Wednesday, September 07, 2005
CONTAMINATING THE GULF
The New York Times reports:
BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 6 - While the human and economic toll of Hurricane Katrina continued to mount, New Orleans was beginning to pump back into Lake Pontchartrain the floodwaters that had inundated the city.
Whether or not the accelerating pumping of this brew from city streets into coastal waters poses a threat to the ecosystems and fisheries in the brackish bay remains to be seen, the officials said.
They added that they could do little more than keep testing and count on the restorative capacity of nature to break down or bury contaminants.
Though the state of the lake was a prime issue, it was just one of a host of problems identified in the storm-ravaged region on Tuesday by Louisiana and federal environmental officials.
Continue reading...
Then there is this article linked at Spirit Daily which claims that a NOLA housing project was built over a toxic waste dump. Residents living in the area claimed to be suffering from non-typical illness as a result. It is believed these chemicals have now leached into the water that is being pumped out of the city. I was not able to locate online the organization mentioned in the article.
More articles about contaminants being pumped back into Lake Ponchartrain can be found here.
