Is the EPA Withholding Information on New Orleans Contamination? (like after 9/11 in NY)

Journalists, government watchdogs and a top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official have criticized EPA’s inability to provide adequate data on the location and danger of chemicals leaked into New Orleans communities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Last week Hugh Kaufman, a senior EPA policy analyst in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, said of EPA’s water testing efforts, “There is not enough information to draw any conclusions other than EPA has become totally incompetent at water testing, or there is a cover up.” [1]

George Sorvalis, outreach associate for OMB Watch, a nonprofit government accountability group, told BushGreenwatch, “EPA does not appear to be testing for chemicals related to the petrochemical and oil industries, including diesel and byproducts of petrochemical refining. These are chemicals you would expect EPA to test for.”

“EPA’s sampling to date has been spotty and inconsistent,” says Darryl Malek-Wiley, a New Orleans-based environmental justice advocate for Sierra Club, who spoke to BushGreenwatch from Baton Rouge. “The amount of sampling that has been done doesn’t fully characterize what is happening in New Orleans.”