Story here:
The 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.
[...]
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.
[...]
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.
If the water is pumped into the Mississippi River, there will be a lot of damage to the river's ecosystem. And then the toxic water will quickly flow into the Gulf of Mexico, causing more damage.
But the gulf is enormous, so the chemicals will eventually diffuse throughout the water, and will no longer be in such deadly concentrations.
Lake Pontchartrain, however, does not flow like a river directly into another body of water. It plays a game of give-and-take with the Gulf of Mexico, sometimes taking in the gulf's salt water, and sometimes releasing its own brackish water into the gulf. So, whatever poisons are pumped into Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans are likely to stay there in disturbingly large concentrations for a relatively long time.
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Article comments
1 - Victor Lana
Just another disaster on top of so much devastation. How much can one area take without breaking?
2 - Justene
Stupid question, probably. Can't we hold it in NO and treat it a little at a time from there?
3 - RJ
Well, from a scientific standpoint, it's doable. But it would take a significant amount of time to build up the needed infrastructure in the area before large-scale decontamination efforts could even begin.
Anyway, this won't happen because "the people" want the city drained ASAP. And therefore, so do the politicians, and so the environment can go fuck itself, from their perspective.
4 - RJ
Somewhat good news...
5 - Dave Nalle
Seems to me that the gulf is the only place they can drain to. It would be insane to drain it into Lake Ponchartrain.
Oh, and RJ - crazy damned dolphins. I bet all the manatees are in Houston again. They go there periodically when NO gets too hectic for them.
Dave
6 - Jake
Seems like this was more environmental alarmism. People are finding the Lake loaded with Speckled Trout, etc.
7 - Nancy
Just after Katrina, the gulf was filled with I forget how many tons of rotting chicken & shrimp - and THAT didn't kill it off (that I've heard). What happened with that? From the sounds of it, you'd'a thunk the stench alone would have reduced the surplus population along the coast for hundreds of miles in any direction.
8 - kevman
i pinch
9 - evan
As a resident of south Louisiana I'm here to tell yall that lake pontchartrain fishing has never been better. Most of this is due to the lack of fish and shrimp trawlers. They are not killing small immature fish and this has translated into huge numbers and the best sport fishing in 20 years.
10 - Marius
Thanks to the opening of the spillway this spring,some of the polution got swept out to sea.Or what do i know.