New Orleans environmental crisis 'unimaginable': officials

[RCPJAP]

A horrific snapshot of the environmental apocalypse in New Orleans emerged as engineers tackled a hellish brew of raw sewage, corpses, waste, oil slicks, toxins and wreckage.

Officials warned some districts would be without drinking water for years, that the sewage system was in tatters and that they had no choice but to pump fetid floodwaters laced with poisons straight back into Lake Pontchartrain.

Oil slicks are threatening wildlife, railway cars and trucks are turning into environmental timebombs all over the city, and slowly draining floodwaters are leaving a gruesome sludge everywhere, Louisiana state officials said.

And the disaster is likely to get worse as floods, still suffocating 60 percent of the city, drain away.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050906/sc_afp/usweatherenvironment_050906225342&printer=1;_ylt=AvNaDOpl_EkT52su8PwA3hnQOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

[bemildred]

1. Welcome to Bush's America. nt

[bee]

2. Crimes against humanity & crimes against nature.

just one more for the "trifecta"

[Mnemosyne]

3. What a nightmare. n/t

[cyr330]

4. I want to blame only Bush*

But all Repigs and plenty of Southern Dems are responsible for the horrible environmental wreck in south Louisiana. Senators John Breaux (retired) and Mary Landrieu, both Democrats, are pro oil and gas just offshore. Furthermore, when the Federal Government held hearings about drilling for oil in Alaska, Breaux and Landrieu testified that Louisiana was a "model of how oil and gas drilling could coexist without damage. . ."

The chemical plants just west of New Orleans, on the other side of the Bonne Carre Spillway, have been a menace for years. I can't say how many times I've heard explosions all the way to New Orleans. It's no surprise they've completely fucked New Orleans up. I wonder how many of those Garden District Repigs feel about it now? Of course the Garden District has been spared the brunt of the flood, while the 9th ward (i.e., the black and poor ward) was pretty much decimated.

I dislike Mary Landrieu intensely, but of course I would support her without reservation should I live in Louisiana, because any alternative would be far, far worse.

[Erika]

5. All the chemicals, toxins, and diseases

are being released to the river then the ocean. Enjoy your Gulf seafood.

[glugglug]

6. Re: enjoy your seafood

300 lb 4 headed shrimp: the next delicacy!

[kestrel91316]

7. Hey, I could go for that! (love them shrimpies)

[milkyway]

8. It wasn't unimaginable. It was predicted before the storm hit that this is

what would probably happen. The chimp was told, and then he went back to sleep.

[Erika]

9. Yep

and I won't eat Gulf Coast seafood for one heck of a long time.

[NYC]

10. Another economic impact.

How long before gulf coast seafood will be edible?

[MadHound]

11. One thing that nobody is mentioning is radiation danger

First off, there are all of those smoke detectors that have been destroyed, and now their radioactive sources are floating around loose. Granted, the source is in a metal capsule, but just how much punishment can such things take? Once that capsule is broken open, there is going to be some trouble<http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/smoke_alarm.htm>

In addition to this threat, there is also danger from damaged PET and MRI machines, along with other diagnostic equipment that use a radioactive source. Easy enough for the shielding to be damaged, or even the source to be jarred loose in a flood.

And then there is the big one, there is a cyclotron in uptown NO. This cyclotron was probably only used to produce isotopes with short half lives, days at most, but still, somebody could get dosed easily without knowing about it until too late.<http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=cyclotron+new+orleans&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&u=www.mcl.tulane.edu/pr/releases/03-02gammaknife.htm&w=cyclotron+new+orleans&d=3EC84F9547&icp=1&.intl=us>

I really do hope that since NO is a major city, somebody was thinking ahead and brought some geiger counters along. Otherwise we're going to see even more death, both in the short and long term.