“I’m shocked, shocked…  – Captain Renault in Casablanca

I’m shocked – there’s actual data on EPA’s website!  After the EPA’s sorry performance with 9/11 air monitoring, someone may have decided that since the truth will come out anyway, better to have it out now.  Or maybe we’re not getting all the data – I can’t vouch for what’s posted (disclaimer below).  But FYI, the EPA is posting test results for Hurricane Katrina environmental samples on their website.  What follows is a user’s guide of what’s there, what’s not there, how to access it, and how to figure out what it means if you’re not an environmental chemist.

Road map to find the test results:

Start at the EPA’s website, www.epa.gov.  There are headlines there of several stories, but that’s not where the data are.  Scroll down the page a little less than halfway to the bottom of the “Top Stories” section.  You’ll find three links in red and underlined:

Air Screening Data Available
Additional Chemical Test Data Available
Additional Biological Test Data Available

(details below the fold)
Air Screening Data

If you click on “Air Screening Data Available,” you are redirected to a page where test results through 9/11 were posted (as of 9/19).  The data are screening-level data, which means that they’re good enough to tell cleanup crews “over here, but not over there” but are not quantitatively reliable.  I suspect the data are running a week late in part because the air monitoring is a joint operation with the LA Dept. of Environmental Quality and thus two different organizations need to sign off the data before it can be posted.

The data are gathered using this aircraft, whose home base is EPA Region 7 in Kansas City, KS.  In addition to video, infrared (heat imaging), and still photography, the plane is equipped with GPS.  The plane looks for chemicals by “sniffing” the air and analyzing it using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.  This method measures vibrations of chemical molecules to fingerprint them – each unique chemical vibrates with unique wavelengths of energy.  If you want more technical details, use Google; I’m trying to keep this layperson-friendly here.

As of today, the only compound “measured above OSHA Standards” was chloroacetic acid while flying over a rail yard:

In this instance, the detection was reported to EPA responders on the ground. The responders located the source, a 55-gallon drum containing 4 inches of Chloroacetic Acid. The drum was secured by EPA response personnel.

It would be helpful if the specific OSHA limits the site is referring to were referenced.  I assume these are 8-hour work day / 40 hour work week workplace standards?  Actual safe levels for people to breathe 24-7 would be lower, but such standards may not exist for many compounds, so I suspect the OSHA workplace limits are being used as a quick and dirty gauge of contamination levels, but this a point to keep in the back of your mind.

The information is presented in a not-very-user-friendly table.  I say it’s not very user friendly because the test results do not always line up with the tests performed, so it’s not clear whether there is still data that’s not been posted yet to this table.  Also, instead of “nothing detected” it would be more useful if the table listed (or had a link to) the (estimated, if need be) detection limits for all compounds the instrument can detect.  

Layperson explanation:  Scientific instruments never can see down to “zero” concentration.  They can only see down to a level where the information they’re measuring gets lost in the electronic noise of the instrument’s detector itself.  This concentration is reported as a “detection limit.”  It is the concentration at which there’s a 95% probability that you can tell a signal (a detection) apart from random noise in the detector.

There are notations that indicate oil spills were visually observed and filmed, but no compounds were reported – presumably this is because the concentrations in the air were below the detection limit of the instrument.

Chemical Testing

The chemical test results link takes you here, where there is a general introduction, and links to test results for water samples.

EPA, in coordination with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, performed chemical sampling of New Orleans flood waters for over one hundred priority pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semivolatile organic compounds. (SVOCs), total metals, pesticides, herbicides, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

In English, they’re saying that they’re analyzing the water for the full suite of compounds that wastewater samples are routinely tested for before they are discharged from any major municipal wastewater treatment plant.  

Hexavalent chromium and arsenic, in addition to lead which was previously detected on September 3rd, were detected at levels which exceeded EPA drinking water standards. These compounds would pose a risk to children only if a child were to drink a liter of flood water a day. Long-term exposure (a year or longer) to arsenic would be required before health effects would be expected to occur. Thallium was detected at one sampling location and while levels are slightly elevated, they are 10 times lower than levels at which there would be a health effect. Given these results, EPA and CDC advise the public and emergency responders to avoid contact with flood water when possible. If contact occurs, EPA strongly advises the use of soap and water to clean the areas if available.

These levels aren’t healthy, but the water won’t immediately poison you either (barring something other than what’s been posted); the bigger short-term threat in the water is bacteria (see below).

It is not clear whether they’re looking for non-routine compounds (Tentatively Identified Compounds or TICs, for those of you who speak EPA-ese).  Typical good lab practice would be to save the raw instrument outputs for a period of time, so they may be planning to go back and scan for any non-routine compounds later.

It would be interesting/reassuring to confirm that they are, in fact, saving all the raw data in case questions come up later, if there are any congresspersons or their staff reading this.  The page indicates: “The data has been reviewed and validated through a quality assurance process to ensure scientific accuracy.”  This is standard practice; EPA has standard operating procedures requiring this.  Again, the raw data should be saved in case it needs to be confirmed at a later date that SOPs were followed and the data meets advertised criteria.  In a phrase that those of you who remember the Reagan administration will recall: “Trust, but verify.”

Aside:  It used to be that you could access the complete raw data by filing a FOIA request (I did it myself in the 1980’s – you get boxes and boxes of paper!), but given the way this administration is responding to FOIAs today, I wouldn’t hold my breath unless a congressperson requested the raw data.  Also, the EPA (at least the region I was involved with) changed its policies on releasing raw data in response to a FOIA during the Bush Sr. administration and I don’t know if it was ever reversed under Clinton.  They managed to put the kibosh on FOIAs for raw data by interpreting the law to require only the release of final data, not “intermediate results.”  If there’s an environmental lawyer out there (or EPA employee) that can clarify this, I’d appreciate it.

Scrolling down a bit you can see links for test results for Sept. 3, 4, and 6 so far.  There is also a map of all locations sampled through 9/12/05, so there’s data that’s not been posted yet.

If you click on one of the links you go to a page that has an opening discussion, plus a map of locations sampled.  You can click on the map itself or the links beneath to get the test results for a specific site.

Once you do, you get a set of tables listing compounds detected and exceeding EPA limits, compounds detected and not exceeding EPA limits, compounds detected for which EPA hasn’t established limits, and compounds not found.  Again, as noted above, detection limits would have been helpful.  The tables list “CAS Numbers,” which refer to Chemical Abstract Service numbers.  Since sometimes compounds can have multiple names (ethanol, ethyl alcohol, and grain alcohol are all the same thing) CAS numbers are used in tables and databases to unambiguously identify a chemical.

No units are given in the tables, which is a big boo-boo.  Are the numbers parts per million, parts per billion, or what?  Who QC’ed these?  Sloppy, but not evidence of wrongdoing.  The descriptions given for each chemical are standard definitions that EPA has been using for years.  No problem there.  It would have been more layperson friendly, though, if somewhere there was a discussion that said the reported levels of all the compounds detected here, for example, except dieldrin (a pesticide) are just due to the mud and salt in the water (i.e., the barium, calcium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, and zinc are all probably natural, not pollutants.).

If you click on any chemical name in blue, you are taken to a page (for example, here for manganese) that is very scary to a non-technical person.  It actually is a link to all kinds of information on that compound, from laws regulating it, to health and environmental effects. The links at the bottom of the page go to all kinds of good information that I could write a book describing and explaining.  Feel free to investigate and come back with questions if you want (also, my email is at the bottom of this diary).

Biological Testing

If you click on the biological link on the EPA main page, you again go to a general introduction page, which has a link to all test results through 9/10.  There is a table of test results for e. coli and total coliform bacteria, and a map at the bottom (non-interactive) showing the locations sampled.  These specific bacteria indicate contamination by fecal matter.  (No surprise, huh?)

Again, there is no discussion of how many colonies per 100 milliliters of water is considered OK for human exposure or drinking, so there is no way to determine how bad the situation is.  The “>” symbol, BTW, means greater than the number listed – in other words, the measurement was maxed out.  These levels are high, as reported in the press already; you don’t want to be wading in this water without rubber boots.

There was a concern in another diary about no tests being performed for other bacteria or viruses.  There are a few factors at work here.  Coliform testing is quick, readily available, and typically is used as an indicator of other types of bacterial pollution.  If it fails on coliform, it’s a risk, so there’s no need for a detailed analysis of every organism present.

From talking to folks in the health department here, exotic diseases like yellow fever that were not already present are not a cause of concern.  Cases of cholera have thankfully, to date, been rare.  What might be a concern are more common food poisoning and diarrheal diseases like the Norwalk virus, that caused disease outbreaks a while back on some cruise ships.  Hepatitis is an issue, but HIV is not; it requires sexual or blood contact, and is not transmitted by mosquitoes (although there are rare folks that will disagree on this point).  Fungal infections might also be anticipated for those exposed to this witches brew.

Summary

So that’s what’s there in a nutshell; feel free to post any questions you might have.

I’m hoping to have another diary in a day or two with a discussion of the known or anticipated ecological impacts; a lot of this information is slower in coming in because while you can test a water sample in a day or two, it takes time to get out in the bayous or on the beaches to see what organisms have died off compared to pre-Katrina.