After Midwest flooding, hazards remain

Residents in Hamburg, Iowa, piled up ruined belongings and housing materials. (Photo: Des Moines Register, Brian Powers)

Record flooding has wreaked havoc in the Midwest this spring, but even where waters have receded, dangers remain. In addition to debris and infrastructure damage, "floodwaters overwhelmed private wells, sewage lagoons and public water systems, soaked over a million bushels of corn and soybeans, and picked up propane, anhydrous ammonia and fertilizer tanks," Donnelle Eller reports for The Associated Press. That has left "orphaned containers filled with industrial chemicals, pesticides, diesel fuel, oil and other potentially hazardous materials."

Local, state and federal officials are working together on the massive clean-up effort. Farmers, elevators and businesses have been ordered to destroy grain contaminated by river water, and state air-quality laws have been lifted to allow residents to burn crops, debris and damaged household items, Eller reports.

Officials are concerned about the raw sewage that many cities pumped into rivers for weeks after the floods hit. Mike Crecelius, the emergency management director in Iowa's Fremont County, is warning people not to go into the Missouri River without protection. "There are a number of municipalities north of us dumping raw sewage into the water. There are orphan tanks floating around, with valves coming off, losing pesticides, insecticides, acids and fertilizers," he told Eller. "You don’t know what’s in the water."

Though the volume of the floodwaters diluted some of the chemicals, environmental specialists also worry about the potential damage to fish and plants in the rivers, and the impact that could have on the larger ecosystem, including the people who eat the fish and get drinking water from the rivers, Eller reports.