Exited things Hungary: Two bodies found -- red sludge death toll rises to seven

Hungary: Two bodies found -- red sludge death toll rises to seven


BUDAPEST - Emergency workers found the bodies of two more victims of the toxic red sludge near the village of Devecser on Friday afternoon, bringing the death toll of the spill to seven.

One person remains missing.

Tibor Dobson, spokesman for the disaster mitigation staff reported finding the two bodies, but gave no details. Two women and one man are believed to have been missing.

An 81-year-old man hospitalized on Monday died of his injuries on Friday. Other victims were an elderly woman, a 35-year-old man drowned in his car, and two children, aged 3 and 1.

The Hungarian Aluminum Manufacturing and Trading Company, owner of the containment reservoir that released the caustic sludge which inundated three villages and wiped out all living matter in the Torna creek and Marcal river, issued a statement on Friday, arguing that it had not violated any rules. The company's measurements of the chemistry in the reservoir, CEO Zoltan Bakonyi said, yielded normal values, and a Monday morning inspection of the retaining wall found nothing of concern.

He said that seepage, reported by staff weeks ago, was normal in a facility of that size and the sludge leaks had been collected and returned to the reservoir.

State Secretary for the Environment Zoltan Illes said on Friday that while the magnesium and calcium nitrates introduced into the Raba and Marcal waterways at their confluence had sufficiently reduced the pH level of the red sludge to save the Danube ecology, most of the mud had been trapped in the Marcal, where all life was destroyed.

The sludge, Illes said, covered an area of 800 to 1,000 hectares, where the contaminated topsoil will have to be removed.

Meanwhile Jozsef Varga, CEO of uranium ore company Mecsekerc and a chemical engineer by profession, told local wire service MTI that it would take months or even years to restore the natural environment. He called it folly to expect people to be able to return to their contaminated homes within a short time, adding that the next major job would be to collect the red dust covering the soil and in the atmosphere. If inhaled it will be caustic, he warned.
coppied by http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=358628

New Orleans community rises and shines

We are enjoy New Orleans community rises and shines

Editor's note: Lisa P. Jackson is the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She also served as chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and commissioner of the state's Department of Environmental Protection. Learn more about how the residents of Pontchartrain Park banded together to help rebuild their community on CNN's "New Orleans Rising" at 8 p.m. ET Saturday and Sunday.
(CNN) -- Pontchartrain Park was -- and still is -- the American dream. The historic African-American neighborhood was born in the 1950s, emerging at the height of the Civil Rights era and Jim Crow segregation laws.
Homes were arranged around a golf course planned by Joseph Bartholomew, who had designed several golf courses in the New Orleans, Louisiana, area, but as a black man, was forbidden to play on them.
The homeowners and families in Pontchartrain Park were among the first African-Americans to buy their own homes in the New Orleans suburbs. Despite the racial inequality of the time, they shared a belief that the nation's opportunity should be equal for everyone.
In 2010, Pontchartrain Park is being reborn, re-emerging after the destructive power of Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levee system left the neighborhood devastated. Today's vision is no less bold than it was in the 1950s.
Pontchartrain Park is re-emerging as model of new urbanism, a place where livability, environmental responsibility and economic opportunity come together. My dad, my aunt and uncle, my cousins and the many other Pontchartrain Park pioneers who are no longer with us would be proud.
That's because the first residents of Pontchartrain Park measured their success not by the sizes of their homes, but, like most Americans, by the range of new possibilities opened for the next generation. I was fortunate enough to be part of that "next generation."
The success of my parents and their neighbors became apparent as the kids I grew up with went on to become lawyers, teachers, doctors, artists and more. Some were the first in their families to go to college. The Park was home to Ernest M. Morial, the first African-American mayor of New Orleans. His son Marc Morial went on to be mayor as well.
Today my generation is working to open up new possibilities for our children. Led by our parents' example, some have even committed to moving back to the Park to restore the community that gave us so much.
Coppied by http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/20/jackson.pontchartrain.park/index.html?hpt=C2#fbid=BRhT0Nxv594&wom=false