Environmental Causes And Environmental Impacts Of Hurricane Katrina

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Environmental Effects of Hurricane Katrina:
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale with winds up to one-hundred and forty miles per hour. Katrina was one of the costliest and deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the United States. One-thousand eight hundred deaths, seven hundred missing and one-million displaced is evidence of the human toll that Katrina caused and $84 billion in cost makes Katrina the most expensive natural disaster in United States history. (Blackwell) While these numbers are devastating, the environmental impacts of Katrina still threaten the citizens of New Orleans today. The environmental impacts from Katrina were compounded by man-made environmental hazards. (West)
Due to an above average level of poverty, many homes in New Orleans had very high levels of lead and arsenic in them. (Pastor) This combined with eighty percent of the city being flooded, released significant amounts of lead and arsenic into the environment which still exist today. Soil samples taken before and after Katrina showed elevated levels of lead, iron and arsenic. (Reible)A new study on one-hundred and nine households found that sixty-one percent had lead measurements above federal standards with twenty-seven percent greater than one-thousand two hundred ppm which was significantly higher than the five-hundred and sixty ppm collected before Hurricane Katrina. (Rabito) These inorganic compounds are related to cancer risks of which New Orleans already has a significant problem with. This complicates the decision on when and where to conduct environmental clean-ups in New Orleans to remove the lead, iron and arsenic.
In addition to these problems in houses, New O...

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...e miles per year prior to Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaks increased this. The wetlands were already being affected by oil and gas development, rising sea levels, and an invasion by an aggressive beaver like rodent called the nutrias. (Rastogi)
Katina had significant negative environmental impacts on New Orleans. The extent of the impacts is still unknown and continues to cause a risk to the population of New Orleans. The environmental and health impacts of Katrina will be severe and long-term. The effect of long-term exposure to contaminate by New Orleans citizens is still uncertain. Because of this uncertainty the public nor the local government will not delay rebuilding the city. This posses questions on whether people with delay their return to New Orleans and what the effect of contamination would be on them and their children in the long-term. (Reible)

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