the government filled the site with debris and later built housing developments on top of it. In the 1990s, the EPA discovered the area was so polluted that it declared it a federal Superfund site.

Looking back, Wright reflected, "it’s not like we don’t know what can happen if, in fact, places aren’t cleaned up properly… We have that example."