The Receding Water Will Spread This Toxic Filth Around the Gulf and Eventually the World

from skippy the bush kangaroo (yes, he posts in all lower case letters, like e.e. cummings). To click on the links contained within the article, click on the article title. Skippy is raising money from blogtopia (yes! skippy coined that phrase!) and so far has raised over $10,000.

yes...it does get worse

...it seems that a toxic landfill site on which housing was built in central new orleans is now under floodwaters with the potential to pollute and contaminate portions of the gulf coast. despite the overwhelming international coverage of hurricane katrina's lethal attack on southern u.s. states, it is the current issue of solid waste & recycling magazine that unearthed an environmental hazard that has the potential of being an underwater love canal.

cnn and fox news have now been alerted.

something called the agriculture street landfill (asl) is located on a 95-acre site in central new orleans.

it is registered as a "superfund site" (whatever that is) on the federal government's national priorities list of highly contaminated sites requiring cleanup and containment. but nothing has been done.

...according to the editor of hazardous waste magazine, the asl site -- now under water -- will almost inevitably leach toxic effluent into the floodwaters, with the potential of inflicting unpredictable damage on the coast, and those that live there -- a possible environmental catastrophe. - toronto star

houses and buildings that were constructed in later years directly atop parts of the landfill. residents report unusual cancers and health problems and have lobbied for years to be relocated away from the old contaminated site, which contains not only municipal garbage, but buried industrial wastes such as what would be produced by service stations and dry cleaners, manufacturers or burning. the site was routinely sprayed with ddt in the 1940s and 50s and, in 1962, 300,000 cubic yards of excess fill were removed from asl because of ongoing subsurface fires. (the site was nicknamed "dante's inferno" because of the fires.)

the asl can be thought of a sort of love canal for new orleans -– and now it sits under water. - solid waste & recyling

a political problem was lurking behind the scientific numbers. nobody in the city or federal government wanted to take responsibility for the problem. the epa was overseeing the pollution problem, but the neighborhood was built on land the city had owned and polluted. It had been financed under a department of housing and urban development program. - nola.com