sunday times: EPA deception

The British paper the Independent reported last week that there the toxic hazards in New Orleans that should render the city uninhabitable for a decade, a situation downplayed by the Bush Adminstration.  The lead paragraph states,

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

The official is long-time EPA toxic waste chief investigator Hugh Kaufman.  Kaufman, one of the authors of the original Superfund act, is well-known critic of his own agency.  As far back as 1985, Kaufman was trying to expose weaknesses in the government's protection of the environment.  At that time, the issue was favoritism towards Waste Management, Inc., the country's largest toxic waste disposal company; this was under the Reagan Administration.

In 2002, he told a public hearing that the air quality near the World Trade Center was worse than the EPA admitted, that government agencies did not properly test it, and provided false information to the public. Mother Jones magazine did a story on the following investigation, the disturbing story is online.  He and fellow EPA ombudsman felt that the WTC site was as contaminated as a Superfund site, and should be treated as such. He was removed from his post after filing a Whistleblower suit, and was ordered reinstated. (A bit more on Kaufman in the comments section of this post on Effect Measure.)

The government watchdog group OMB Watch has an online letter you can send to EPA administrator Stephen Johnson asking the EPA to come clean about the toxic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

Comments

[John]

The EPA's guarantees of air safety in the aftermath of 9/11 were scandalous. I don't know if I would trust the agency this time around without some sort of independent confirmmation. What I don't understand is why the government made safety such a low priority in New York.

[Aaron]

I don't think the toxic chemical hazard in New Orleans will be much higher than the toxic chemical hazard in most overpopulated urban communities across the United States, at least after the initial cleanup.

No doubt some homes will be so badly contaminated they'll have to be torn down, but for the most part this urban environment, especially for the poor, will probably be little altered over the long-term.