Thanks, Doug. Think of how long it took Tokyo or Berlin and x number of
other places to recreate their spaces. Decontaminating New Orleans - as just
one of the spaces - will be a huge and lengthy ordeal.
Somehow the situation - the way President on the Mount after the Exodus and
leading the folks back into the Promised Land (a charade of Martin Luther
Kings "I Have A Dream" speech) reminds me of the whole evangelical
insistence on the revival of brain dead Terry Shiavo. The condition through
out many places including New Orleans - as Geoffrey Lean points out - is one
of severe damage, if not obliteration. There ain't gonna be no Instant Wheat
in those pastures. What will emerge is - apparently - going to be an
ongoing contest between different business interests, particularly if
Laisser noFaire entrepreneurial economics are allowed to be the primary
determinants of what may be rebuilt and how, etc. As we noticed, Bush did
not appoint a Czar to lead and bring forth a public vision, etc. Last night
it was an eye and audio charade - sadly.

Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
New blog site / same archives!


> Stephen
>
> the Baltimore Sun article is dead on, but I suspect, like Ken, that
> little will come in this direction.
>
> I check out tomdispath.com regularly, & he has some fine piece, but
> linked to this, from today (or tomorrow by date), from the nzherald,
> which sounds about right after the prez's pitiful performance last
> night, which even people from USToday & ABC on Charlie Rose were saying
> looked too little too late & weird all alone in shirtsleeves in a big
> square nice & dry:
>
> New Orleans 'unsafe for a decade'
>  
> 12.09.05
> By Geoffrey Lean
>  
> Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city
> unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a senior US Government
> official predicts.
>
> And, he added, the Bush Administration is covering up the danger.
>
> Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental
> disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way
> the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to
> health.
>
> The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because
> his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make
> results of those it had tested public.
>
> "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of
> low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.
>
> His intervention came as President George W. Bush's approval ratings
> fell below 40 per cent for the first time.
>
> Yesterday, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, turned the
> screw by criticising the US President's opposition to the Kyoto
> Protocol on global warming.
>
> He compared New Orleans to island nations such as the Maldives, which
> are threatened by rising sea levels.
>
> Other US sources spelled out the extent of the danger from one of
> America's most polluted industrial areas, known locally as "Cancer
> Alley". The 66 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum storage depots
> churn out 270,000 tonnes of toxic waste each year.
>
> Other dangerous substances are in site storage tanks or at the Port of
> New Orleans. No one knows how much pollution has escaped through
> damaged plants and leaking pipes into the "toxic gumbo" now drowning
> the city.
>
> Mr Kaufman says no one is trying to find out.
>
> Few people are better qualified to judge the extent of the problem. Mr
> Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was founded 35 years ago,
> helped to set up its hazardous waste programme.
>
> After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's ombudsman, he is now
> senior policy analyst in its Office of Solid Wastes and Emergency
> Response.
>
> He said the clean-up needed to be "the most massive public works
> exercise ever done", adding: "It will take 10 years to get everything
> up and running and safe".
>
> Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush Administration was playing down the need
> for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House
> group tackling the crisis.
>
> "Its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key
> positions," Mr Kaufman said.
>
> "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys
> - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared
> for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."
>
> He said the water being pumped out of the city was not being tested for
> pollution and would damage Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River
> and endanger people using it downstream.
>
> - INDEPENDENT
>
> Douglas Barbour
> 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> (780) 436 3320
>
> The temper is fragile
> as apparently it wants to be,
> wind on the ocean, trees
> moving in wind and rain.
>
> Robert Creeley