"Toxic Soup" not true in New Orleans

[southsider2k5]

http://townhall.com/opinion/columns/Michae.../02/184899.html

[Kid Gleason]

They do have chocolate milk there though, and I hear it's rather tasty.

[FlaSoxxJim]

While I'm always going to take anything written by the author of very slanted The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS with several grains of salt, I agree that term was bandied about in a very ill-defined manner in the post-Katrina reporting.

 

That said, I think a couple of the indicators they looked at were inappropriate. a couple of weeks after the impact, looking at evidence of elevated toxicity in fish/shellfish is probably of marginal utility since it would take considerably longer to see a bioaccumulatory effect. Looking at the soils is the right idea, and not surprisingly, there they saw some elevated levels. What he doesn't include is any indication of what levels the contaminated floodwater contained at the point just prior to its discharge into Ponchartrain. I'm anxious to see those numbers. And of course I hope Ponchartrain proves to be as resilient as this preliminary report suggests. It's already a heavily urbanized system that is completely different than what it was 200 years ago, and quite possibly the slug of contaminated water from Katrina is going to be just a blip.

[bmags]

i understood like maybe 4 words of your post jim

[FlaSoxxJim]

i understood like maybe 4 words of your post jim

Uh, sorry.

 

Basically, I agree that the term "toxic soup" was thrown about rather casually, but I think the author cherrypicked the indicators that best conveyed the picture that N.O. was flooded with water that wasn't overly polluted.

 

I've been in lots of water that most people would not willingly go into – stagnant mangrove marshes, mosquito impoundments, and whatnot - and it doesn't much phase me. But then again I've developed a couple of contact dermatites as a result of some of these outings too. And that had nothing to do with coliform, or any sort of contamination.

 

Knowing the sheer volume of petroleum and industrial pollutants and human waste that had been released when the city flooded, you couldn't have paid me enough to get me to go into the N.O. floodwater unless human safety demended it. Despite what the man who suggested we spend too much on HIV research has to say about it.

[bmags]

Uh, sorry. 

 

Basically, I agree that the term "toxic soup" was thrown about rather casually, but I think the author cherrypicked the indicators that best conveyed the picture that N.O. was flooded with water that wasn't overly polluted.

 

I've been in lots of water that most people would not willingly go into – stagnant mangrove marshes, mosquito impoundments, and whatnot - and it doesn't much phase me.  But then again I've developed a couple of contact dermatites as a result of some of these outings too.  And that had nothing to do with coliform, or any sort of contamination.

 

Knowing the sheer volume of petroleum and industrial pollutants and human waste that had been released when the city flooded, you couldn't have paid me enough to get me to go into the N.O. floodwater unless human safety demended it.  Despite what the man who suggested we spend too much on HIV research has to say about it.

 

thanks, i think it was the bioaccumulants that did me in before

[Steff]

i understood like maybe 4 words of your post jim

 

 

It's all that underage drinking rotting your brain.

[FlaSoxxJim]

thanks, i think it was the bioaccumulants that did me in before

 

Gotcha. Basically the notion that you are going to get near-instant measurable levels of some contaminant in tissues a couple of links up in the food web is flawed. For fish to show an accumulation of a toxin they are taking in through an oral route, the toxin has to be taken up by organisms at a lower level on the food chain, and that toxin has to pass up the chain to ultimately accumulate in tissues of top predators.

 

It's more or less the same for shellfish, even though they are suspension feeders lower on the food chain. They have to filter lots of microalgae in order to accumulate significant tissue quantities of the contaminants.

[bmags]

Gotcha.  Basically the notion that you are going to get near-instant measurable levels of some contaminant in tissues a couple of links up in the food web is flawed.  For fish to show an accumulation of a toxin they are taking in through an oral route, the toxin has to be taken up by organisms at a lower level on the food chain, and that toxin has to pass up the chain to ultimately accumulate in tissues of top predators.

 

It's more or less the same for shellfish, even though they are suspension feeders lower on the food chain.  They have to filter lots of microalgae in order to accumulate significant tissue quantities of the contaminants.

 

interesting...i was also questioning that article, as he said that human feces was common to seep its way into flood water, then he never mentioned it, and then said "people buy supplements for more iron and such" and all seemed a bit contrived and silly. But i think the journalists were giving their interpretation and i'm guessing some of that water looked pretty nasty...

[SpringfieldFan]

Of course New Orleans isn't "toxic soup". Chocolate's only poisonous to dogs.

 

SFF

Edited February 3, 2006 by SpringfieldFan