Isnt anyone concerened about the toxic water being pumped into various places?

[Assassin X]

Isnt anyone concerened about the toxic water being pumped into various places?

'm suprised i havent seen ANYTHING about this. You keep hearing about how there is oil, and rotted stuff in the water and dead bodies, some of which that have literaly exploded stomachs and are toxic.

Ummm.... Isn't anyone concerned about this crap being pumped into...well... where ever its going? This stuff is horribly toxic! I know you cant really do anything about it but this is going to screw up animal life in the water, people that swim in it....etc! I think the govement hasnt said anything yet because its really bad and they arent telling anyone! Although i dont get cable so i dont get channels like CNN to see whats going on 24/7.

[DarkAce]

Good ole chlorine...

[Marajadex]

From what the media has said... (not that I trust the media) the toxic mess is being pumped into the Lake... not the river or the gulf.

If someone knows more on this please correct me.

With it contained within the lake they can then take steps to "clean" it up. Unfortunatly the water has to go somewhere...

[lazserus]

Water is recycled. We drink and boil our own piss and shit. Can you imagine, we pay for water? What has the world come to where we have to pay to drink water unspoiled?

[Mezurashi]

According to the Sept 12 edition of 'Daily Planet' on Discovery Channel (Canada) there is a guy saying though the 'pollutant' situation is bad there is a far more serious issue going on.

Apparantly there is a Zero Oxygen Count at the bottom of the floodwater due to an overgrowth of bacteria and a lack of current to move the water around. As this water gets pumped back into Lake Ponch it could kill off a serious amount of the algae and fish life in the Lake. This could result in the whole region being destabilized (Lake Ponch provides a lot of local ecological infrastructure).

But ... one cannot stop the pumps.

Several factors that helped out in NO - everyone who left took most of the gas with them - underground tanks weren't near full when the flooding hit. The industrial zones are bad but much of the 'buried' pollution has stayed that way, for now.

The clean up is going to be horrendous but it's going be the worst when almost all the water has been drained and that initial 'corpse tag' game begins (i.e. finding the ones that were missed).

As for Lake Ponch, well, there is no clear cut answer but the choice seems to be create another natural disaster as a result of cleaning up after one ... but what other options are there? Leave NO underwater?

[Resentedhalo]

I can see all of your points, moving the polluted water to lake Ponch will only move the problem elsewhere. there has to be a way of cleaning the water whilst moving it to lake Ponch, however this would be very expensive. To be quite honest the best option is to relocate the people in the affected areas elsewhere but this in itself creates another problem again. So other alternatives have to be thought of, whichever way it's dealt with it's going to be extremely expensive.

Resentedhalo.

[Marajadex]

Seems to me that getting the water out of the city is the paramount concern. They can then deal with cleaning the Lake. HOWEVER it would not suprise me if they pumped all that "crap" into the lake and then just forgot about it.

It is a nasty problem and I hope they get it cleaned up soon...

[dcookcan]

Being that my profession is cleaning up the environmental messes that man creates, I will add my two scents. If there is low dissolved oxygen content in the flood waters, the simple act of pumping the water into Lake Ponch will oxygenate the water. Since they have been conducting chemical testing on the flood water, they are aware of the toxins that are present and can take appropriate remedial measures while they are pumping out the flood water. However, they are more concerned about getting rid of the flood water so they can clean up the debris and dead bodies. Therefore, the environmental damage will be transferred from N.O. into the Lake where it can be dealt with in time.

Like MaraJ says, they may very well forget about the contamination. This is only bad in the short term. Nature has an uncanny ability to clean itself up. Organic chemicals that are transferred into the Lake will attenuate over time; that is, they will break down into carbon dioxide and water. This may take many years depending on the chemical contaminants and the amount of chlorinated organics present. Inorganic chemical concentrations will also degrade over time, but this process does not involve chemical degradation; it involves uptake by the flora and fauna in the lake. The fish, invertibrates and plants in the lake will absord the inorganic chemicals and this poses a risk to the food chain. This is why there are sometimes warnings on not eating fish from certain reservoirs or limiting the amount of fish eaten. Inorganic chemicals like mercury and lead tend to concentrate in fish. But, given time, these chemical concentrations will also be reduced.

The main factor is time. It may require 10 years; it may be more like a hundred. It just depends on the chemical concentrations present in the water.

Hope that helps.

[Assassin X]

Idea 1:
Ok, maybe im just thinking with my violent male brain like we all do (hey men like things that go boom!) but once its all pumped into the lake couldnt they just dump some really flammable stuff into the lake and then "POOF"....well.... BOOM and just torch away all the nasty crap?

Heck just bomb it with some heavy stuff we have that will sanitize it!

I know it sounds silly but is it possible to do something along the line of burning it all away with a giant flame/explosion thing?

Idea 2:
I remember a long time ago we use to (maybe still do?) put radioactive junk in large rockets and blast them towards the sun or something like that or maybe i was just young then and bought into stuff. If it was true lets fill up rockets with water and blast it towards the sun too! Heck we could even put Saddam in there and put some lawyers in there too and make a really nice planet!

[liberdave]

If it's getting pumped into the gulf, we wouldn't even be able to tell if it hits Galveston... it would float around like the rest of the waste... Galveston is like that part in a lake or pond that all the shit floating at the top just congregates to. Fuck it, bring the toxic waters, the flounder will put up more of a fight on the end of my rod and reel...

[Marajadex]

The water is that bad in your area LiberDave? If so is the fish edible? Don't think I have heard of anyone catching Flounder before!!!! LOL!!!

[liberdave]

Not to hijack the thread, but...

The water is that bad in your area LiberDave? If so is the fish edible? Don't think I have heard of anyone catching Flounder before!!!! LOL!!!
I've pulled flounder out as big as 8" across when they are running, and yes, anyone in the Houston/Galveston area can tell you, at about higher ankle deep water, you can't see your feet.

[Assassin X]

Maybe the toxic water won't be that bad!

Maybe 10-20 years from now we'll get to see fish with 3 eyes that are 40 feet long and alligators that can run 60 MPH on land thanks to the longer legs they grew from the toxic gunk!!

:thinks about mutated animals: :ack:

[Mezurashi]

Idea 1:
Ok, maybe im just thinking with my violent male brain like we all do (hey men like things that go boom!) but once its all pumped into the lake couldnt they just dump some really flammable stuff into the lake and then "POOF"....well.... BOOM and just torch away all the nasty crap?

Heck just bomb it with some heavy stuff we have that will sanitize it!

I know it sounds silly but is it possible to do something along the line of burning it all away with a giant flame/explosion thing?

Here in Vancouver we are being 'smoked' by the local Bog fire (30 hectares and growing) and all I can say is, cough, hack, wheeze.

and this is from a 'natural' and unpolluted bog, I can't imagine what the smoke and soot from the gunk in the waters of NO would contain, but none of it would be good.

plus setting the water on fire can have unpleasant sequelae. The Hudson, or was it East, river in New York area used to catch fire once a decade or so and it always made new because it was, in fact, burning garbage and human waste. And a lot of the time the only thing they could do was let it burn out.

maybe if they got a whole bunch of chefs to 'skim' the gunk off the water like chicken fat off the top layer of soup ...

[midnight21]

This is just my opinion on this, but i think the media is covering the truth up to prevent widespread fear and panic. if the whole word is living in fear, things will get ugly.

Unfortunately, i am a little concerned about this- if this is being pumped into the oceans, then the oceans will be contaminaded. it will get into the bloodstream of sea mammals, possibly OUR food supply, and it will end up in our bodies. then slowly but surely, we will all die one by one. if that isn't bad enough, the water will probably get into the mississippi river if it hasn't already and it will contaminate all living things there. then it will effect everybody.

i know there's materials used to purify the water out there but how much longer can that last?

i know i'm kinda rambling a bit but these are my thoughts and i really can't help but wonder...

[Mezurashi]

dcookcan - in regards to the act of pumping the water aerating it, I believe the problem is that there is a Zero Oxy content (creating the 'dead water' scenario) and pumping it would not provide enough aeration to prevent a huge die off in Lake Ponch from CO2 poisoning. But something as simple as large fans at the outlet 'frothing' the incoming dead water might. THE ISSUE is that the US Federal Gov't, despite it's knowledge of the situation and it's dire outcome is Not taking steps. Bad when you consider that half of the environmental concerns in and around the battlezone have been brought to the worlds attention by Foreign Nationals (including a few of us Canadians).

If Lake Ponch suffers the whole alluvial delta that is Lousiana and Mississippi will be severely affected. If Lake Ponch 'dies' then the whole region gets poisoned and so on. The whole domino effect of stuff like this.

However, I am seeing articles on this Daily now so it is not being generally ignored - thought there really isn't much we can do about it.

I wonder if Billy Mays Oxy Clean would help?

[DmoneyCustoms]

Maybe the toxic water won't be that bad!

Maybe 10-20 years from now we'll get to see fish with 3 eyes that are 40 feet long and alligators that can run 60 MPH on land thanks to the longer legs they grew from the toxic gunk!!

:thinks about mutated animals: :ack:

At least we will have more of a food ration if the animals mutate and get bigger mmmmm im hungry nowwwww lol :crazy:

[dcookcan]

I wonder if Billy Mays Oxy Clean would help?

Probably.

Peroxide would work even better, although you might want to keep your distance as the reaction could be violent. (It would kill the bacteria creating the zero O2 problem, add O2, and even blow apart a few hydrocarbon chains in the process.)

[Mezurashi]

Okay so this morning they announced they're rescinding their return to NO and asking everyone to leave again...anyone think it has anythign to do with inaccurate and/or optimistic forecasts about the pollution levels?

[Assassin X]

Leave.....Come back!....LEAVE AGAIN!!!.... Come back....LEAVE!!!

Rofl.

:Yoda Voice: "Clouded the future is. Decisions the goverment knows not how to do."