Ladywriter 7,783 Report post Posted May 12, 2006 http://www.nrdc.org/ Another great page with a wealth of news and information. They are all over Kimberly Clark's shit too http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/neworleans.asp Weeks after Katrina hit, the EPA hadn't done any air quality testing in New Orleans or released data about sediment contamination, despite the potential threats to public health and safety. Local community groups asked NRDC to help fill the information gap about the city's safety in the wake of the floods. "The mayor announced he was reopening the city, but was it safe for people to go back, to clean their houses?" asks NRDC's Gina Solomon, a physician and public health expert. "Was it safe for children and the elderly? No one was answering these questions. The first thing we heard from the people on the ground was that there was a desperate need for independent monitoring." Solomon and an NRDC scientific team made several trips to New Orleans in the months following the hurricane, taking samples across the city for four kinds of environmental health hazards: particulate air pollution, mold, toxic chemicals in sediment, and endotoxin, a bacterial airborne toxin. Mold counts far exceeded their worst expectations, reaching dangerously high levels, especially indoors. Furthermore, results of NRDC's sediment testing, as well as an analysis of EPA data, indicated that the floodwaters moved contaminants such as diesel, arsenic, banned pesticides and cancer-causing chemicals out of contained areas and brought them into residential neighborhoods, posing a long-term health risk to residents. NRDC worked with local community groups to release the first independent assessment of environmental health threats in the wake of Katrina, and provide health advisories and safe cleanup tips for returning residents. Look at the flowers Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
