In the following article, Occupational and Environmental Health specialists express concerns about serious hazards facing Katrina/Rita responders in the Gulf area.  The recent hurricanes forced us to reconsider the complex threats associated with global warming, the differential impacts of disasters on a population deeply divided along class and racial lines, and now we are asked to also consider the unexpected safety and health risks of clustering together environmentally dangerous industrial facilities, hazardous waste sites and large concentrations of people.  Physicians in N.Y. who first sounded alarms about public and rescuer safety and health after 9/11 focus on and ask about the toxic soup encountered alike by rescuers and returning residents in the Gulf region.  They ask us to consider the necessity or appropriateness of suspending Health and Safety standards at a time when so many are potentially encountering so many risks.

Thousands of disaster responders, workers, and volunteers in the Gulf Coast area affected by Hurricane Katrina are being put at risk because they are not receiving adequate protection from exposure to environmental health hazards.

The storm surge and water from broken levees washed over 31 designated hazardous waste sites, at least 446 industrial facilities that use or store highly dangerous chemicals and 57 sewage-treatment plants.

As a result, the potential for exposure to toxic substances in the flood waters is high. EPA test data show elevated levels of bacteria, lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, arsenic, and pesticides. Thousands of damaged buildings and debris piles are contaminated with mold and asbestos. Environmental scientists believe that some contaminants, such as benzene, must be present in the water and air (because it is a constituent of almost all petroleum and petroleum products), even though EPA claims that its tests do not detect any benzene. Dioxin – one of the most potent poisons existing – is likely to be present because it was known to be present in southwest Louisiana before the hurricane, but no tests for dioxin in the water have been reported. . . .