Even weeks after Hurricane Katrina swept through the Gulf Coast, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) response to the storm's aftermath continues to be grossly inadequate. The insufficiency of its testing for environmental hazards, the absence of informative health warnings for recovery workers and returning residents, and its failure to provide protective equipment all clearly point to the agency's inability to accomplish its goal of protecting public health and the environment. According to reports from a number of sources including The Dallas Morning News, Gulf Coast floodwaters have been contaminated by roughly 6.7 million gallons of petroleum spilled from refineries and pipelines and between one and two million gallons of gasoline from gas stations and submerged cars. There have been at least 400 smaller oil spills. Flood waters have washed over 31 designated hazardous waste sites, at least 446 industrial facilities that use or store ultra-hazardous chemicals and 57 sewage-treatment plants. The agency has acknowledged that it has detected elevated levels of bacteria, lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, arsenic, and pesticides. Despite these dangers, thousands of disaster responders and returning residents are being allowed into the area without receiving any specific information about health risks, necessary precautions or warning signs of contamination. Nor has the EPA issued protective gear to people in the area, in order to prevent harmful exposures. According to Joel Shufro, Executive Director of the NY Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), "it is irresponsible of EPA, which is a public health agency, to imply that people will be adequately protected if they use caution. EPA does not know exactly what is in the water and the air, and they certainly don't know how much there is. What is needed is not just caution, but rather precaution, and that means training and protective equipment." The EPA's response has been so deficient that it indicates a lack of understanding of what exactly is expected of the agency in times of crisis. The agency has yet to publicly put forward a plan delineating what it hopes to accomplish or how it hopes to bring this about. From the mission of the agency and the obvious needs on the ground, OMB Watch has developed the following recommendations, incorporating concerns of residents and groups working to protect public health and safety in the Gulf Coast region. Recommendations:

• Environmental Testing: The government should conduct comprehensive environmental testing to determine the nature and extent of environmental health hazards. Testing should include air, water and soil sampling, and should be designed to track down toxic hot-spots. The government should involve citizens and community experts in the process and fund independent testing as well. Given the lack of extensive test results, the government's testing thus far has either been inadequate, poorly publicized or both.
• Cleanup: The government must oversee and assist in cleaning up all identified sites of toxic and hazardous contamination. Every effort should be made to identify and involve companies whose materials contributed to storm-related chemical releases. Residents and workers should not be allowed to return to contaminated sites until cleanup has been completed and government agencies have approved the location's return to use.
• Health Monitoring: The government should track the long-term health effects for recovery workers and returning residents. The government should aggregate the collected data and publicly report on any common problems or detected health trends. Individuals and communities should have access to their own health monitoring results. Experts fear that without adequate information a mysterious "Katrina Syndrome" will develop, similarly to "9-11 Syndrome" experienced by recovery workers at Ground Zero who were unwittingly exposed to airborne contaminants.
• Rebuilding: The government should fully enforce all federal and state environmental, workplace and health standards as rebuilding plans move forward. These protections are the first line of defense against serious short- and long-term health effects and should not be recklessly tossed aside to speed the reconstruction process along. Residents and community leaders should participate in the re-building of their communities. The government should not grant no-bid contracts and should make every effort to employ local companies in clean up and reconstruction.
• Preparing Citizens: The government should fully communicate test results and known health hazards to recovery workers and returning residents through all available means. Health warnings of possible problems, symptoms to watch for and steps to take should be aggressively distributed. Protective equipment, along with instructions on use, should also be made available to all workers in the area. Currently, residents and emergency workers are not being adequately informed or equipped before being allowed into polluted areas and some are already reporting complications from exposure, such as chemical burns.