Wading into an E. coli stew

There are at least five oil spills in the New Orleans area and 121 sites with known chemical contamination. At minimum, three of the city’s poisonous “Superfund sites” — meaning they made the list of the nation’s worst toxic sites — were flooded, including a landfill where residents dumped garbage for decades. That one remains underwater and inaccessible.

Hazardous waste railcars — like the freight train that derailed and forced an evacuation of Mississauga in 1979 — still lie submerged.