So, then what was the source of it?

You would think a story where we learn about a Powerpoint that tells us about what "may be the source of this radiation" would tell us what that is.  It doesn't, though. In fact, it's just a bunch of blurbs about communications between the city and EPA that raise more disturbing questions than they answer.

The Powerpoint presentation was presented to city leaders by the Group CHP. The presentation talked about the history of the area and what they believe may be the source of this radiation.

On May 20, 2019, the city’s community outreach manager told leaders that they canvassed the area and found six people home. They said they attached flyers to each house, letting people know they’d be working in the area.

Also what is "the Group CHP"? The story doesn't really tell us that either.

About a month ago this Advocate report told us the most complete and coherent story about the history of the site. It's intriguing but it still doesn't tell us exactly why there was radioactive material buried there.

The Thompson-Hayward factory, which opened in 1941, produced a variety of pesticides and herbicides, including one of the main components in Agent Orange, before being converted to a chemical warehouse in the late 1970s.

Even after the plant closed, those in nearby areas complained of noxious odors, and by the late 1980s, Harcos Chemicals, which had purchased the site at the beginning of the decade, was ordered to remediate chemicals on the site and in the nearby sewer system. That contamination eventually led to a nearly $51.6 million settlement with residents of the neighborhood.

However, news articles about that suit did not mention radioactive contamination on the site, and it was not immediately clear why radium would have been used at the factory. Radium has been used for a number of products, including luminescent dials and watch hands, but the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not list pesticides or other chemicals as one of its common uses.

Channel 4 says something called "Group CHP" has some ideas that it presented to the city in a Powerpoint.  What were they?

Yesterday the city put out a press release assuring us the remediation work is now complete.  However, this being a Cantrell Administration document it is more defensive than it is informative. The main point it wants to get across is the Cantrell people definitely just learned about the hazard. The second thing it wants us to know is that they only dug it up out of "an abundance of caution" and we probably shouldn't worry about it anyway.

Today, the City announced that the final four of six total containers with underground material from the work site in the Lowerline and Coolidge area have been removed for transport to Anders, Texas. In May 2018, the Cantrell Administration learned about the presence of underground material producing radiation below the road surface at the intersection of Lowerline Street and Coolidge Court. While the origin of the material is unknown, it was removed out of an abundance of caution.
 
“I have been clear about how my administration would approach this issue from the time we learned about it,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell. “Our goal is always to protect the health and safety of residents. Throughout the process, my team has been in constant communication with our federal and state partners who have been monitoring the removal process and have not reported any increased risk to the public.” 

But as WVUE and WWL have reported, that "constant communication" between the city, state, and EPA has been a confusing mess with little agreement as to the severity of the threat or the best means of removing it.  The mayor's press release says that in May, "the City’s Health Department and the Department of Public Works canvassed within a two block radius of the location to talk with residents and distribute information about the existing hazards and what to expect during the removal process." But since there doesn't seem to have been much agreement about the nature of those hazards, well that does cause one to wonder what the fliers they distributed actually said. 


The mayor also says the city still doesn't know where the Gert Town glow goo came from.  But they apparently did see a Powerpoint that at least had some ideas, right?  Why can't we know what those are?  Also, what happened between the time in 2013 when the Landrieu Administration was apparently informed of the issue, and late 2018 when the Cantrell people claim they first learned about it?  There's a lot of stuff here that still doesn't make sense.

"Black slushie stuff"

Is it just me or is it weird that this story feels like such a niche thing this week? 

Initially, the city said they consulted scientists who told them the material was not harmful. We later learned that the hazardous material was Radium 226.

According to the Center for Disease Control, long-term exposure to Radium 226 can cause a number of health problems such as cancer, amenia, fractured bones and cataracts.

Since that information has come out, around 1,000 neighbors living in the area have filed a federal lawsuit against the city. The lawsuit claims the city knew about the radiation problem for years and should have relocated nearby neighbors while they worked to remove the material.

Instead, residents tell me they let neighbors sit out and watch, unprotected, while crews dressed in hazmat suits removed the radioactive.

"If you see the stuff they bringing out of that ground, it just didn’t seem real,” Clyde Williams, who lives in the neighborhood, said. “It looked like black slushie stuff. And the thing to me – what I felt so bad about – they allowed us to walk to the fence where they were digging, but the people that were digging it up had on hazmat suits like spacemen. So why didn’t you run us away from this fence? Tell us it may be hazardous to our health?”

Residents say that since crews began the removal, the area has flooded. They’re worried about radiation traveling to other parts of the neighborhood through the water.

Yeah I'd be more worried about that last bit if I thought there was any chance of Sewerage and Water Board actually pumping flood waters out of Gert Town with any sort of efficiency.  Certainly they don't have the "full capacity" necessary to move any "black slushie stuff."

In any case nobody is paying attention because what with the disappearing coast, the high river, the dolphin-killing algae, and the 15 year oil spill,  thick black radioactive material is like the third or fourth biggest environmental story in the news at any given time.

The Louisiana press is like John McCain

Old, cranky, and too set in their ways to learn anything new or to get too bogged down trying to add up the really big numbers.

It's far more important to find that one really good hate-fantasy war. And to keep fighting it as long as it takes.


Although... I'm still enjoying the hell out of the way the thirst for Dragonblood so quickly leads the Slayer Squad to turn on its own champion.