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.