Environmental News NIEHS eyes potential threats from Hurricane Floyd urricane Floyd's torrential rains sent volumes of chemical-saturated animal food and industrial chemicals into the floodwaters that covered North Carolina's eastern coastal plain last fall. In addition to causing unprecedented short-term damage, the flooding may be responsible for a host of atypical longterm environmental and human health effects, concluded participants in a round table hosted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) The small group of environmental professionals from academia and state and federal agencies who met Nov. 12 hoped to launch research partnerships aimed at monitoring environmental changes as they occur and to develop a damage-assessment model that might be used by other states or regions in the aftermath of an environmental disaster. Many issues were raised at the one-day session including poor indoor air quality due to mold and mildew the establishment of a. widespread water quality baseline to allow a comparison of pre-Floyd with postFloyd contamination guidance to help response staff
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