BPB--
Upwards of 1,000,000 have been displaced by the hurricane and the flood--most of them with just the clothes on their backs and the majority may have no homes to return to.
How much does it cost to feed a evacuated family of four every day? What is the cost for clothing? If the breadwinner of the family can find a job, what about paying for transportation and daycare? What about school supplies? Pet food? Toothpaste?
Even with Karl Rove pumping away on spin and obsufcation all the waters of New Orleans are not going to sweeten the Republican image.
Meanwhile, every day of delay is an expensive day because of the people who can't go home again--yet.
Not sure if anybody posted this yet...
EPA: Contaminated Floodwater Dangerous
"Always, always, always wash hands before eating," Gerberding stressed. "
i heard the surgeon-general say the same thing this morning during an interview.
the question is : where are people to find the clean water to wash their hands ?
The EPA is monitoring the water quality . They will probably advise on the pumping project.
1They cannot efficiently treat the water before dischrging because the remaining water will just get more and more fetid and youll be losing ground and ultimately (IMO) overwhelm any treatment system you may bring in
2 Point-of_Discharge (portable treatment systems) would have to be built because the NO POTW's are underwater and this is , indeed, part of the problem
3 A treatment plant needs a lot of time and multiple loops to treat a combination of oils, metals, poop, and other toxins. This would take lots of time that could be spent letting the water out and cleaning up the remaining sludge (This stuff is settling out in the water column)
4I was thinking about it and , I think a better approach would be to install jet aerators and floating coffer damn modules into lake Pontchartrain to turn it into a moving series of baffled basins . These are used by small communities all over the US where they use spray irrigation. This would allow the dewatering of NO and it would catch and treat aerobically, the **** thats contained in the pumped water. A community unit for about 15 Million gal per day includes about 8 jet aerators. So, from the amount of water blowing into the lake at about 36 million gal per day per pump. Well, thats a lot of jets. There were (and Im not sure of this anymore)8 banks of pumps , for about .3 billion gal per day. Treating the water after its dumped is a reasonable way to get rid of the water and accomplish "some" treatment. (It wont be up to discharge standards but , it wont be a "primordial soup" either)
