Posted on 09/12/2005 4:41:13 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Now that water has receded from some of the most heavily damaged areas of New Orleans, it is becoming increasingly clear that Hurricane Katrina has left a major environmental mess in its wake.
Assessment teams and local emergency officials have identified at least six serious oil spills and numerous smaller incidents in southern Louisiana, but they are most concerned about a leak of an estimated 672,000 gallons of crude oil from a storage tank at a Murphy Oil Corp. refinery, some of which seeped into densely populated neighborhoods on the southeastern outskirts of New Orleans.
Federal officials told area leaders in private meetings over the weekend that they have designated the location around the Murphy refinery in Meraux in St. Bernard Parish as a "hot zone," or a potentially deadly hazard. Official access to the area has been restricted, but reporters from The Wall Street Journal who drove through city streets in the area saw block after block of homes within a mile of the refinery that had been inundated with what appears to be a mixture of oil and mud. Streets and much of the ground are covered in several inches of oozing muck.
Only limited work has been performed to remove the spilled crude since water began to recede from the area this past Thursday. As more of the crude sinks into the earth, officials say, the probability grows that as many as 4,000 homes will have to be razed and two to three feet of soil removed before the area could be inhabited again. Government officials say oil sludge spread across an area of three square miles.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The reason it is called 'crude' is because it is in it's natural state.
It would be better to call it 'natural oil'.
Time to set up a portable onsite thermal desorption system. Then cover it with about 30' gravel.
It will be 50 years before Prince William Sound will support marine life. < / sarc
Their are oil seeps all over the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf has plenty of marine life.
I am sooooooooo sorry. [/sarcasm]
Go check out word (not post) #8 on this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1483144/posts
LOL!
hell with the oil spill..they're really lucky the McIlheny plant that makes Tabasco didn't leak..that would have wiped out all the plant animal and marine life for 500 square miles..
well you know we're still waiting to be able utilize hiroshima and nagasaki. just like the environmentalists said so the sound will be polluted for ever...what ...people... living in nagasaki and hiroshima....never mind cheddar.
You are very quick on the trigger. Good thing for ctlpdad you can't shoot worth a damm. ; )
I'm bulletproof
It's not an ecological disaster; it's just going to kill some humans through cancer is all. No big deal, except to "pro-lifers" perhaps. </sarc>
It would be better to call it 'natural oil'.
Spouting envirowacko mantras that anything that's "natural" is good won't make the components of crude oil any less toxic. There are many substances on this earth that are "natural" but will harm humans. Yes, hydrocarbons will eventually break down, and the panics over oil spills are often exaggerated, but the point here is that the spill is in a potential human habitation area, not offshore.
Let's not be stupid and rebuild in these areas at taxpayer expense! Let's be smart and build in accordance with the terrain! Let's not do the leftie idea of ignoring reality while crying instead for symbolism.
I used to be also, then I quit drinking.
A Tequila guy, I see!
Sauza Commemorativo. Let the amateur's drink Cuervo.
Just scrap it up and send it to the nearest landfill, say the one in Lake Charles.
What is the half-life of Tabasco?
Turn it into a catch basin. Return it to nature. Gators, nutria, those flat bottom boats and the like.
about the same as U-235
What I'm waiting for is for the Corps of Engineers to realize that most of New Orleans is naturally "wetlands" and to declare it so and prohibit it from being rebuilt. Just like they do everywhere else around the country.
Returning it to nature would be fine. Whatever doesn't cost a dime of tax dollars, and nature will continue to make it more and more difficult to support the boondoggle known as New Orleans. It's not like we're in a static situation...NO a sinking ship...literally sinking!!!
That would be nice...one of the few times it would save the taxpayers from a boondoggle instead of costing us!
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