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December 02, 2005
Enviro-fanatics Resume Their Campaign Against New Orleans
It seems the Lefty environmentalist faction has opened their campaign on the New Orleans front:
Federal and state environmental agencies are downplaying long-term health dangers posed by chemicals in sediment that covers much of the New Orleans area, several environmental groups charged Thursday.
The Natural Resources Defense Counci (NRDC), one of the nation's largest environmental groups, and several local Louisiana environmental groups said that heavy metals, petroleum components and pesticides in the dusty residue left behind by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters pose such a risk that families with children shouldn't return until it is cleaned up.
"The cancer risk and the risk of other long-term health effects is quite significant according to (federal) standards," said Gina Solomon, a physician with the Natural Resources Defense Council. [...]
The groups' test results largely conform with what the EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality found in samples taken since September. But the groups and government agencies disagree on the implications.
"It's how they interpret it," said Dana Shepherd, a toxicologist with the Louisiana environmental department. Some toxic standards, she said, are based on "a child eating that dirt for 350 days a year for a lifetime."
The government agencies recommend that residents take simple precautions when exposed to sediment, such as wearing respirators and washing exposed skin.
Empahsis mine. "When exposed to sediment". That means "when you spend the day shoveling 20 wheelbarrow loads out of your backyard." It's the usual story...fresh-cooked french bread can be fatal if you eat 20 pounds in ten minutes. Whatever.
And who is the Natural Resources Defense Council, the group mainly responsible for these charges? Well, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is their senior attorney:
Kennedy serves as Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, is Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and President of Waterkeeper Alliance. He is a Clinical Professor and Supervising Attorney at Pace University School of Law’s Environmental Litigation Clinic and co-host of ‘Ring of Fire’ on Air America Radio. He is also the author of several books, including ‘Crimes Against Nature’, a New York Times bestseller [...].
The junior Kennedy, you will recall, blamed Mississippi governor Haley Barbour for the Katrina disaster:
"As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2," Kennedy blogged Tuesday on HuffingtonPost.com.
I'd like to comment more on this, but I've got to go out fo my front yard and dig up some soil for tomorrow's dinner.
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