‘Toxic Soup’ of New Orleans? Not so much

Among the other myths of the Katrina-New Orleans mythfest was the ‘toxic soup’ flood waters.

Turns out it wasn’t as bad as “they” thought it would be (from Science Daily[*1] ):

Despite the tragic human and economic toll from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast in 2005, the much-discussed “toxic-soup” environmental pollution was nowhere close to being as bad as people thought.

That’s the bottom-line message from dozens of scientific papers scheduled for presentation at a four-day symposium that opened here today at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting, according to symposium organizer Ruth A. Hathaway. Entitled “Recovery From and Prevention of Natural Disasters,” it is one of the key themes for the meeting, which runs through Sept. 14.
. . .
“As I look at the presentations in this symposium, that’s perhaps the most striking message,” Hathaway said in an interview. “The dust has settled now and all the hoopla is over. We’ve actually had a chance to look at the real-world data from New Orleans. All indications at this point are that the hurricanes were not as devastating in stirring up chemicals as once feared.