LSU researchers determine New Orleans flood water not as toxic as feared

The flood waters that inundated New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina were similar in content to the city's normal storm water and were not as toxic as previously thought, according to a study led by LSU Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering John Pardue. The study was the first peer-reviewed scientific assessment of the water quality of the Katrina flood waters.

“What we had in New Orleans was basically a year's worth of storm water flowing through the city in only a few days," said Pardue, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at LSU. "We still don't think the flood waters were safe, but it could have been a lot worse. It was not the chemical catastrophe some had expected."

However, Pardue said that the same flood waters that were pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain contain high levels of some toxic metals, especially copper and zinc, and could pose a long-term danger to the area's aquatic life, which are more sensitive to the metals than humans. Their findings appeared in the Oct. 11 online issue of the American Chemical Society's journal "Environmental Science & Technology."
–Rob Anderson

from Storm Issue 2005