John Pardue Quotes (7 Quotes)

There's just a whole smorgasbord of chemicals that are getting in the water.

While there are a lot of chemicals in the water, they probably don't rise to the level of an acute toxin. Probably the biggest danger right now is the sewage.

From the perspective of chemical or environmental contamination, it could have been much worse. One advantage is that we have so much water in the city and that dilutes out the chemicals. People shouldn't have an irrational fear of chemicals in the water. I'm more concerned about the viral and bacterial things. There's going to be a lot of gastrointestinal and public health issues.

We don't see the very elevated levels of toxics that would make you think of this water as toxic waste.

Are the schoolyards and people's yards going to be so contaminated that we're going to have to scrape them up That's the big unknown right now. It's not a very rosy picture, I'm afraid.

But the evidence is still out on whether any of the sludge left behind on the streets and in homes and businesses after the water was pumped out is particularly toxic. I would certainly still caution anyone cleaning up and handling that material not to do it without good protective clothing and gear.

Clearly, there's going to have to be an environmental assessment of a lot of different areas of the city before people can go back in and live.