Katrina's Damaging Floodwaters Not As Toxic As Feared

Abstract

In the wake of Hurricane Katrine, when Lake Pontchartrain breached its levees and fitted the low-lying city of New Orleans like bath-tub, public health officials feared floodwaters would expose residents and first responders to a brew of toxic chemicals and pathogenic origanisms. A newly published analysis, however, indicates that those floodwaters were no more toxic than the city's normal storm runoff [Environ. Sci. Technol., published online Oct. 11, dx.doi.org/10.1021/es0518631]. What we had in New Orleans was basically a year's worth of storm water flowing through the city in only a few days, says John H. Pardue, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research institute at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. We still don't think the floodwaters were safe, but it could have been a lot worse, it was not the Chemical catastrophe some had expected, he adds. In early September, Pardue and coworkers collected ftoodwater samples from the city's West End and Lakeview neighborhoods—an ...