arcticfire wrote:
Here is an idea just off the top of my head, you have a big flowing body of water to use to help dilute the toxins. Run a pipe from the mississippi river and use it to dilute the water they are pumping out. Thats just one option. Regardless the kneejerk reaction of pumping water so toxic you dont' want people to even come in contact with it into a lake is just compounding the problem. So now instead of a polluted puddle held in by levee's , you are gonna have an entire tidal lake polluted slowly leaking the toxins into the ocean.
Idealy people would wise up abandon NOLA. Then there would be many options on what to do with the toxic puddle since you wouldn't be looking to make sure people can move back in a couple months.
Actually, in a general sense, your idea's already under consideration locally by some folks. The "pipe" already exists in the form of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, a control structure and diversion channel constructed on the southwest side of Lake Pontchartrain. Normally its purpose is to control the level of the Mississippi River above New Orleans during periods of high water. But in this case, once winter rains and snows come, the currently low river levels will begin to rise and if high enough, could possibly provide a much needed clean, fresh inflow (relatively speaking) if the spillway gates are opened and river water allowed to enter the lake.
While not 100% certain to solve the problem, it's one hopeful possibility. And right now we'll take all the hopeful possibilities we can find down here.
Andrew '92, Katrina '05, Gustav '08, Isaac '12, Ida '21...and countless other lesser landfalling storms whose names have been eclipsed by "The Big Ones".
