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| ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF KATRINA | |
 November 8, 2005  | |
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A science unit report looks at the environmental cleanup in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina inundated the city with filthy floodwater. Federal and state officials are at odds with environmental groups over the danger posed by toxins found in and around houses in New Orleans. The NewsHour Science Unit is funded, in part, by a grant from the National Science Foundation
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BETTY ANN BOWSER: It's probably the most unique dumpsite on earth: Refrigerators stacked side by side for as far as the eye can see. By the time the Environmental Protection Agency completes its part of the clean up job in New Orleans, more than 300,000 of them will be emptied of rotten food, drained of environmentally hazardous Freon, and crushed for recycling.
There are 22 million tons of debris -- enough to fill the Superdome 43 times. More than 350,000 cars, trucks, and 60,000 boats have to be hauled away. And tens of millions of tons of hazardous waste will have to be disposed of. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Testing for safety | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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BETTY ANN BOWSER: The EPA has conducted hundreds of tests all over New Orleans to see if the environment is safe. With a staff of over a thousand in the area, water samples have been taken, soil and sediment have been tested, and hundreds of air samples have been gathered and analyzed. John Cardarelli is a health physicist with the EPA.
Meanwhile, local officials are allowing thousands of residents back into their homes: People like Betty LeBlanc who worries what she's being exposed to. BETTY LEBLANC: It's all mold and spores break from that and get out into the air that I breathe. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Because of the mold and presence of other potentially dangerous substances, the 77 year old retired nurse is taking her house down to the studs. BETTY LEBLANC: Everything must come down. The walls, the ceilings -- everything in this house has to come down to the bare wood.
EPA's partner, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality says its tests have produced "unremarkable" results. An official told the NewsHour that "people have nothing to worry about." But at the same time both agencies have warned residents not to come in contact with flood sediment. Stephen Johnson is the EPA's administrator. STEPHEN JOHNSON: What certainly the EPA has said is that as you are dealing with debris that you need to take prudent precautions whether that is gloves or in some cases dust filters or boots and those kinds of things.
ERIK OLSON: How can it be safe and then in the next sentence you say that you've got to wear protective equipment? It's not safe for people to be running around and traipsing around in these toxic chemicals and in these clouds of dust and in houses that are soaking with toxins. There are a lot of toxic chemicals, a lot of bacteria that are still in the environment there. There's dust that is toxic that is sprinkled across the city and it's kicked up every time there's demolition or cars driving by. |
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| Long-term toxic exposure | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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BETTY ANN BOWSER: The NRDC and a Louisiana environmental group each did their own tests and found similar results as EPA, but reached very different conclusions about what the data meant. Instead of using EPA's short-term exposure measurement, the NRDC and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network used what they considered a more realistic barometer, exposure for two weeks or longer. Chemist Wilma Subra is with the Louisiana group.
This sedimenty sludge -- which now has turned to this dry sediment
that when they go out and start working in their yard, when they walk through
it they're stirring it up -- they're coming in contact with it on their skin and
they're inhaling the dust -- and it's the toxic heavy metals and the polynuclearomatic
hydrocarbons both of which are cancer causing agents. STEPHEN JOHNSON: We know that that sediment contains bacteria. We know that in certain parts it contains high levels of petroleum products. People shouldn't come into contact with that. So whether its 24 hours or 48 hours or two weeks still the message is: avoid contact with those kinds of materials. BETTY ANN BOWSER: But are you saying it is or it isn't safe?
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Environmental groups say the EPA could be more definitive about safety if it did tests in private yards and houses. ERIK OLSON: People are living inside homes. People are moving back into homes. You've got to test inside the homes. This is where people are going to be. BETTY ANN BOWSER: A scientist from Louisiana State University is doing his own tests in residential neighborhoods. John Pardue agrees with environmental groups that the EPA should be taking samples inside homes, because they are filled with mold, sewage and dust.
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| Checking private homes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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BETTY ANN BOWSER: Why aren't you doing testing inside of people's homes? STEPHEN JOHNSON: Well, first of all the responsibility for testing inside homes is not within the purview of EPA. And so EPA does not have any statutory responsibility for indoor air, for example. And issues such as mold are the responsibility of and advice and counsel from the Centers for Disease Control, Health and Human Services. BETTY ANN BOWSER: But a spokesman for HHS said the agency has
no statutory responsibility for what's inside a private dwelling. A spokesperson
for the CDC said it's not a regulatory agency and must be asked as part of a public
health response to enter private homes. ERIK OLSON: We unfortunately feel that EPA has fallen down on the job. EPA has all sorts of authority if they want to use it to declare an imminent and substantial endangerment under most of its laws just to say it's really not safe for people to be here, we are going to bar people from re-entering or we're going to order certain clamps or certain activity to happen before people enter. EPA really has been unwilling to use those authorities. BETTY ANN BOWSER: The EPA has declared imminent and substantial endangerment before. In 1978, it used that authority at Love Canal, to relocate an entire upstate New York community when toxic wastes were found there. But in New Orleans the EPA says its up to local and state officials to make decisions about safety.
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The NewsHour Science Unit is funded by a grant from:  The National Science Foundation. Reports are produced solely by the NewsHour and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. |
But
the "Big Fridge Yard" represents just a fraction of what the EPA is
facing in New Orleans, in the largest environmental clean up in the agency's history.
JOHN
CARDARELLI: We're concerned about particulates -- things go in and deposit just
about the bulk of your neck and we're also looking at specific particulate matter
that can do deeper into your lungs.
BETTY
LEBLANC: I'm telling you that it's very unhealthy -- mostly the breathing because
of the lungs. I know this isn't good. We have hand sterilizer over there; we're
washing out hands constantly. Our gloves we change every day and our masks we
change every day. So that's all we can do to protect ourselves.
BETTY
ANN BOWSER: Erik Olson, senior attorney for the Natural Resource Defense Council,
thinks the EPA is confusing people with a mixed message. 
WILMA
SUBRA: There's no difference in the data. It's in the interpretation of what does
this mean. And we know the chemicals that are there are also long-term exposure
threats. It's not acceptable for people to be allowed to return to their homes
and live.
STEPHEN
JOHNSON: Well, unfortunately it's not a yes or a no answer because, again, what
we're seeing in the sediment area is that we're seeing some of those sediments
highly contaminated with petroleum products and for those areas that have high
contamination you really shouldn't be coming in contact with it. For those areas
with very low contamination there's probably not a health consequence with but
still prudent advice would be - common sense advice would be to avoid exposure,
take precautions.
JOHN
PARDUE: Not knowing what's in that dust, that just seems to me with the likelihood
of there being asbestos, other kinds of things in that dust, that seems to me
to be a terrible risk for people to take. If nothing else, the state, city, or
EPA should be out there handing out that respiratory equipment or gloves just
to strongly encourage people to use those. 
The
EPA has tested inside homes before. In 1994 it took samples in 9,000 houses in
Lorain and Elyria, Ohio, after a highly toxic pesticide was illegally sprayed
there. The EPA eventually decontaminated 1,000 dwellings. But in New Orleans the
agency says its role is to supply data to officials like Mayor Ray Nagin, who's
called all the shots about when its safe to return.
STEPHEN
JOHNSON: It's not the EPA's decision. It's the responsibility of the state and
local officials to make the decision. You know they're the ones that made the
decision to evacuate. They're the ones appropriately to make the decision to come
back in.