Ponchartrain to turn into Lake Superfund?

Pontchartrain to turn into Lake Superfund?

PlayboyJoeSchmoe alluded to this in the "9 weeks.." thread:

The gunk being called "water" in New Orleans is being pumped somewhere else. It has been identified as highly toxic, with deadly levels of at least bacteria, lead, and oil. I don't know where it's being pumped, but I believe it's into the used-to-be-okay Lake Pontchartrain.

I've been a tele-news junky for the last week and there has been absolutely zero mention of the enormous problem this is spreading into a whole new geographical region. (Just as there has been no mention of maybe a loose barge causing the 1st major levee break.)

Seems to me that Lake Pontchartrain as well as N.O. could now both become the world's largest superfund site. Better than pumping it into the open ocean, I suppose.

Can anyone help out with some facts on what's going on? I sure hope that stuff isn't going into the ocean.

Just give it a couple of years until you can take a bath again in the gulf of mexico...

While there are some days that I think the AP doesn't do much in the way of fact checking, this article does repeat what you feared, they are just pumping the sludge back into the lake.

Louisiana Environmental Secretary Mike McDaniel ... said the water will be pumped into Lake Pontchartrain even though it is fouled with sewage, heavy metals, gasoline and other dangerous substances.

Click to expand...

No reference to how they are going to clean it up past that point though.

Interesting article. Thanks. (Total tangent from the article -- I still can't get over how every time Nagin speaks, I hear self-inditement and Oprah watchers hear a victim with a big heart. I must have no heart or something.)

Things look pretty bad for the prospect of getting things cleaned up down there. I was hoping the problems weren't going to be spread & perpetuated, but it looks pretty dangerous in both lake as well as city from here on out.

I imagine the easiest thing for fixing the city is to do what's always been done when it's too expensive to clean it up: cover it with dirt and hope it doesn't seep up. (A la Love Canal)

The lake, well, that'll probably just settle to the bottom & be forgotten?

Laissez les bon temps rouller! (Ack!)