http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article311818.ece
Cover-up: toxic waters 'will make New Orleans unsafe for a
decade'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Correspondent
Published: 11 September 2005
Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the
city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US
government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he
added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.
In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic
waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted
water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.
The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said,
because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was
refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed.
"Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the
health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the
work.
His intervention came as President Bush's approval ratings fell
below 40 per cent for the first time. Yesterday, Britain's
Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, turned the screw by
criticising the US President's opposition to the Kyoto protocol
on global warming. He compared New Orleans to island nations
such as the Maldives, which are threatened by rising sea levels.
Other US sources spelt out the extent of the danger from one of
America's most polluted industrial areas, known locally as
"Cancer Alley". The 66 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum
storage depots churn out 600m lb of toxic waste each year. Other
dangerous substances are in site storage tanks or at the port of
New Orleans. No one knows how much pollution has escaped through
damaged plants and leaking pipes into the "toxic gumbo" now
drowning the city. Mr Kaufman says no one is trying to find out.
Few people are better qualified to judge the extent of the
problem. Mr Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was
founded 35 years ago, helped to set up its hazardous waste
programme. After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's
ombudsman, he is now senior policy analyst in its Office of
Solid Wastes and Emergency Response. He said the clean-up needed
to be "the most massive public works exercise ever done",
adding: "It will take 10 years to get everything up and running
and safe."
Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the
need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core
White House group tackling the crisis. "Its budget has been cut
and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," Mr
Kaufman said. "All the money for emergency response has gone to
buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane
hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on
10 September 2001."
He said the water being pumped out of the city was not being
tested for pollution and would damage Lake Pontchartrain and the
Mississippi river, and endanger people using it downstream.
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Brian E. Clark
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