Flood waters still propose Health threat, EPA says

NOLA-The Times-Picayune ^ | September 15, 2005 | Mark Schleifstein

[CedarDave]

Sampling methods criticized for putting workers at risk

Floodwaters remaining in the New Orleans area continue to pose a significant health threat, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson said Wednesday. The agency has found extremely high amounts of e. coli and fecal coliform, both of which indicate the presence of human and animal feces that could contain dangerous bacteria or viruses.

Johnson used the news conference to outline four major sampling programs EPA is conducting in the city: on floodwater, air, the sediment remaining, and the water in the Lake Pontchartrain drainage basin, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

The agency's sampling program has just begun, but already it has been criticized by EPA employees...

New water samples released Wednesday were similar to those released by the EPA last week, except the levels of e. coli and coliform, were 10 times higher. Several samples contained as many as 18,000 colonies of bacteria, compared to the 200-colony EPA standard for recreational swimming.

They also contained small amounts of a variety of chemicals and heavy metals that could be expected in wastewater in urban neighborhoods, including herbicides, arsenic, mercury, zinc and copper.

Conspicuously absent, however, were any readings of benzene, a chemical used in the manufacture of gasoline to boost octane, or other chemicals found in crude oil or gasoline.

That led longtime EPA internal critic Hugh Kaufman, senior policy analyst for the agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, to call the results "bogus."

"Benzene and compounds like benzene are in the oil products in the water that everyone can see," Kaufman said. "If they come up zero on readings of benzene, the sampling is bogus. Whether it's incompetence or malice, I don't know, but there's no way to have all that oil in the water and have zero benzene."

[CedarDave]

Kaufman sounds like a typical enviro ankle biter who does not know of what he speaks. I deal with these issues daily and indeed do find benzene in crude oil and fuel spills, but not in high concentrations in many refined products. Further, it is easily volatilized to the air and would not be expected (by me at least) to be seen in wastewater that is exposed to the air, especially water that is warm and has been subject to wind and wave action.

Benzene is the most toxic of the petroleum hydrocarbons and has a very low thresehold level in drinking water. During cleanups, it is the chemical driver that potentially greatly increases remediation costs. It's absence here should be taken as a sign that nature has already taken charge and remediated some of the spilled substances.

[Dahoser]

Call out the ACLU, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco: flood waters want to be able to marry just like heterosexuals!

[wishuponastarr]

Surely the Times meant "Flood Waters Still POSE Health Threat"!

[CedarDave]

Just parroting the title as required by the Mods. ;>)

BTW, lots of informative stories posted on that one link. It is the newspaper's clearinghouse site for Katrina info.

[kellynla]

So are we talking months or years before the Gulf is safe to fish in again...or am I being too optimistic???

[CedarDave]

Good question, but not to be answered by increased focus on NO flood water. I suspect for some period of time the fishery agencies will treat it as a gigantic sewage spill and apply warnings and restrictions until bacterial levels decrease to near normal.