[From the diaries by susanhu. A must-read / must-bookmark / must-discuss grand and disturbing work by Spiderleaf.]

I’ve been watching the “reconstruction” efforts, the press conferences, the misinformation, the optimism as to what the city can be and cannot help but hold out hope that NOLA will soon rise from below sea level and welcome us all back to feel the pulse of the music in the heavy, fragrant heat… the vibrance of color and history feeding all senses.

But I have also been reading the foreign and alternative press and the optimism I know is cautious at best & non-existant at worst… depending on the day or the mood I’m in.

The scenario I imagine is not pretty. It is reactionary and as such I have no proof other than to say it feels like it could happen. And if so, it will be a dark page in American history.

The reconstruction is underway. Haliburton, Bechtel, et al are there in full force. The neighbourhoods that need to be rebuilt the most are the former ghettos & most especially the port area and the warehouse & industrial areas. The French Quarter, Garden District, etc. are relatively intact and the residents can move back in and start accepting tourists who never venture into those other areas anyway since they aren’t “the real New Orleans”.

The streets will be cleaned in those neighbourhoods, the hotels will invest in a purification system for the shower water to ease guests fears of contamination and only bottled water will be served. Those wealthy New Orleaners will also use bottled water and purification systems or the city will ensure the one pumping station that serves those neighbourhoods gets fixed first. Either way, they will be relatively contaminate free and able to get on with their lives.

The city will reopen for bidness & many will make a lot of money in the clean up effort.

But what of everyone else? BELOW:
What of those in the surrounding areas, rural areas, poor urban areas, etc. who can’t afford bottled water and whose homes were buried in toxic sludge?

And when I say toxic, I mean TOXIC. A reporter from the Toronto Star was in NOLA in the days after the levees broke and she brought back samples of the water she was walking through to a Toronto lab. Not surprisingly the EPA isn’t nearly as alarmed as she is… or we should be.

Neither newspaper reports nor TV footage can accurately capture the ugliness of that water: brown, brackish, greasy, infused with feces and sewage, the carcasses of dead animals and bloated human remains. Reeking so strongly of oil, chemicals and rotting garbage that it stung the eyes, made the throat contract and gag.

….

Every night during the time I spent in New Orleans, before relief convoys arrived, I used a facecloth and precious bottle of spring water (looted) to scrub my feet, applying antibiotic ointment (looted) on the scrapes and rashes and weird boils that resulted from wading shoeless in the bilge. Shoeless because both sandals and sneakers had quickly shredded with immersion.

This — the stuff that eats leather and canvas — is what people were living in, struggling through, in search of food and potable water, those who either stayed by stubborn choice or lacked the wherewithal to leave when levees were breached; Lake Pontchartrain surging over the pitifully feeble buffer, natural barriers and sponging wetlands destroyed long ago by coastal development and sluicing designed to protect ships.

Even now, three weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck and with 22 repaired pumping stations suctioning millions of gallons a day out of the city — 40 per cent of which remains submerged — the dangers contained in that water have not subsided. And the sediment, the sludge, the “bacterial soup” left behind in a metropolis rendered a massive, pestilent, disease-breeding swamp, might actually be even more toxic than the receding floodwaters that are dropping by about 30 centimetres a day.

….

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — a department that, under the Bush administration, is dimly viewed by many environmentalists — has been taking daily water samples at sites in and around New Orleans, testing for biological pathogens and more than 100 chemical pollutants, including pesticides, industrial chemicals and metals.

Sewage-related bacteria and lead from “unknown sources” are just two of the contaminants found to be at wildly elevated levels thus far. The cistern that New Orleans has become is rife with Staphylococcus aureas (staph) and E. coli, though not, as far as can be determined to this point, the more lethal E. coli strain (O517, enterohemorrhagic) that “contributed” to the deaths of six people in Walkerton, when that Ontario town’s water supply became contaminated five years ago.

The Star brought back five water samples from New Orleans — scooped up at city hall, the Iberville projects and points along Canal St. — for testing at a Toronto lab.

The results found E. coli levels between 5,600 and 42,000 per 100 ml of water and staph levels ranging from 9,800 to 32,000 per 100 ml of water.

These findings are consistent with results released by the EPA, which reports that E. coli levels remain “much higher” than its own recommended levels “for direct contact.”

To put the results in more significant context, it should be noted that Toronto’s board of health posts no-swimming advisories for the city’s public beaches when E. coli levels reach 100 per 100 ml because of the health risk.

To repeat, in New Orleans — as determined by the Toronto lab analysis — those levels are far above 40,000.

….

Yet the agency maintains that the amounts of chemicals and bacteria found in the water would pose a substantial risk to children only if they were to drink a litre of floodwater every day.

There is no keen sense of urgency in the reports the EPA is posting almost daily on its website. In fact, its assessments seemed designed to assure rather than alarm, although the agency admits it hasn’t tested for — and has no immediate intention to test for –the most lethal pathogens, such as vibrio cholera, Shigella, E. coli 0157 or Salmonella, because “it would not be useful at this time.”

Explaining this decision, the EPA argues that these pathogens would be difficult to grow in the laboratory, “especially in highly contaminated water surfaces”; that one pathogen “will not predict” the risk from other pathogens; that finding pathogens in standing water will not affect how “imminent risk” is presented to the public or “how decisions are made”; and that wastewater from a large population “is expected to contain enteric pathogens, therefore, identifying the presence of fecally contaminated water will give a broader risk perspective than detecting specific pathogens.”

So that’s lovely. And it’s being kept under wraps by the Government. Surprise, surprise. Yet people will (and are) moving back into the city. And more will be pushed to move back as the local resources in TX, OK, etc. are stretched thin with further budget cutbacks… they won’t want to keep supporting the “refugees” and will be happy to send them back to NOLA to “help with the reconstruction”.

A bit more from The Star –

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also on the ground, and has for the past three weeks been administering tetanus shots. (The EPA contends that mass inoculation is not required, although its own staffers are injected for tetanus and the like before hitting the ground.)

Infectious disease experts warn of health outcomes that routinely arise from any hurricane: hepatitis A, diarrhea and intestinal problems caused by drinking polluted water or eating spoiled food, and infections from open cuts.

The morass of New Orleans and environs also presents an ideal breeding ground for dysentery and such mosquito-borne diseases as West Nile fever, which is why military aircraft were spraying the city for mosquitoes last week — another laggard response to the catastrophe.

Further, humans need to worry about bites from rats and venomous snakes indigenous to the area, such as water moccasins and cottonmouths, which might easily be swimming in the wards adjacent to more rural areas.

What’s known is that five people have died from post-Katrina contact with bacteria-infested seawater — specifically Vibrio vulnificus, which can be lethal to those already suffering from immune deficiencies, including AIDS patients and those on dialysis. Oddly, none of those casualties were in Louisiana. Four deaths occurred in Mississippi and one individual died after being evacuated to Texas.

Another major concern, as the water drains, is the contamination that can arise from mould.

There are still gas leaks that crews haven’t been able to cap because the sources are underwater. Officials are warning of gas explosions and carbon monoxide poisoning from improper use of generators.

Decaying hazardous chemicals can also be tossed into the malevolent mix of emerging dangers.

There are at least five oil spills in the New Orleans area and 121 sites with known chemical contamination. At minimum, three of the city’s poisonous “Superfund sites” — meaning they made the list of the nation’s worst toxic sites — were flooded, including a landfill where residents dumped garbage for decades. That one remains underwater and inaccessible.

Hazardous waste railcars — like the freight train that derailed and forced an evacuation of Mississauga in 1979 — still lie submerged.

Sediment samples — contaminants from the polluted water settling into the soil — have been difficult to analyze because they’re so laden with petroleum products.

“We are still in the early days of going around and visually inspecting,” EPA administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters a few days ago. “We will then begin to do a more detailed analysis.”

The water — and the muck it’s leaving behind — contains lead from paint and batteries; officials aren’t even certain of the oozing sources. High levels of hexavalent chromium, which is used in industrial plating, and arsenic, used in treating wood, have also been found, the EPA reports.

Five thousand of what those in the business call “orphan containers” — barrels of medical waste, gas cylinders, petroleum byproducts intended for safe elimination — have been recovered so far, Johnson said on Wednesday.

If that doesn’t ruin any thoughts you might have about habitability in the region for decades to come I don’t know what will. All of this sludge, water, mould, etc. will seep into the earth and streams and contaminate cattle and crops in the areas along the Mississippi & Coast. Children will be playing on ground that is poisonous. Those without potable water will be drinking and bathing in the contaminants. It is a huge health concern that not many are seriously talking about. Draining water is one thing, but it’s what is left behind that we haven’t heard a plan about.

So all this needs to be cleaned up.

But by who? In my darkest fears about humanity and greed do I really believe that the US gov’t as led by George W. Cheney will put the army in charge of this for an extended period of time? He needs them for war fighting… and as we’ve already seen Blackwater mercs are on the ground so I expect more contract military to be utilized as things continue to spiral out of control in Iraq and the draft remains an unfeasible political option heading into 2006. Heavily armed mercs accountable to their paychecks providing “security” on the streets of NOLA as the wealthy get back to rebuilding their lives and partying with other wealthy people who arrive on vacation… pessimistic. Perhaps.

Now on to the actual reconstruction itself of all those toxic areas… well, as we’ve seen, the EPA isn’t really moving very quickly to do something about the problem… but I’m sure Haliburton or someone will miraculously open a Bio Hazard Clean Up Unit to take care of the problem, in conjunction with the Feds. I keep flashing to Colonial times and I just can’t help but wonder if we’re going to see a lot of the same residents who were trapped in the Convention Center working in the sweltering heat shoveling poison into trucks as Haliburton management oversees from their “clean rooms”. Hell, make sure the areas are declared “high risk areas”, cordoned off to outside traffic during the clean up and then bus the workers in from their “shanty towns”, pay them a miniscule wage with the promise that their neighbourhood’s will be next on the list, just as soon as we get the ports for commerce opened up and the factories up and running again, and bob’s your uncle, we have the third world on your doorstep.

Overly pessimistic? Perhaps. Fatalistic? Perhaps. Conspiracy laden? Perhaps. But I’ve studied history and know all about greed and human nature & frankly with the crew in charge these days I’ve stopped putting anything past them.

So what can you do?

Keep talking to the survivors and telling their stories. Keep demanding media access and fair reporting. Keep the pressure on your elected officials for an independent investigation and refuse the no bid contracts. And last but most certainly not least, work as hard as you possibly can to get these fuckers out of office in 2006. Before it gets even worse.