|
Oil spills from katrina may be worst on record { September 16 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1571591,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1571591,00.html
Katrina oil spills may be among worst on record
Julian Borger in Washington and John Vidal
Friday September 16, 2005
The Guardian
The oil pollution in the wake of Hurricane Katrina could be among the worst recorded in North America, officials trying to coordinate the clean-up say. The US coastguard, which is responsible for the marine environment, said yesterday more than 6.5 million gallons of crude oil had been spilt in at least seven major incidents. The previous worst spill in US waters was the 11m gallons in Alaskan waters from the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
"This is a major event," said Lieutenant Colonel Glynn Smith of the coastguard in New Orleans. "Things are going well, but three-quarters of the oil from the spills has not yet been recovered."
The figure does not include petrol and oil spilt from up to 250,000 cars which have been submerged, or that spilt from hundreds of petrol stations. The coastguard says it has received almost 400 reports of spills, the vast majority of which have not been assessed.
President Bush attempted to regain the political initiative with an address to the nation pledging an unprecedented federal effort to help rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf coast. The prime-time speech from New Orleans was timed to confront growing doubts over his leadership abilities, after the stuttering federal response to Katrina's impact.
A poll published by the New York Times and CBS found 53% of the population disapproved of the way Mr Bush was doing his job; 63% thought the country was "on the wrong track", and 65% thought he had been too slow to respond to the hurricane.
Mr Bush pledged to provide housing assistance for the hurricane's victims, as well as federal help with education, social services and employment, in what is predicted to be the biggest federal reconstruction effort on US soil.
The message locally was also upbeat. The New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, said large parts of the city would reopen early next week, although it was not clear how many of the 182,000 residents in those areas would return to their homes.
"The city of New Orleans will start to breathe again. We will have life. We will have commerce. We will have people getting into their normal mode of operations, and the rhythm that makes this city so unique," Mr Nagin said.
As the US Army Corps of Engineers put out barriers to prevent oil getting into Lake Pontchartrain, there were new concerns that many some of the region's toxic waste dumps could also be leaking dangerous chemicals. "We worry that most of the city of New Orleans could end up being a toxic waste site," said Erik Olson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defence council.
The estimated reconstruction price tag, more than $200bn, has horrified many Republicans worried that it derail any effort to get the country's deficit spending under control. However, Karl Rove, the president's political adviser, is reported to have deemed it essential to regaining public confidence in the administration.
The extent of the political damage was underlined yesterday in a column on the federal response by a conservative columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan. "The White House was spinning when it should have been acting," she wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "In this area the administration has gotten way too clever while at the same time becoming stupider."
|
|
