ERRORS REVEALED IN NEW ORLEANS BY HURRICANE KATRINA: MARGINS OF SAFETY AND URBAN HEALTH

"…you will observe with concern how long a useful Truth may be known and exist, before it is generally receiv'd and practis'd on." Benjamin Franklin, 1786

Benjamin Franklin was an empiricist and became enlightened about the critical role of every day behavior and lifestyle in chronic diseases when he noticed that customary uses of Pb resulted in symptoms of common health disorders. Franklin wrote his frustration about the lack of attention to the hazards of Pb, quoted above, in a letter after years of observations about the health effects of Pb. In a classic example of society as a “slow learner” we are still faced with deleterious effects of Pb in the built environment. Public decisions at the highest levels of government resulted in at least 12 million tons of Pb mined and manufactured into products such as paint and gasoline anti-knock additives. The result was the transfer of millions of tons of Pb from geologic formations of the mine to the entire planet, and especially built environments. The large transfer rendered cities without a margin of safety for Pb. Even after progress in Pb reduction, the prevalence of Pb poisoning remained around 25 percent for inner city children of pre-Katrina New Orleans. The legacy of Pb is archived in the soil.

Hurricane Katrina revealed useful truths about past public decision errors that had major impacts on the built environment and citizen's health of New Orleans. Some scientists and engineers recognized that levees and canal walls were inadequate and, at worst, had a negative margin of safety (i.e., when a storm surge flowed into the canals they were destined for catastrophic failure). After the flood, public officials collected soil and sediments samples in response to concerns about the toxicity of the sediments transported by the storm into New Orleans. The USGS, USEPA and Louisiana State Department of Environmental Quality (LADEQ) collected soils, found high Pb in New Orleans, and concluded that the contamination was unrelated to the Hurricane Katrina storm surge and were "historic." Still, “historic” soil Pb is nonetheless toxic. A remedy using Mississippi River alluvial resources has been identified and the useful truth received. Proposals are being advanced and hopefully the truth will be practiced on.