In Katrina’s wake

[Guest guest]

Tuesday September 13, 2005

The water will leave behind more trouble – a city filled with mould,

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 mould. When it dries out, the rest grows mould, "

Zeliger said. " Most of the buildings will have to be destroyed. "

In Katrina's wake

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Hurricane Katrina left behind a landscape of oil spills, leaking gas

lines, damaged sewage plants and tainted water.

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 spectre of an environmental disaster

on the heels of 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.

State and federal agencies have begun water quality testing but

environmental experts say the vile, stagnant chemical soup that sits

in the streets of the city known as The Big Easy 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 (LSU) centre 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-coloured,

murky and smells of burnt sulphur. A thin film of oil is visible in

the water.

Those who have waded into it say they could see only about 2.5cm to

5.1cm 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 petrol and chemical tanks – as well as common containers

holding anything from bleach to shampoo – would rupture.

Crews have found two major oil spills, one of 68,000 barrels at a

Bass Enterprise storage depot in Venice and another of 10,000

barrels at a Oil facility in Chalmette. But huge amounts of

oil also oozed from cars, trucks and boats caught in the flood.

More than 500 Louisiana sewage plants were damaged or destroyed,

including 25 major ones. There were about 170 sources of leaking

hydrocarbons and natural gas, officials said.

High-level radiation sources, including nuclear plants, have been

secured, and authorities were trying to determine the status of rail

cars in the area as well as searching out large caches of hazardous

materials in industrial plants.

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 a 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 litres. LSU researchers will use

satellite imagery and computer modelling 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 clamour 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 civilisation 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 mould,

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 mould. When it dries out, the rest grows mould, "

Zeliger said. " Most of the buildings will have to be destroyed. "

Katrina also damaged large areas of wildlife habitat but it was too

soon to assess the long-term impact – Reuters