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COPYRIGHT 2006 Earth Action Network, Inc.
Susan Cowsill, a singer-songwriter (and member of the famous 1960s singing family) says the culture of New Orleans is a big part of her music. But it was with some trepidation that she and her family recently returned home after a nomadic post-Katrina existence in Austin and Houston. "I want to believe what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is saying, that it is safe" she says.
On December 16, an EPA advisory assured residents that most samples taken between October 29 and November 27 showed chemical concentrations "below acceptable levels." But, it added, a limited number of samples showed high concentrations of, among other things, arsenic, hydrocarbons, chlordane, dieldrin, aldrin and lead. The EPA and Louisiana's Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) were "working together to determine next steps."
So how worried should people be, as they contemplate moving back to the Big Easy? Environmental consultant and chemist Wilma Subra, a MacArthur Prize winner, says they should be very worried indeed. The big problem, she said, is sediment that sat on the bottom of rivers and other water bodies collecting industrial chemical contamination and agricultural runoff. The sediment was relatively harmless in situ, but it was deposited all over New Orleans by the storm.
Subra's own tests, conducted at 33 locations in Louisiana, Mississippi and...
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