NOLA Tests The Waters: A study conducted by LSU’s Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute concludes that the water that flooded Mid-City and Lakeview was mostly harmless. According to John Pardue, the study lead, the samples “contained chemical and biological contaminants in levels very similar to water from a typical rainstorm.”
Pardue warns, however, that the muck and dried-up mud contains hazardous biological material as well as high levels of metals such as copper, zinc, cadmium and lead. Returning residents as well as recovery workers must be careful when cleaning up this material.
The study also ran some tests above and beyond EPA standards (and what are those?). The water contained “small amounts of [home construction] chemicals, including one used in aerosol paints and another used in caulking compounds and sealants [not readily toxic] … like the earlier EPA tests [the study] also didn’t find large amounts of several cancer-causing chemicals associated with gasoline, including benzene, because they evaporate quickly.”
