Officials warned some districts would be without drinking water for years, that the sewage system was in tatters and that they had no choice but to pump fetid floodwaters laced with poisons straight back into Lake Pontchartrain.

Oil slicks are threatening wildlife, railway cars and trucks are turning into environmental timebombs all over the city, and slowly draining floodwaters are leaving a gruesome sludge everywhere, Louisiana state officials said.

And the disaster is likely to get worse as floods, still suffocating 60 percent of the city, drain away.

Oil, diesel and gas were leaking from cars, trucks, and other vehicles overcome by floods, further fouling the waters, said Mike McDaniel, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

"It all adds up to almost a solid sheen over the area right now." "It is almost unimaginable the things we are going to have to plan for and deal with," he said.

Decontamination workers were already working on two oil spillages equal to 68,000 and 10,000 barrels, he said.

Despite the millions of contaminants, there is no option but to pump the water right back into the lake.

"We have got to get the water out of the city or the nightmare gets worse," said McDaniel. "We can't even get in to save people's lives. How are you going to get filtration in place?"

Scientists are already grappling with the staggering implications of the never-before-seen scenario of almost an entire city being engulfed by floods and between 60 million and 90 million tonnes of solid waste -- defined as wrecked homes, cars, metals and other junk.

Assessment teams are testing the foul waters, monitoring sources of hazardous materials and seeing how much of the shattered infrastructure can be salvaged, McDaniel said.

The metropolitan New Orleans sewage system has been engulfed, sending untreated human waste into flooded streets, he said. Some 25 major sewage plants are submerged, along with 35 intermediate treatment centers and 470 minor treatment plants.

Before residents can return, workers will need to tackle the gargantuan task of reconnecting drinking water supplies.

"It will take years to restore everyone. Water is going to have to be brought in," McDaniel said.

He suggested, however, that the media's descriptions of the appalling state of the waters was overdone.

"I am concerned that there has been a lot of discussion about 'toxic soup', 'witches brew' ... it is overkill at the moment to call it toxic," he said.

"To say it's toxic, it sounds like instant death to walk into it."

Health officials have nonetheless warned of the dangers of disease from the floodwaters, and there are fears that the New Orleans flood could become a huge breeding ground for mosquitos.

He also said that nature at its most versatile would take care of some of the problem, and that Lake Pontchartrain, for example, would not be contaminated for generations.

"Bacterial contaminants will not last a long time (in) the lake. The organic material will downgrade, metals will be captured in the sediment," he said, but he added that it would be a "long time" before drinking water was taken out of the lake.

McDaniel predicted that the longest-term environmental damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina would be along devastated coastlines and in natural habitats wrecked by the storm.

"Everything is gone in some areas along the coast."

And he said that the only disaster comparable to the one New Orleans was facing was the Asian tsunami tragedy last year.

"I don't think anyone has dealt with anything on the scale of this," he said. "Tsunami comes to mind."

Related Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express