High level of arsenic found in Katrina's wake

[intheflow]

July 31, 2006
High level of arsenic found in Katrina's wake
The Associated Press

BILOXI — A chemist said soil samples taken in the wakes of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita show dangerously high levels of arsenic in some areas along the coast.

Wilma Subra believes arsenic, other heavy metals and bacteria in the soils of coastal areas battered by hurricanes last year are causing residents to become sick with unexplained illnesses.

(snip)

Subra said she came to work along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, and has taken soil samples in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama. She said 90 percent of the samples have exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency's standards for arsenic.

She found the highest levels in Mississippi at Moss Point, Gulfport and Pearlington where arsenic is at levels 27 times beyond what the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality considers safe.

(snip)

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060731/NEWS/60731002

[donsu]

1. beach sand and beach water should be avoided everywhere

kicking

[itzamirakul]

2. Hmmmm...maybe ....and maybe not....

Could be that she is on the payroll of some of the companies who do not want the residents to move back into those areas that are really prime real estate and are wanted by developers like "The Donald Trum" for building resorts, hotels, casinos, et al.

Sorry, but I don't rush to trust every scientific report anymore until I discover just who is paying whose salary.

[intheflow]

3. Unlikely she is on big businesses' side.

There has been tremendous environmental contamination in Katrina's wake, all being suppressed by the CM, probably in deference to business, the government, and the military. For example, have you heard about the Agent Orange contamination at the Gulfport Navy base? How about the dioxin contamination from Dupont's Delisle, MS plant? And why would the casinos pay someone to report on contamination when they're opening up and promoting Mississippi's wonderful beaches as part of the push to get tourist/gambling dollars coming back into the region? Believe me, this is quite unwelcome news for businesses on the Coast.

[itzamirakul]

5. OK..like I tried to convey in my first post, I just don't take these

reports at face value anymore. I don't disbelieve that there are honest, reliable reports that claim poisons and contaminents in the region. That may all be quite true. But on the other hand...how many medical reports do we get every year that warn against eggs or sugar or aspirins or some other product only to have those warnings removed within a year as a different report finding proves they are not harmful?

It is highly possible that a casino or some other business enterprise will have an area deemed unsafe for human residency this year and suddenly discovered not to be so bad next year or the year after, depending on how long it takes to buy up the land.

I have grown quite cynical in some matters during the last six years.

[uppityperson]

6. There are studies by people NOT on corp payroll

There has been disputes as to the safety of the beaches since Katrina, as places want tourists to come down and spend money on all those casinos. OK, that last bit was sarcasm, but places have shown to be highly polluted, causing concern for residents and tourists, raising more resident resentment at being (still) abandoned.

[hootinholler]

13. Hmmm, maybe not...

If all the places named were prime locations, I might agree, but, I've been to Pearlington. WHile it's a nice sleepy community, it's not on The Donald's short list for development.

-Hoot

[intheflow]

16. Very true!

Pearlington's damage came from the Pearlington River flooding. (Well, that and the eye wall winds going almost directly over the town.) But the town is pretty far inland, at least 15 miles. Compared to all the devastated land directly on those white Mississippi beaches, Pearlington would seem like a poor Trump target indeed.

[hootinholler]

17. My friend said the storm surge made it.

30' wave put him into a live oak after washing him out of the debris from what used to be his house.

-Hoot

[intheflow]

18. Yes, storm surge surging up the river.

The rivers, creeks and bayous served as channels for the surge to infiltrate so far inland. So... in spite of the imaginary distinctions between flooding and storm surge that the insurance companies would like to draw, it's really the same thing as far as I can tell.

It sounds like your friend survived bodily intact. I hope he's doing ok psychologically and is able to rebuild.

[hootinholler]

19. He did.

Said after he got a change of underwear he was pretty much ok. It's going to be a long haul to rebuild.

I was so happy to hear Miss Paulene on NPR after the storm before I had been able to get in touch with anyone down there.

-Hoot

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Wasn't the Gulf Coast heavily polluted before the storm?

I recall concerns that large areas of the Gulf Coast were heavily polluted before the storms hit, the result of many decades of petroleum production and heavy manufacturing started long before anything even remotely resembling environmental protection laws. If that is true, the only thing that Katrina and Rita did was pick up those pollutants and make them even more widespread than before.

[intheflow]

9. Yes, the Coast was heavily polluted before the storms.

But as you said, the pollution was localized. The high levels were around factories and other industrial sites. Now it's in playgrounds, neighborhoods, and has really infiltrated ground water supplies. And it still doesn't negate the point of the article, which is that the toxins are here, they're high, and it's a problem for Coastal residents. To say that the "only" thing Katrina and Rita did was spread the pollution deminishes the environmental degradation.

(Not being snarky, I just hate that qualifier, "only".)

[Mabus]

12. Fertilizers from upstream

We've been poisoing ourselves and our planet for a long time. Mother Nature just pushed all the crap back in our faces with the storm surges from the hurricanes.

Arizona mine tailings sold as Minnesota fertilizer
By Mary Losure
Minnesota Public Radio
April 22, 2002

For home gardeners, spring planting is just a few weeks away. But if you're planning to add fertilizer to the soil, reading the product's label won't always tell you whether it's safe. In most states, including Minnesota, manufacturers can sell fertilizer containing arsenic, lead, cadmium, and other heavy metals without disclosing those ingredients. In Minnesota, that means a product called Ironite is still on the market, despite high levels of contamination.

When Carl Rosen, now acting head of the Horticulture Department at the University of Minnesota, wanted to improve the soil around his blueberry bushes, he went to a local garden store and bought a 25-pound box of Ironite.

The label listed the product's beneficial plant nutrients, such as nitrogen, iron, and sulfur.

But it neglected to mention another ingredient - arsenic.

"I actually used some of this, not knowing that it had arsenic in it, and I put it in a small area where I was growing some cranberries and lingonberries, that are acid loving plants," Rosen says. "One of the cranberries died where I put it, and I actually went in and measured the amount of arsenic in the soil. And the native level of arsenic's about one part per million in soils around here, and it was 100 parts per million."

more at: Arizona mine tailings sold as Minnesota fertilizer

Linked to fertilizers
In the last 30 years, the dead zone has become an annual summer phenomenon, fed by rising use of nitrate-based fertilizers by farmers in the Mississippi watershed, Rabalais told Reuters.

The nitrates, carried into the gulf’s warm summer waters by the river, feed algae blooms that use up oxygen and make the water uninhabitable.

The dead zone’s size has varied each year depending on weather conditions, but averages about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square kilometers) and remains in place until late September or early October.

Virtually nothing is being done to stop the flow of nitrates into the river, meaning the dead zone will reappear every year, Rabalais said.

more at: ‘Dead zone’ spreads in Gulf of Mexico

[dipsydoodle]

7. Wilma ?

Would that be Fred's first wife ? Was her maiden name Slaghoople ?

And from where does Wilma suggest all of this arsenic is derived ? I can quite understand residual sewage problems causing sickness but find what she is suggesting to be suspicious unless it was already there prior to Katrina.

[IronLionZion]

10. It was there prior to Katrina

but the hurricane spread it around.

[Betsy Ross]

8. Time for the EPA to change standards.

Isn't that how *Co solves problems, change the rules to fit the facts?

[intheflow]

11. Well, the National EPA has already ruled

that there's nothing to see, move along, in Mississippi post-Katrina. So no need to change any rules there! :sarcasm:

Of course, this is the same EPA that said air quality at Ground Zero at the 9-11 WTC site was just fine and dandy, no need for emergency workers and cleanup crews to worry about any health problems. Needless to say, the EPA is lacking creditibility these days.

[Sretto]

14. Betcha

It's all Bush's fault!

[me b zola]

15. It is the administration's responsibility to protect the community

If a storm has distrubuted toxins to a wide area, the administration has an obligation to remove the toxins and make the area safe. Do you agree?