Katrina Creates a 'Toxic Soup'

Aug. 31, 2005 — -- As if a cascade of debris, rats, alligators, snakes, and sewage weren't a daunting enough challenge for emergency workers grappling with Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters, they're also faced with determining whether high levels of industrial toxins are tainting the waters.

"A toxic soup would be a good way to describe the situation," said Thomas La Point, director of the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of North Texas.

With two critical levees breached and several of the city's powerful drainage pumps failing, some 80 percent of New Orleans is now underwater. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco called the situation untenable and said the tens of thousands of refugees now huddled in the Superdome stadium and in other makeshift shelters would have to be evacuated.

Researchers say what's in the floodwaters is going to cause serious short-term and long-term problems for the city. The city of New Orleans sits near a vast marshy area that's a large petrochemical complex. The longer the floodwater remains trapped in the city, the more it will be contaminated with petrochemical products, sewage and other refuse, according to La Point.

La Point says bacteria and sewage pose the most serious and immediate dangers. "They'll have to protect human health first. People have to find a safe water source," he said. At this point, that means boiling it or buying it.

La Point added, however, that toxic waste from industrial sites will certainly complicate cleanup efforts. "The storm surge is the real culprit. It is, in effect, a flowing river. Any time a current flows, it traps sediment, and that mud in this case will no doubt carry some of the petrochemical compounds. They're going to have to determine what kinds of compounds are in the water, how much of the material has been released, and in what levels of concentration," he said.

One of the compromised levees sits along the Industrial Canal, a 5.5-mile waterway that connects the Mississippi River to the Intracoastal Waterway. Louisiana's petrochemical industry manufactures one-quarter of America's petrochemicals, including basic chemicals, plastics and fertilizers, and more than a third of all industrial chemicals transported on the nation's inland waterway system wend their way through this canal.